8 Exciting Examples of Automation That Will Make You Want to Upgrade Your Business

Today’s most successful companies are making huge investments in technology. To that end, businesses in 2019 will collectively spend 4 trillion dollars to keep up with today’s latest and greatest advancements.

After you get over the initial shock of that giant number, you might find yourself wondering which technological breakthroughs, specifically, companies are focused on.

As it turns out, automation is at the top of most chief technology officer’s wishlist’s and frankly, automation should be at the top of your company’s list as well.

Not sure what automation can do for you? Here are 8 examples of automation that will inspire you to invest more resources into it.

1. Productivity Tracking

Big companies like Amazon have used automation to keep tabs on how hard their employees are working.

Software today is able to automatically combine a bevy of data including the amount of bar-codes a person scans, transactions they conduct at a checkout counter, and even camera data that monitors where an employee spends their time in the workplace.

All that data is then compiled into reports that are sent to management to understand where adjustments need to be made.

This application of automation has been flagged as controversial given the stress it puts on employees. Nevertheless, its application when it comes to recognizing where extra-weight exists in your business is undeniable.

2. Automatic Notifications

Have you ever worked with a shared document in a network drive at work? Typically, when you make updates to a document, you’ll email relevant people in your organization to let them know. While taking that step might not seem like a huge inconvenience, if you consider the number of times in a day that you spend notifying people, those small tasks can claim a lot of your productivity.

Today, various applications are capable of scanning documents that you put into network drives. They can then automatically email relevant parties when things have been updated and can even go into detail on what has changed.

Removing those tedious steps from the collaboration process makes sharing important information consistent and fast.

3. Hiring

It used to be an HR department’s job to pre-screen hundreds of employees that apply for jobs in order to come up with a shortlist of applicants that might get called in for an interview. This process was typically done via a phone interview.

With the help of automation, phone interviews are becoming a thing of the past.

Prospective employees that apply for companies are now being asked to do online video interviews where they’re prompted by computers with questions.

Based on their answers, machines can make recommendations on who they feel should move forward in the hiring process.

4. Customer Support

When business owners initially learn about RPA (robotic process automation) most do so with the intent of improving their customer service workflows. This desire stems from organizations being obsessed with providing the best consumer experiences possible.

Consequently, some of the best examples of automation lie in the customer service arena.

Chatbots are a prime example of customer service automation in that they enable customers to get questions answered 24/7 by digital assistants. We also see automation when you call companies and are asked machine-prompted questions that help to better direct your call.

5. Analytics Reporting

Compiling reports has historically been one of the most tedious tasks that businesses have had to do. In some companies, whole research departments are tasked with pulling data, organizing it and emailing reports out to relevant departments.

Today, machines can pull data from sources and automatically compile the information into easy to read one-sheet documents. Furthermore, upon completion, machines can automatically email parties on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis relevant findings.

6. Marketing

We’ve all seen examples of automation in marketing.

When you go on a website and you’re prompted to join a mailing list, that’s automation. When you get an email from a company that dynamically ads your name to personalize it, that’s automation. When you click certain elements in an email and then get more targeted marketing offers in the future, that’s automation.

Automation has allowed businesses to trim down their marking teams and has also enabled them to provide a more consistent marketing experience to their customers.

7. Batch Processing

Doing repetitive tasks is the bane of most business owner’s existence.

For example, having to convert videos from their native format into a format that best plays on YouTube. Take that task, multiply it by 100 videos and your day is gone.

Fortunately, automation allows for most repetitive tasks to be done on autopilot. You simply have to find the right tool (Handbrake in the case of our video conversion example). Armed with the right tech, you can specify an action, how many times you’d like that action to be applied and technology will do its thing.

8. Social Media Posting

So many social media platforms, so little time.

With the help of automation, you can ditch trying to keep up with maintaining your social presence. Instead, you can pre-schedule posts across all of your platforms to keep your messaging consistent and your drumbeat of engagement constant.

So much for hiring a social media coordinator!

Wrapping Up Our Examples of Automation

Every business owner knows that investing in technology is a good idea. Until they can actually see how technology can benefit them though, most choose to sock away their money.

We hope that the examples of automation that we shared with you have provided that kick that you need to start upgrading your business. If it has, believe us when we say that your company is going to benefit big-time on the back of any adjustments that you make to your business structure.