It’s often thought that manual data entry is among the most inefficient and tedious tasks in the world of business, significantly impacting productivity and wasting valuable resources and time in the process. For that reason, new technologies continue to emerge as a solution to these common issues, aiming to automate repetitive tasks, reduce human error, and shift the focus to the work that truly matters. If these benefits sound appealing to you as well, here are some ways you can properly implement workflow automation technology:

Digital Marketing

Many companies believe that creating and maintaining digital marketing campaigns is an exclusively manual operation. However, lead generation and marketing automation are also possible to accomplish with the right software solution. Lead generation tactics include inbound marketing such as search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing, as well as outbound marketing like

paid search ads and cold emails. These can all be streamlined with the right automation tool to ensure higher levels of success, whether that means welcoming users to the company after a purchase, subscribing users to drip campaigns, scheduling blog and social media posts, or reminding site visitors to check out and prevent cart abandonment.

Sales Automation

Sales automation solutions could also help to simplify repetitive prospect and lead management tasks, allowing sales reps to prioritize selling instead of data entry. Not only will an automated sales workflow instantly take leads through an action-based pipeline, but it can also enroll prospects in campaigns and update the deal stages as they evolve. These processes include placing leads in different pipeline stages depending on their actions, moving leads out of the pipeline when they stop responding to emails, sending introductory emails, updating deal stages after a meeting or appointment has been made, etc.

Business operations

Regardless of the type or the size of an organization, or even the industry it operates in, defined business operations are vital to the success of any company. Fortunately, they can be automated to reduce the need for manual data entry as well. Detecting and deleting duplicates, merging two of the same properties, setting priorities for important business processes, managing permissions for team members, automating quarterly reports, and setting tasks using third-party software are just some of the many procedures that can be simplified and organized using business operations workflow automation.

Logistics

Workflow automation is a critical tool in the field of logistics, with sophisticated technologies doing much more than simply tracking GPS data and following driver behavior. As reported by an IoT company in Australia, advanced IoT applications can deliver tailored insights using several sources of data. Real-time information can drive decision-making and minimize potential personnel and asset risks. As a result, logistics companies across industries don’t have to focus on administrative tasks

any longer. Instead, they are able to prioritize strategy creation to ensure more effective utilization of their fleets.

Finance Automation

By enabling professionals to design workflows, create forms, and track relevant processes, finance automation software is quite efficient at streamlining budget approvals, reimbursements, and travel requests. Some of the most common automated tasks in this sector include managing contract and vendor approvals, processing expense approval operations, assigning priorities to wire requests, approving budgets according to predetermined parameters, handling travel expense requests based on activity and location, etc. This can be of great help in simplifying some of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks that appear in nearly all industries.

Human Resources

Information such as names, phone numbers, addresses, and social security numbers are all vital to ensuring compliance and maintaining smooth business operations. But instead of having to input all of this data into insurance, expense, and payroll systems for each new hire, human resources (HR) automation software can take easily take care of these processes. These solutions can remove

candidates from databases due to inactivity, send automated rejection emails, filter prospective candidates according to relevant keywords, send necessary forms to current employees, collect feedback from leaving employees, and more. An HR automation solution could benefit all industries in terms of enhanced workforce management.

Customer Service

Exceptional customer service is one of the most important aspects of a successful business, and is another area where automation can be incredibly useful. Apart from creating and sending out surveys, the right workflow automation software can also handle common questions, cases, and tickets by creating specific tasks or launching a series of emails. These automation solutions can take care of ticket creation when customers reach out through email or social media, onboarding consumers through helpful emails, enrolling customers into different email marketing campaigns according to their rating, assigning priority labels to tickets based on message tones, and archiving tickets after a resolution.

For businesses that want to grow and succeed without making any mistakes, workflow automation is a crucial tool. When you allow technology to take care of manual tasks, you will be able to focus on strategy and scaling without any setbacks.