It was essential for survival that businesses rapidly adapt and implement new ways of working to withstand the disruptions over the course of the last year. Now however, as your business plans its roadmap for the year, it’s likely there will be increased pressure to be able to compete and outshine competitors in the new business environment.
After facing their own hardships, customers will undoubtedly be cautious with their money. This means that your business will need to do more to impress and meet their demands. Some of the experiences that can turn customers away include delayed or slow communication, bad customer experiences, and constant inconsistencies or inaccuracies.
At the centre of this is efficiency. To meet the requirements and expectations of industry and customers alike, your business needs to have effective processes in place to ensure the best use of resources, prioritisation, employee time, and capital, when it comes to providing a stellar experience.
Common manual processes that waste businesses’ time and are inefficient include:
- Data entry
- Document filing and organisation including locating, retrieving, and destroying files
- Identifying document inaccuracies including incomplete forms, missing details, lost receipts, or inconsistent information
- Approval and authorisation processes.
If your business still has manual processes in place for any of the above tasks, there is an opportunity for you to improve business efficiency. Although these are all important to day-to-day tasks and operations, there is a more efficient way of completing them by using new technology.
How automation helps your business efficiency
Automation and efficiency go hand-in-hand. Using automation in your business can free up time, employees, and resources to focus attention on other more important tasks, like your customers.
Automated technology can take over repetitive, no-brainer tasks, such as data entry and document reviewing, from employees and complete them faster, simpler, and even more accurately.
It also helps to speed up approval and authorisation processes, particularly for invoices and payments. This will help the business increase performance and improve cashflow, which in turn will build stronger relationships with stakeholders and customers.
Improved efficiency helps your customer experience
Efficient operations are the key to increasing customer satisfaction. Providing a seamless customer experience throughout a sale or service will make the customer more likely to return and recommend your business to others.
It also allows for easier communication and more quality engagement with customers. Because employee workloads can be reduced by reducing the manual and repetitive tasks, they can focus on providing the best recommendations and solutions to customers.
To thrive in the new business world and competitive markets, it’s time for your business to consider what manual tasks it can be eliminated with automation and how automation can improve your overall business performance and efficiency.
For more information on how an automated workflow solution can benefit your business efficiency and customer experience, contact the team at Konica Minolta today.
