Turn on your television this evening and there’s a strong likelihood that there will be at least one programme offering tips on how to save money. From SuperScrimpers to Extreme Cheapskates, we are being inundated with advice encouraging us to channel our inner coupon queen and find the best deal. However, in the fast-paced, online business world where costs can often spiral, how are business owners getting the most out of their budgets?
According to Atlassian, the average employee receives 304 business emails each week, checks their email 36 times an hour and spends 16 minutes refocusing after handling incoming emails. In a world where ‘do not disturb’ is not an option, reducing increasing staff inefficiency is vital to being cost-effective.
With so many emails being sent and received each week, automating labour intensive processes can reduce the administrative cost strain on a business. Business automation software, such as ThinkAutomation, automatically reads and extracts useful information from emails, instantly updating relevant databases, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and notifying staff of important communications or actions.
By automatically handling incoming emails and data, businesses can save money by reducing the amount of time its people spend responding to enquiries. Managing all communications through a single platform, businesses can streamline their operations and get the full potential from their overheads by removing the middle man.
In doing this, businesses ensure they have a workforce that can be laser-focussed on obtaining sales and increasing profit margins.
While social media has provided brands with the perfect platform to connect with their target audience, it has also provided customers with a public stage from which to vent complaints and frustrations. Numerous man-hours can be lost monitoring these channels for such negative feedback. Using a business automation tool that has in-built sentiment analysis will take the pressure off this area of the business. Alerts can be set up to prompt a customer service team to respond to and manage any complaints as they arise.
The true beauty of this is the fact that better brand reputation means better profits. By allowing online software to handle all social media interactions automatically around the clock 365 days a year, companies can feel secure that their reputation is being maintained, increasing sales and building brand affinity with current and future customers.
All businesses know that outsourcing different elements of your operation to third parties can quickly supersize your margins. If you are looking for the skinny option, choosing a single suite that can handle all aspects of your online automation, from translations and updating CRM to reverse IP lookup and live chat will stop the pounds from piling on.
So while being savvy with your coupons may help save those extra pennies from week to week, being even savvier with your business automation processes can have longer lasting benefits that will keep you smiling all the way to the bank.
