Digital Themes

Workflow Automation

What is Workflow Automation?

Workflow Automation involves integrated systems used to track and manage operations and processes that are essential to the business, but not requiring human touch or reason. Workflow automation solutions can take repetitive tasks away from employees, freeing up their bandwidth for more thought-provoking work.

Taking traditionally paper-based, manual tasks and automating them can not only boost productivity but also eliminate the propensity for human error. Streamlining existing business processes with workflow automation tools that can build workflows, create process maps, and manage rule-based processes in real-time leads to lasting, time-saving solutions for an entire organization.

Most workflow automation software is easily implemented and scalable, with web apps and management software that can create workflows including forms, approval-based, drag and drops, and task-based, all coexisting with business process management software. Using interdepartmental data and communication through several channels, such as social media and emails, workflow automation software can create thresholds, algorithms, alerts based on keywords, and multi-channel nurture campaigns. Real-time analytics and information sharing across the organization add boundless opportunities for growth and innovation.

Workflow automation solutions are growing and becoming popular outside of the banking and call center industries, which are known for their automation tools. But aside from the standard automated calls, authorization forms, and other back-office workflows, workflow automation also offers a host of data collection services. Automating tasks like outbound calls can not only connect employees instantly when a customer answers, but also track how volume of dropped calls or wrong numbers, the average length of a service call, or the amount of time a customer spends on hold, allowing a company to take that data and turn it into actionable data-backed solutions.  

What are the business benefits of Workflow Automation?

  • Reduced Error - Automating processes that are usually prone to errors can lead to more accurate reporting and improved customer service.

  • Simplified Updates - Automating regular maintenance and updates frees your IT department to focus on product and service innovations, and better serving your customer's needs.

  • Higher Value Work - Reducing repetitive existing processes with process automation leaves employees to spend their time on more profitable projects.

  • Monitor and Alert - Automating workflow management also allows for real-time monitoring. Constantly monitoring the workflow process can alert appropriate departments to any service issues, gaps, or customer needs.

  • Company Productivity - It is easy to see how reducing repetitive tasks can free up your employees' time, but it boosts productivity in several other ways as well. The first is the obvious single employee productivity. The second is IT productivity. IT departments are often flooded with service requests and tickets from within the company as well as for customers. Taking the easier, automatable tasks off their desks allows their productivity to rise as well. The third is interdepartmental productivity. When each department is running smoothly more opportunities for collaboration and idea-sharing open up.
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