Automation Success How to Leverage Automation Without Losing the Human Element Kalli Ringelberg Apr 21, 2022 9 mins read The only constant part of the digital world is how likely it is to change. New technologies will continue to help transform the ways we work, even today. Many organizations have looked to new and innovative technology to solve issues like staffing shortages, virtual events and platforms, and even client retention. Companies are looking to leverage automation, which brings its own challenges, questions, and, of course, benefits. One of the questions that is top of mind is, if automation is ‘in’, does that mean that the human element is ‘out’? Simply put, the answer is a resounding ‘no’. Human ingenuity means workers like you and me still have a crucial role to play in every organization. Automation does not eliminate the need for humans—in fact, it allows the reallocation of the human skillset to where it’s needed the most. This is where our Delivery Platform comes into play. You’ll be able to see how automation simply makes room for areas in which human input is irreplaceable. By allowing automation to tackle repetitive tasks, your employees will be able to optimize their inputs without being bogged down by the more tedious aspects of their role. It will also allow them to shine in the areas where their decision-making, intuition, brainstorming, and problem-solving are irreplaceable. With Wrk, using a combination of bots and our Wrkforce, you can reduce your average time to enrich 1 contact by up to 39%, which helps your Sales team close deals faster, and gives them more time to nurture existing clients or find new ones. This also allows your customers to feel heard and taken care of by providing a meaningful and memorable experience. How do you make sure that automated tasks are complementing your current (and future) team, as opposed to making them redundant? Read on to discover how to leverage automation without losing the much needed human touch that goes into your workflows. Learn which tasks to hand over to automation The first step in initiating the journey into leveraging automation is to make sure that there’s an understanding of your client and customers’ needs. It will help to determine where humans begin and where automation takes the virtual baton. New technologies, such as automation and AI, are creating new opportunities in the workplace. A concern is that by adopting automation, more companies will incur job loss. But they are not eliminating the role of humans—they are merely empowering employees to shift focus by unloading redundant tasks onto a delivery platform, freeing up time and space for optimization. One of the many tasks that is easy to automate is client reporting, which can be done by parsing data into actionable insights. It will increase your communication touchpoints with your clients and allow your company to stay top of mind. Simultaneously, it will provide accurate data for your own team, which will allow them to strategize and make decisions or recommendations to clients based on this information. Our Client Reporting Wrkflows can help you improve your Customer Success strategy with ease. Check them out to learn how! Another example is how report and document automation can help your team create detailed internal or external reports and documents at scale. With automated reporting, you can empower your team by providing more time to go over the results and create immediate actionable insights for your clients. How your employees will interact with automation Naturally, automation adoption does not come without its challenges and growing pains. Many of the aforementioned breakthroughs appear to be stated as ‘beyond-human’ solutions, but the truth is that the advancements allow humans to look beyond what they have been doing in the past and build on it. The ability to analyze and find the best solutions, frame, and plan out strategies will never be entirely replaced by machines. A very obvious irreplaceable requirement for humans in the workforce is where empathy and human interactions are required. Think of the important role of the Human Resources team; including the ‘human touch’ in the first introduction to a company is immeasurable in terms of employee retention, ensuring loyalty, and guaranteeing employee investment and engagement with the organization. However, your Human Resources team is not the only team to benefit from adding automation to their arsenal. Look at your Sales team and their main goal, to attract new clients, and nurture existing clients. It’s a great opportunity to leverage automation. What clients look for are personalized responses and interactions, they want to feel like they are getting a one-on-one, custom experience. According to research, 90% of consumers find personalized content very or somewhat appealing, whereas 91% of consumers are more likely to patronize businesses that provide individualized recommendations. It also helps your Marketing team to set up automated messages. 69% of marketers said automation could help reduce wasted time and 72% said that they would use the time saved to focus on higher-value work. There are elements in all teams that can be streamlined with automation, such as updating profiles and important personal information. Setting up automated marketing emails will drive up engagement and increase touchpoints in your nurturing funnel. With the addition of automated tasks, you’ll provide your team with more time to personalize emails, outreach, and follow-ups—enhancing the experience for the consumer. The opportunities to operate in parallel and leverage automation for your tasks are endless. The exact same approach can be taken for your client onboarding process. For example, our Client Onboarding Wrkflows can help your team identify your new customers’ unique pain points to offer the best solutions/services, provide them with more time to create strategies that improve retention—and make sure that they’re looking at ways to find unique solutions with the gathered data. Check out our Client Onboarding solutions to elevate your brand experience! Why you should leverage automation for your tasks As we’ve already mentioned, automation can take on repetitive and mundane tasks to allow humans to optimize and amplify efforts where creative solutions, brainstorming, and nuance are required. There are also things that automation can’t resolve on its own. Automation is linear; it moves from A to B with no stops in between. It is best used when steps can be reduced to a single motion. One task. One result. Some tasks may benefit from having around the clock availability. Thanks to technology, global access is now at our fingertips, and with that comes different time zones and different work schedules. If your clients are in a different timezone, and they may need a quick touchpoint on their own schedule, if an update can be automated, it can be available at any time. Welcome emails to a new subscriber can also be automated and scheduled. These emails can generate as much as 320% more income per email than other promotional messages. Our Platform allows constant updates between cross-functional teams and your clients. We created the platform to break down barriers organizations commonly face when trying to implement automation by making it simple to use and with flexibility at its core. We’ve removed limitations and complexity in order to guarantee a successful implementation of the World’s first Delivery Platform. Hybrid Automation is faster, more flexible, and more powerful than traditional automation platforms. Another key differentiator is that at Wrk, 90-100% of the entire process can be automated including routing work to our community of human workers. Redirecting and empowering humans with automation You can use automated Wrkflows for many tasks, such as payroll set-up, client reporting, quote & proposal development, and employee provisioning. Our comprehensive and simple Wrkflow Designer will be your ally in integrating automation into your existing business processes. We have a vast library of pre-configured building blocks called Wrk Actions that leverage the best technology for the job to deliver work how you need it and to add greater efficiency and scalability to your business. It allows you the freedom and flexibility to design your own unique Wrkflow, and once it’s live, you can sit back and watch the results in real-time so you can move on to finding creative solutions and digging deep into the information collected by any of the preset tasks. We work to find that delicate balance between human interaction and Hybrid Delivery. About 30% of the activities in 60% of all occupations can be automated. The goal of automation is to never fully eliminate the human component. To find complementary tasks, we simply help to identify where human input is most valuable, and where it is unnecessary and would delay or de-motivate your team. The goal of leveraging automated tasks is to make sure that your employees can move into areas that aim to grow, rather than get bogged down by tasks that stagnate or hold them back. Personalize your automated process with your team’s invaluable input Customer Success teams put a huge emphasis on customer retention. It’s the best way to ensure sustainable growth for your business in an ever-changing environment. As an added bonus, customers can benefit from getting a response in a timely fashion and 24/7 the accessibility and availability of a Support team. 46% of customers expect companies to respond faster than 4 hours, and 12% expect a response within 15 minutes or less. The promise of constant contact will provide peace of mind that there are no delays when in need of a quick response to close or aid any of their customers. By offering an uninterrupted customer feedback loop, you can check in on customers, request and provide feedback, and use that information to better understand customer motivations and needs well in advance in order to make any required adjustments. Our platform allows for a customer-first approach without losing human ingenuity and essential elements that can only be found with individual and personalized interactions guided entirely by people. Read more in our Customer Success eBook today to learn how you can use automation to fast-track and amplify your internal processes while demonstrating how invaluable your team is! Featured Image: Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu Share This Article Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email