It’s no surprise that automated workflows have become increasingly popular over the past several years. It’s becoming a necessity for all companies. Every business benefits from automation — from a single owner/employee to the Fortune 500.
What is an end-to-end solution?
The Oxford Dictionary defines “end to end” as “in a row with the furthest point of one object touching that of another object.” An end-to-end management solution takes a system or service from beginning to end and delivers a total functionality solution for each process that touches the next.
Automated processes and AI help manage every step of the process from beginning to end, often relieving humans of repetitive, low-value tasks. Because of end-to-end solutions, processes accelerate, become more efficient, and grow in profitability — so the business benefits in every aspect.
Here are some of the business benefits of end-to-end solutions and automated workflows through well-implemented platform solutions like Capacity.
1. Shifting employee focus to what matters.
When employees deal with tedious tasks that have little value, they lose tremendous amounts of time that could be better spent on revenue-generating activities. Automating low-value activities like customer tracking, minor support requests, or documentation allows employees to focus on their areas of expertise and create greater value. In turn, employees are happier and more motivated when performing duties that produce noticeable results.
2. Increased customer satisfaction.
Information that a customer can easily access anytime increases customer satisfaction. The COVID-19 pandemic only increased customer expectations with their requests. A chatbot that can answer questions immediately saves your team time, while also increasing accessibility for customers. Automated workflows use RPA technology to streamline tasks and free up time for teams.
Better informed and served customers substantially impact the bottom line as they are more likely to purchase at higher amounts and have a greater customer lifetime value.
3. Decision-making is improved.
An end-to-end system also compiles data throughout the process, providing a valuable and complete picture of the company and its sub-processes. Capacity’s Intelligent Document Processing can turn non-sorted documents into sortable data that helps businesses act. Customer data is much richer because automated workflows record each action and interaction potentially missed otherwise.
Good data can tell you where processes are less effective, which markets perform better, seasonal variations, and where you might lose customers within the entire transaction process. Automated processes starting at first customer contact provide information on marketing effectiveness and demographic breakdowns. This information results in shifting funds, efforts, and resources to the most effective or most needed areas.
When processes are accelerated, customers are served more efficiently, fostering more informed decisions, made faster. The goal of every company in the 2020’s is engagement, especially at a time when more customer choices exist than ever before. Information is streaming directly to your customers, most of it unnecessary to their decision-making, but your automated system gets them the information they are looking for.
Faster decisions mean sales happen faster, improving company cash flow. Even a few days’ increase in cash flow has a tremendous impact on the bottom line, providing the funds you need for more efficient operations now and not later. Cash flow fosters growth and Capacity is primed to grow with you.
Pro-Tip: Capacity uses RPA tech to automate your workflows to help boost your team’s productivity.
4. Improved efficiency.
Automated workflows not only “automate” low-value tasks and provide data; they also assist in making complex tasks more manageable. Better sorting, data utilization, and communication result from automation.
Simply having an AI that can analyze for context and then sort data appropriately removes or minimizes the guesswork that might tie up time and resources. Everyday processes can be automated, with a product like Capacity’s Workflows, making them more efficient and freeing up time to focus on revenue-generating tasks.
5. Savings.
A system that can operate 24/7 stabilizes variability within operations as it can serve customers on their timeline instead of only during fixed hours. This can alleviate bottlenecks that might require increased temporary staffing during historically busy seasons, saving money.
During operating hours, the system saves time for any customer facing agents, also lowering variability and increasing throughput. Variability and it’s needs to staff up and down has tremendous hard and soft costs for a company.
6. Increased profitability.
In the ’90s, the Japanese auto industry operated at higher margins than U.S. producers could imagine just by doing little things like moving the tool drawer closer to an operator. When a company makes things more accessible and efficient for employees, profits increase, and those increases are typically exponential when compared against the costs incurred to produce them.
Using automated workflows and their combined results of better decision-making, automated minutiae, happier customers, reduced employee need, and improved efficiency can only increase profitability.
Automating low value tasks reduces staffing needs and frees up other employees to work on initiatives that produce profits, not consume effort and time. A low value task might be responding to a customer request that could easily be handled by the AI. The employee has great value to the organization and feels that value in the ability to perform more important tasks.
An AI taking over low value functions that can be automated, saves money and operates more efficiently.
7. Lower stress.
Lower stress for business owners and principals can be as valuable as profitability at times. Knowing that specific tasks are always performed accurately and that more effective decisions are made due to good data and automated workflows can make life much more pleasant.
Employees and customers often experience unneeded stress from small transactions that can be efficiently automated. The employee isn’t repeatedly called away from other tasks that might have a higher associated value. Customers get the information they want right away and can make actionable decisions.
Company principals can be at ease knowing employees and customers are happier and the company is realizing greater efficiency.
How Capacity can help
Every single business should be considering some level of automation in their operations. An end-to-end platform like Capacity can be an effective solution to grow profits and facilitate an ease of doing business. It can be challenging for business owners to imagine what automating tasks might look like, which is why you can sign up for a free demo of the platform with a Capacity expert.