These days, automation is everywhere. Yet, the concept of automating certain parts of life makes some of us wary. Even if you understand that machines and cloud-based automation software can bring benefits to business, including greater efficiency, you might be skeptical of whether you’ll get a return on your investment.
Data shows that you can’t lose. Gartner reports that by 2024, organizations will be able to lower operational costs using a combination of hyperautomation and redesigned processes.
And as the world becomes more comfortable with AI in particular, there’s also the matter of keeping up with competitors. In their 2022 Global AI Survey, McKinsey found that 66% of businesses were in the process of automating at least one function.
If that’s not enough to convince you to incorporate automation as soon as you can, here are four advantages of automation for professional services that you may not have considered.
You or your project managers may dread the initial project setup phase. It takes a significant amount of time to customize workflows and processes for each client and project. With long-term automated business processes, you can instead configure key steps and create project plan templates one time, then store them on a single platform. They’re easily accessible, reusable and adaptable. Instead of reinventing the wheel and completing tons of manual tasks to prepare for client work, steer your time and budget toward business growth and development or building partnerships.
Get inspired by Spera Law Group, a law firm that automated its new project creation process using Accelo and Zapier.
It’s challenging to keep track of who’s doing what and when it’s due, no matter what kind of service you provide or how many clients you have. Especially if you don’t have a dedicated project manager, making sure you’re on track with every project can be stressful and time-consuming. Instead, you could automatically monitor the progress of each individual project as your team completes tasks and never have to track down an update again. Moreover, there’s huge value in having a platform that completes some of those tasks for you, such as notifying team members of updates.
What other goal-oriented processes could you automate? Here are four we suggest.
Communication may feel like a function you can’t replace with automation in a service-based business, but it’s actually one of the first ones you should. All of us have forgotten to send an email before, but it’s a costly risk when you multiply that by every employee, every internal communication, every conversation with a lead and every client interaction. Automating notifications, welcome emails, check-ins, status updates and more can almost eliminate this risk entirely.
Has your internal communication become like a game of telephone? We’ve got advice for how to make it more efficient.
How could automation mean personalization? It’s all about the quality of the contact data your automated platform stores — the more you know about your prospects and clients, the easier it is to tailor your words. If you can filter and segment those contacts with a couple of clicks, then put them into an appropriate workflow, you’re able to provide more personalized service with less effort. Thus, your team is set up to create a marketing campaign that lands, craft sales messaging that converts and encourage long-term relationships with existing clients.
Using a CRM that integrates with your sales, projects, tickets and more ensures that your team can reference an accurate client history before every interaction.
These four reasons only scratch the surface. Learn more about what’s possible with a fully customizable and automated client work management platform. Start a free trial or schedule a demo of Accelo.
