What can you automate in a small business?

The first five processes to automate

We see the same five in almost every small business, in this order of payback.

• The reply to an enquiry: a form, a chat or an email gets a drafted answer with the next step, within minutes, for a person to approve.
• The booking: confirmation on the channel the customer used, a reminder before the date, the freed slot back on the list.
• The quote follow-up: a quote that was sent and not answered gets a drafted follow-up on a schedule, and a person decides whether to send it.
• The invoice: issued from the deal, logged, and chased with drafts when it is late.
• The ten repeating questions: hours, prices, delivery, parking, “is it in stock”, answered from your own data with a person approving.

What should stay manual

Complaints, negotiations, anything about a person’s health or money, and any conversation where the customer is upset. The system can prepare the context for a person; it should not answer. We build handovers for exactly these cases: the person gets the whole thread and a suggested next step, not a half-answered customer.

Also manual: the first month of any new process. We watch it with you before letting it run on its own.

How to tell a process is ready to automate

Three tests. It repeats: the same path more than a few times a week. It is written down, or can be in an afternoon: the price list, the rules, the exceptions. And it is stable: the same rules this month as last month.

If one of the three fails, we say so and propose either writing it down first or waiting. Automating an unstable process is paying twice.

• Repeats more than a few times a week
• Can be written down in an afternoon
• Has not changed in the last month

Where to start if everything is on fire

With the enquiry. It is the process where a late reply costs the most, it is the easiest to map, and it produces the customer list every other process needs. Second, the booking or the quote follow-up, depending on the business. The CRM, if you need one, comes after the first process shows what fields it needs.

How we know it worked

Before the process is built we record how long a reply takes today and how many enquiries get none. After a month we record the same numbers. The measurement is in the plan, not in a promise, and we do not publish a client’s numbers without their consent.