What Is Workflow Automation?
Workflow automation is a way for businesses to streamline their processes.
The central premise is to identify repetitive tasks or any manual process that could be better handled by software, apps, or tech. You then take those tasks out of your employees’ hands. Rather than wasting valuable staff-hours, you get the same jobs done automatically.
There are processes across all departments of your business that can be automated. From inventory management to email marketing or human resources, ecommerce automation can improve processes across the board.
We’re going to share loads of ideas for how you might join the streamlining party. First, though, let’s talk about precisely why you want to do so.
Why Use Workflow Automation for your Ecommerce Site?
As a small business owner, you need to understand and become an expert in numerous business processes. There are three main ways in which workflow automation can help you to do so.
1. Efficiency.
Many ecommerce tasks are mundane and repetitive. It doesn’t make them any less essential.
What it does mean, however, is that if a human must do them, they’re tremendously time-consuming. Take order management, for instance. That area of your business may require a lot of data entry. You may also need to send dispatch emails to customers and print shipping labels. Order management software can automate the entire process.
Repetitive tasks create bottlenecks in your operations. Rather than have work progress smoothly, it slows to a crawl as the time-intensive jobs get done. A workflow automation solution can open up those bottlenecks. The mundane tasks get automated and completed in far less time. You’ll then see an uptick in efficiency across your organization.
2. Data and task accuracy.
In ecommerce, lots of data gets generated. Order details, customer information, and stock numbers are just a few examples. To keep things running smoothly, your business must enter and store the data in a variety of systems. Before ecommerce automation, all data had to be inputted and shared by hand.
Where humans are involved, so is human error. Even the most competent and attentive worker will make occasional mistakes. Those simple errors can snowball into significant problems. Incorrect recording of stock, for instance, can see you fail to fulfill vital orders. With workflow automation, such mistakes get taken out of the equation.
With the best automation tools, the chance of negative customer service due to human error can get reduced by as much as 65%.
3. Productivity.
You might feel a little worried that what we’ve described so far is a way to put your staff out of a job. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Automation tools let you get the most from workers, and use them as productively as possible. Workflow automation is about superior business process management (BPM), not laying off workers.
When you automate crucial but repetitive processes, staff can focus on other things. They can give their attention to tasks that need intelligence and personal service. Automation gives them more time to design new products. It frees them up to nurture relationships or interact with customers. Your business productivity, therefore, will rise considerably.
Ecommerce Tasks For Workflow Automation
Online retailers have an abundance of choice when it comes to tech to aid automation. This recent retail tech stack report provides an in-depth breakdown. We’re going to help you better understand how to automate repeatable processes or manual tasks. The following are seven business areas to which our workflow automation ideas apply:
- Customer experience and support
- Marketing
- Purchase order approvals
- Vendor and supplier onboarding
- Order management
- Inventory
- Sales
Automate Customer Experience and Support
Lots of firms in the ecommerce niche — and in other fields — are looking for ways to stand out from the crowd. Many are turning to customer experience (CX) as a differentiator. Improving interactions through the customer journey is a great way to boost loyalty. Here are five ideas for workflow automation to improve CX.
1. Track and reward your most engaged customers.
For all types of businesses, customer retention is critical.
The probability of selling to an existing customer is much higher than that of selling to a new prospect.
One of the best ways to boost retention is by rewarding customers for their loyalty.
You can leverage some simple automation to track and reward engaged customers. Smart workflow automation tools let you tag customers based on what they’re buying. You can then set business rules to send targeted marketing to people who reach a certain order value or number of purchases. You might, for example, automatically send a discount code by email to a customer who’s spent over $200.
2. Sync your customers to an email list.
Email marketing is vital to ecommerce businesses. Strategic, targeted email campaigns are an excellent way to generate more sales. Most firms use a dedicated platform for their email marketing. If you do, it’s simple to automate workflows to make the process frictionless.
The best way to automate processes in this way is by syncing an email client with your CRM system. That way, you can ensure you segment your email list as effectively as possible. Take, for instance, a prospect who shows an interest in a particular product. You can get them automatically added to a relevant email list.
Those customers will then get targeted marketing material relevant to their interests. The kind of content will increase the conversion rate from prospect to customer. We’ll talk more about general marketing automation a little later on.
3. Gather feedback after a purchase.
If you’re going to improve CX, you must first understand your customers’ perception of your products. The best way to assess this is by simply asking them. Seeking customer feedback is how successful brands identify their weaknesses. Only then can they act to improve them.
You can streamline workflows to collect that feedback automatically. Once again, this involves creating automated emails. With a workflow automation tool, you can send follow-up emails. They’ll go out at a specified time after a sale. These automated emails show customers that you value their feedback. Over 40% of customers don’t leave feedback because they don’t believe a business cares.
4. Reach out to negative reviews.
Customers who leave feedback unprompted are more likely to offer negative reviews. It’s human nature to register dissatisfaction more readily than contentment. When your firm does get a negative review, it’s vital that you respond. Doing so shows the complainant and other customers that you care about solving problems.
Workflow management via automation ensures that no negative review will slip through the cracks. Say, for instance, that reviewers give your brand a rating out of five stars. You can establish an automated process that identifies all reviews with two stars or fewer. You can then have the reviews automatically referred to a customer service team member.
5. Tag and segment customers based on buying behavior.
Analyzing and tracking customer behavior will help you tailor CX. A vital element of monitoring customer behavior is segmenting your list. What that means is dividing your patrons by their characteristics. You might segment them by age, gender, or order value, for example.
Segmentation helps improve your service to different kinds of customers. It’s a process that you can fully automate with intelligent workflow tools. The information required is all in your order management or CRM systems. Automation tools can use it to segment customers in a variety of ways, all without need for staff input.
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