What is business process automation?
Did you know that
97% of companies believe automating their processes is necessary for their online growth?
That's fantastic, but what is business process automation, and why is it so important?
Business process automation is where you use technology, tools, and programs to perform annoying repetitive tasks for you. This makes your processes more efficient and frees up your time to do more important things.
There's a lot of technology and software out there that will help you automate your auto performance, restoration, and restyling shop.
Automating business processes usually involves creating an automatic process for:
- Customer relations
- Marketing
- Analytics
- Sales processes
- Employee management
By getting on top of automation for your business, you'll be able to manage your business a whole lot easier. With automation on your side, you can focus more time on building your shop up as an industry leader and the go-to place for auto restoration.
What are the benefits of automating processes for aftermarket auto shops?
1. Reduce time wastage and cost
You'll have more time to spend on your business by automating your processes. You'll spend less time on boring tasks, there won't be any room for human error, and you'll save money and time getting a tool to automate it.
When you automate your tasks, you're making them cheaper for your business
2. Improve productivity
Handing off mindless tasks and freeing up your employee's workload will enhance productivity because they can focus on what matters. They'll be able to do more work on projects and concentrate on the clients they're working with.
With automated processes, you'll be able to build a team that works better together.
70% of companies believe automation is necessary to create more effective teams for their business.
Some of your team members might have even hated a particular task. By introducing automation to your business, they won't have to do the chore they hate so much. They'll be happier and can focus on other tasks in your shop.
90% of employees feel annoyed when they have to do repetitive and boring tasks that can be easily automated.
3. Quality is assured
When you add automation to your company, you can offer your clients consistent quality. When your client decides to get in contact with you, they'll always receive an instant response.
Consistency constantly fluctuates when humans are involved, but with automated processes, you'll be able to give your audience consistent results.
4. Enhanced communication
Communication is key to any great business. With automation, you can ensure your communication is always in top form.
Automation ensures that every message reaches your clients without fail and that nothing gets lost between tasks. Thanks to automation, you'll be able to avoid situations where a person wasn't notified about a task being completed or a customer being contacted.
This will keep you and your team on top of everything your clients are looking for without spending hours responding to emails and queries.
5. Keep customers happy
The ultimate benefit of automation is client satisfaction. Your goal as a company is to ensure all your clients are happy with your services, and with automation, your customers will get what they need much faster.
If your customer is happy with your service, they will keep coming back and working with you. They might even recommend you to family or friends just because of how efficient you were on their project. So not only is automation key to improving repeat business, but it’s also great for increasing referrals too.
What can you automate in your aftermarket shop?
There are a lot of automation tools out there, and a lot of your business can be automated. Today we're going to look at the three areas we think you should focus on when it comes to automating your shop.
1. Customer service
The first place you should automate is your customer service. You can automate how you onboard clients, interact with them and communicate with them.
An online calendar for scheduling is a great way to automate your booking system. Your clients sign up online, book in for a meeting, and it appears on your in-house calendar, making sure you never miss an appointment.
Not only does this make it easier for you to onboard new clients, but it also makes it easier for your clients to book with you.
Your customers also want their issues solved quickly. By adding email automation, they can instantly get replies to their queries. Email automation reduces the time you have to put into customer care and allows your clients to get what they need right away.
Email automation means you don't have to respond to every email. Instead, you set up an automatic response. You can even set up replies to specific questions, which allows you to spend more time focusing on essential inquiries and other work around your shop.
You can also use self-service portals, allowing clients to get all the necessary information themselves. Live chats that use AI or preloaded responses to frequently asked questions are also a great tool for automation.
2. Marketing
Do you hate spending hours trying to sort out your marketing?
Then marketing automation tools are the answer!
They let you manage your leads and marketing strategies without taking time away from the rest of your business.
For example, you can use auto-response emails to nurture leads and secure new clients for your company, and you won't even have to reply.
When potential clients sign up for your email marketing, they get sent an automatic email detailing everything they need to know about what your shop offers. It'll also show them how and why they should start working with you on their next auto restoration project.
With automation, you won't have to partake in the lead nurturing process. All you have to do is focus on restoring and upgrading the cars that come into your shop.
Another great automation tool for marketing is social media post scheduling.
Nobody wants to spend hours out of their day posting social media posts. Instead, you can get a month's load of social media updates ready and schedule them out in advance, so you don't have to worry about it.
While you're working, your social media can look after itself!
3. In-house operations
The last area you should look at when it comes to automation is your in-house operations. By streamlining your in-house operations with automated processes, you'll be able to save so much time and money.
You can streamline:
- Employee onboarding
- Project management
- Event reporting
But how do you automate in-house processes?
One of the ways you can automate them is by using an LMS (learning management system). An LMS will help you onboard new employees quickly without wasting time going through every inch of your company with them.
Plus, by automating your employee onboarding, you will be able to improve employee retention by
82% and productivity by
70%.
But employee onboarding isn't all automation can do. You can easily enhance your project management by using automation to keep essential data and information in one place.
Using tools like
ClickUp,
Teamwork, or
Asana
to stay organized and on top of tasks, you'll never fall behind on a project again!
These tools will send notifications about tasks and update you when tasks are completed allowing you to always stay on top of your workload.
We hope our blog post has helped you discover how to automate your business correctly to improve productivity, efficiency, and quality.
If you're not sure how to automate your business or want some help setting up the right tools, our team is here for you.
At Motorhead Digital, we've been helping aftermarket auto performance, restoration, and restyling shops reach their full potential online.
Get in touch with us today to start improving your processes so you can pull ahead of the competition.
