How to automate repetitive tasks

No one likes to repeat themselves. Repetition is even less welcome in the office, where almost 70 percent of employees feel like they’re always working on repetitive tasks. 

Even worse, completing tedious tasks leaves little room for employee creativity. When lower-order concerns zap your mental energy, you don’t have time to focus on high-level action items, stifling progress toward your goals.

The solution? Automate repetitive tasks. Though both basic and process automation are usually associated with expensive enterprise resource planning software, new scalable programs are making automation more accessible for all types of organizations. 

In fact, during the pandemic, more small and medium-sized businesses took advantage of automation — and more than half now say it’s become an indispensable part of their operations.

How to automate repetitive tasks with software

Making a good investment in automation is all about choosing the right tools. From business process management programs to artificial intelligence programs, business owners have no shortage of choices in their decision to automate. Some programs are even designed specifically for marketing, human resources, sales, and accounting departments.

Choosing an automation program is the first step toward making your business faster and your employees more efficient. You can ensure the success of implementation efforts by asking your employees for input on how they would automate any repetitive tasks that they’re spending too much time on.

An easy way to start automating in minutes is to use a multifaceted platform like Jotform, which offers a suite of solutions that supercharge forms and allow you to automate repetitive tasks at your organization. Here are some examples of how Jotform can upgrade the power of your business.

Automation around the office

Approvals

Waiting for managerial approval can create serious problems for your workflow and turn into a frustrating game of email tag or a frantic search for lost paper forms. Automation speeds up approval workflows and allows both managers and employees to get work done faster by storing back-and-forth communication in one platform. 

Because many work items need a few sets of eyes on them, this automation can apply to a wide variety of companies and approvals, including those for purchase orders, invoice payments, creative content, and budgets.

Jotform Workflows allows users to build an approval workflow with fully customizable forms. Through conditional logic and a drag-and-drop interface, users can build an approval workflow in minutes or start with one of several workflow templates.

Sales 

To keep prospective customers engaged, salespeople have to stay connected to them. But it’s easy to lose the many details involved in these connections in the shuffle of multiple sales cycles. With automation, sales managers can coordinate follow-up emails and texts, update prospect information, and schedule meetings.

Jotform integrates with more than 100 tools, including various customer relationship management programs, making it easy to integrate forms into the sales process.

Customer service

The sooner you respond to your customers, the happier they are. When you automate repetitive tasks in your customer service journey, your team spends more time actually helping customers and less time trying to figure out what they want. 

With advanced artificial intelligence automation, customer service representatives can better assess what a customer needs and deliver higher-quality service. Plus, you can send online forms to collect customer feedback and then centralize data for quick and effective analysis.

Jotform gives you the ability to configure your forms to send automated email responses to customers so they know you’re working on solving their problem. Organizations that are especially reliant on customer service requests, such as information technology companies that create service tickets, can take advantage of Jotform Workflows to streamline customer requests.

Order processing

Orders are the bread and butter of many businesses, especially with today’s booming e-commerce industry. But when you’re running a business, you don’t always have time to look over every order — particularly when your brand is growing. 

Automated order forms with payment integrations are the solution. You can use forms and other automation tools to collect orders, send them to your inventory team, and update the accounting team’s budget projections.

Once you build your first order form and automate repetitive order management tasks, Jotform Tables simplifies the work that comes after. The spreadsheet-database hybrid tool is instantly filled with information from order forms, so you can see which items sell the best, adjust prices, and spot purchasing trends.

Human resources (HR)

Time-off requests, payroll calculations, employee review reminders, timesheet reminders, and new hire onboarding are administrative tasks that make up a significant portion of HR responsibilities.

Automation in this area isn’t just a good idea; it’s necessary for growing businesses to survive. Because many of these human resources functions are cyclical and regular, they’re ripe for streamlining. Through automation, HR managers can improve communication with employees, eliminate paper waste, comply with industry regulations, and reduce form errors.

With Jotform, you can configure set-it-and-forget-it email reminders for forms that both new and established employees need to complete. Plus, Jotform Workflows offers an array of approval templates for common human resources processes.

Learning to automate repetitive processes is a critical step to taking your business to the next level. With a tool like Jotform and a willingness to try something new, you and your employees can save time and money — and develop some peace of mind.