Handbook information entry is perhaps one of the crucial tedious and inefficient duties within the company world. Not solely does it put you to sleep, nevertheless it additionally wastes valuable time and sources, slashing your productiveness to bits.

In accordance with Zapier, 94% of staff carry out time-consuming, repetitive duties. Happily, there’s know-how that may automate these mind-numbing duties, eliminating human error and letting you concentrate on the work that really issues — workflow automation.

By leveraging self-operating processes that run guide duties, workflow automation can assist your online business save money and time, diminish errors, and enhance productiveness.

Desk of Contents

How does workflow automation work?

Workflow automation sometimes depends on a collection of if/then statements to set off one other job. It then branches off relying on the motion that was taken by a lead, worker, or one other stakeholder.

Let’s stroll via an instance workflow for turning a kind submission right into a deal alternative.

• A web site customer submits a kind.
• The motion robotically enrolls the customer in a drip marketing campaign. It creates a brand new deal and units the standing to “New.”
• The primary e-mail of the drip marketing campaign is shipped to the lead, requesting to schedule a gathering.
• The lead clicks via to the assembly scheduler and creates an appointment.
• A thanks e-mail is shipped to the lead, confirming the date and time.
• The CRM creates a brand new job and assigns it to a gross sales rep.
• The gross sales rep then reaches out personally, ending the automated workflow.

Right here’s what a workflow can appear like from begin to end.

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Virtually each division in your online business can profit from workflow automation. Whether or not it’s advertising, human sources, or finance, the know-how can assist you’re employed smarter, not tougher.

Under, we’ll cowl among the hottest workflow automation examples.

Workflow automation can be utilized in nearly any group and in any enterprise situation. Whereas it’s largely associated to advertising and gross sales, it can be utilized in customer support, operations, human sources, and finance.

Advertising Workflow Automation

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Among the most repetitive duties in advertising, comparable to sending emails and posting social media updates, might be automated with workflow automation. With advertising automation software program, you may schedule your whole social media calendar and arrange workflows that nurture sure forms of prospects with e-mail presents.

Automated workflows in advertising embrace:

• Subscribing a person to a drip marketing campaign after they obtain a useful resource out of your web site
• Welcoming a person to your organization after they buy a product
• Reminding a person to take a look at after they’ve added varied objects to their cart
• Scheduling social media posts throughout a number of platforms
• Distributing advertising duties throughout group members

Further Studying

Gross sales Workflow Automation

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Gross sales workflow automation streamlines tedious lead and prospect administration duties, in order that reps can concentrate on promoting, not coming into information. Apart from taking leads robotically via the pipeline based mostly on their actions, an automatic gross sales workflow can enroll prospects in drip campaigns and replace deal levels because the deal strikes ahead.

Automated duties in gross sales embrace:

• Putting every lead at a unique stage of the pipeline after they take a sure motion
• Transferring a lead out of the pipeline in the event that they’ve stopped responding to emails
• Sending an introduction e-mail from a gross sales rep to a lead after they obtain an e-book
• Updating the deal stage as soon as the lead has scheduled an appointment or assembly
• Creating duties for gross sales reps as soon as a lead has scheduled a gathering

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Buyer Service Workflow Automation

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Workflow automation is extremely helpful in customer support. Apart from launching surveys, workflow automation can deal with tickets, instances, and customary questions by sending a collection of emails or creating duties.

Automated duties in customer support embrace:

• Creating a brand new ticket within the system when somebody reaches out via social media or e-mail
• Onboarding prospects with a collection of useful emails
• Sending NPS® surveys and enrolling them into completely different e-mail campaigns relying on their ranking
• Assigning tickets a precedence label relying on the tone of the message or e-mail
• Resolving and archiving tickets as soon as a decision has been reached

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Operations Workflow Automation

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Operations is the lifeblood of any group, and it, too, might be automated to cut back situations of guide information entry.

Automated duties in operations embrace:

• Deleting duplicates as soon as they’ve been detected or merging two properties in the event that they’re the identical
• Managing group permissions for brand spanking new group members
• Establishing priorities for various companies processes
• Mechanically compiling studies on the finish of each quarter
• Creating duties in third-party instruments comparable to Asana, Slack, or Zoom

Further Studying

Human Sources Workflow Automation

As an alternative of getting to manually enter all of your new hires’ private info — like addresses, social safety numbers, and different worker info into payroll, expense, and insurance coverage techniques — HR automation software program can do it for you in minutes.

Automated duties in human sources embrace:

• Eradicating candidates from the database in the event that they’ve been inactive for a time period
• Sending emails to candidates that haven’t made it to the ultimate spherical
• Filtering candidates with sure key phrases of their job historical past
• Sending W2s to present staff
• Gathering staff’ suggestions after they’ve been on the firm for a time period

Finance Workflow Automation

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By permitting you to construct varieties, design workflows, and monitor processes, finance course of automation software program can streamline your entire journey requests, reimbursements, and price range approvals.

Automated duties in finance embrace:

• Taking an expense approval course of from begin to end
• Managing vendor and contract approvals
• Assigning priorities to ACH and wire requests
• Managing journey expense requests relying on location and exercise
• Approving budgets based mostly on a predetermined set of parameters

Now that you recognize all the things about utilizing automated workflows, let’s check out the highest instruments you should utilize.

Finest Workflow Automation Software program in 2022

1. HubSpot: Finest All-in-One Workflow Automation Software program

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HubSpot’s advertising, gross sales, service, and operations software program operates on a single platform, making it top-of-the-line selections for all-in-one workflow automation. Every part is linked collectively, permitting you to align your entire groups’ processes and decreasing friction from job to job.

You possibly can simply hand leads from advertising to gross sales, join a service ticket with an current contact file, and clear up buyer information — multi functional user-friendly platform.

Finest for: HubSpot is extremely beneficial for rising companies which have but to attempt workflow automation and for enterprise companies with established processes. You possibly can start with a Starter subscription, then improve as you require extra functionalities. Particularly beneficial for advertising, gross sales, service, and operations departments.

Pricing for Advertising Hub: Free; $50/month (Starter); $890/month (Skilled); $3,200/month (Enterprise)

Pricing for Gross sales Hub: Free; $50/month (Starter); $500/month (Skilled); $1,200/month (Enterprise)

Pricing for Service Hub: Free; $50/month (Starter); $400/month (Skilled); $1,200/month (Enterprise)

Pricing for Operations Hub: Free; $50/month (Starter); $800/month (Skilled)

2. Nintex: Finest Enterprise Workflow Automation Software program

With over 3 million workflow functions working on their platform proper now, Nintex helps greater than 8,000 enterprise prospects handle, automate, and optimize their enterprise processes, with no coding expertise required.

By providing a mess of workflow automation instruments — like course of mapping, superior workflows, and course of intelligence — your online business is ready to map out every of your processes, execute them, and monitor their efficiency.

Finest for: Nintex is extremely beneficial for enterprise companies with established processes. It’s a sturdy software program that pairs a user-friendly workflow design software with highly effective integrations that may join each single considered one of your apps. Particularly beneficial for IT, regulation, HR, and finance departments.

Pricing: $910/month (Customary); $1,400/month (Enterprise)

3. Kissflow: Finest Newbie-Pleasant Workflow Automation Software program

Trusted by over 10,000 firms, together with Domino’s, Michelin, and Pepsi, Kissflow presents an all-in-one workflow automation software program that lets your online business create workflows that automate duties in your human sources, gross sales, finance, administration, advertising, and buy departments.

With over 50 pre-installed enterprise course of administration apps — comparable to expensing and gross sales orders, circumstances and triggers, and reporting dashboards on your workflows — Kissflow can streamline nearly all your online business processes.

Finest for: Kissflow is extremely beneficial for small firms which are simply now beginning to attempt workflow automation. The software’s simplicity and person friendliness will make it simpler to start automating processes. Particularly beneficial for procurement, HR, and finance departments.

Pricing: $200/month (Primary); $495/month (Superior); $1,900/month (Totally Loaded)

4. Integrify: Finest On a regular basis Administration Workflow Automation Software program

Integrify is a workflow automation software program that permits you to construct workflows in a drag-and-drop builder and run parallel or sequential flows. By with the ability to collaborate on duties and requests, take a look at your processes, and arrange reminders, you may simply streamline your online business processes and automate guide duties.

Integrify additionally presents workflow examples and a person data base, a rest-based open API that means that you can combine with exterior databases, and the power to import and export information from Excel and even PDFs.

Finest for: Integrify is extremely beneficial for small-to-medium companies that need to automate on a regular basis duties. Its drag-and-drop “Course of Builder” makes it easy and straightforward to take a course of from begin to completion. Particularly beneficial for administration departments.

Pricing: Pricing accessible upon request

5. Zapier: Finest Workflow Automation Software program for Connecting Apps

With the power to connect with and share information with over 1,000 internet apps, like Fb, QuickBooks, and Google Drive, Zapier can automate nearly any kind of enterprise course of. All you need to do is construct a workflow of their editor, choose the apps you wish to embrace in your workflow, and design it.

For instance, if you would like to have the ability to save all of your attachments in Dropbox, you may design a workflow that robotically copies any attachment out of your Gmail inbox to Dropbox after which sends you a Slack message concerning the obtain.

Finest for: Zapier is extremely beneficial for freelancers and small-to-medium companies that use all kinds of instruments that aren’t speaking with one another. For example, when you’re utilizing MailChimp to ship emails and Typeform to gather leads, you may join these two instruments utilizing Zapier. Particularly beneficial for advertising and repair departments.

Pricing: Free; $19.99/month (Starter); $49/month (Skilled)

6. Flokzu: Finest Venture Administration Workflow Automation Software program

With out writing any code, Flokzu means that you can create duties, deadlines, enterprise guidelines, and notifications. Their software program additionally sends pending duties to every of your venture’s assignees’ inboxes, and as every stage of a workflow is full, it’ll robotically assign every new job to a person or position.

Moreover, Flozku presents a reporting dashboard that shows your online business processes’

efficiency and metrics, like the quantity of presently delayed duties there are, duties assigned to every person and position, duties accomplished, and the time every job took, which gives you the required information to refine and optimize your future workflows.

Finest for: Flokzu is extremely beneficial for particular person groups that wish to optimize their time administration and job workflow. A key characteristic of this software is that customers will obtain pending duties of their inbox, making it a superb venture administration software. Really useful for any group.

Pricing: Free; $19.99/month (Starter); $49/month (Skilled)

Workflow Automation Will Assist You Develop Higher

Workflow automation is essential for companies that wish to scale and develop with out letting something fall via the cracks. By letting know-how full guide duties, you may successfully develop your online business with none rising pains.

Editor’s observe: This put up was initially revealed in January 2019 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.