When you think about automation, the first thought you might have is robots taking over different tasks in your business.

What is business process automation?

Business process automation or BPA is where you use technology to perform repetitive tasks and make your process more efficient. 97% of companies believe that automating their processes is necessary for their online growth. 

There's a lot more to automation than automatically inputting data. There is a whole fleet of advanced software out there to help you control various processes within your agricultural business. But for now, we'll focus on the little things you can automate to free up your time. 

The automation of business processes typically involves handling repetitive tasks like:

• Customer relations
• Marketing
• Analytics 
• Sales processes 
• Employee management

BPA will help you manage your business and automate tasks to ensure consistency throughout your business. With the help of automation, you'll be able to quickly free up your time and focus more on building your business up as an industry leader. 

What are the benefits of automating processes for ag companies?

Automation has a lot of benefits, but today we're just going to look at the five benefits that we think you'll appreciate the most. 

1. Reduce time wastage and cost

A lot of processes are essential for the daily running of your company. Without them, everything would fall apart, but these tasks also take a lot of time to complete. Human error can also occur, costing you a lot of money. 

These tasks or processes can be made cheaper with the help of automation. By automating these processes: 

• 
  You'll spend less time on these tasks
• There won't be any room for human error 
• You'll save money and time so you can concentrate on the rest of your business
  
  

2. Improve productivity

You'll quickly improve your productivity rates thanks to the time you save handing off mindless, repetitive tasks to automation tools. 

Tasks will be completed much faster thanks to automation, and as soon as you or your staff have more time, they can be more productive in other areas of your business. 70% of companies believe in order to build more effective teams automation is necessary. 

Some staff might have even hated the repetitive task they had to accomplish, but by automating it, they'll be happier in their role and strive to do more. 90% of employees feel annoyed when they have to do repetitive and boring tasks that can be easily automated.

3. Quality is assured

By automating your processes, you'll also be able to create consistent quality for your customers. Because automation allows you to produce the same results every time, you can rest assured knowing the job will be completed to the highest standards. 

The level of consistency fluctuates when there is human involvement. By automating the processes in your business that don't require a human hand, you can ensure that the results are consistently perfect. 

4. Enhance communication

Communication is key to any great business. Without communication, customers get missed, and tasks go uncompleted. 

Automation can quickly help improve your communication as a business and help ensure that every message reaches the intended recipient. 

By automating your processes, you'll be able to streamline your communication to help avoid situations where a person wasn't notified about a task being completed or a customer being contacted. 

5. Keep customers happy

The best benefit of automation is customer satisfaction. Thanks to you automating your processes, your clients will get what they want faster. The faster they get it, the more satisfied they'll be with your service. 

Because your automated processes assure quality every time, your clients will also know that they'll get a quality service every time they interact with your company. 

If customers are happy, they'll keep coming back. They might even encourage more people to do business with you. So not only does automation help improve repeat business, but it's also great for enhancing referrals.

What can you automate in your agribusiness?

If you want your business to get bigger and better, inefficient processes will get in the way of your online successes. Time is everything, and with an extra five minutes here and there, you'll end up with so much spare time that you'll be able to sell more and reach great heights. 

Humans are capable of fantastic things, but we also make many silly mistakes from time to time. These mistakes can prevent your company from getting to where it should be. For example, a simple human error can lose you a potential lead because you forgot to reply in time. 

Automation can pick up the slack and ensure that you never lose out on these potential leads in the future.

But when you're starting, where should you focus on automation?

Here are three things that you can automate for your business now to help you get time back:

1. Customer service

Customers want your business to solve their problems quickly, and automating your customer service process is a secure way to solve client queries quickly. 

Automating your customer service process will ensure that your company can easily provide every client with a quick resolution to their concern. A common example of this is an automated email response. 

Your customer doesn't need to wait for you to read their email to you and respond because they'll get an immediate response from your automated system. You can load various responses to suit different situations and answer questions too. 

This heavily reduces the time you have to put into customer care. Instead of responding to every email, you can set up an automated email system to reply to frequently asked questions. Not only does this help your clients get sorted straight away, but it means you'll have time to focus on essential inquiries from your clients. 

You can also use self-service portals so clients can get all the information they need themselves or live chats using chatbots for AI or preloaded responses. This way your client will always get an answer even if you’re currently out of the office. 

2. Marketing

Many companies hate putting time into their marketing because it takes a lot of time and effort to sort it out properly. But, with automation tools, you'll be able to manage your leads and marketing strategies easily. 

The best use of automation when it comes to marketing is auto-response for nurturing leads. 

When your lead signs up for your email or is interested in your products or services, they need to be educated about your company. Giving them valuable information is key to getting them on board, but emailing them takes so much time. 

Instead of you manually doing it, you can automate your email so it sends out an email explaining what they can expect from your company. It'll also list how they can get started working with you. 

With automation, you won't have to actively participate in the lead nurturing process. So you can put time aside to pursue other leads, close more deals, and sell more. 

3. In-house operations

Your in-house operations can also be completely streamlined, thanks to automation. This can include things like employee onboarding, project management, creating schedules, hiring new employees, and automated reporting.

For example, by using tools like a Learning Management System, you’ll be able to onboard new employees much faster without wasting time going through every aspect of your company with them. Plus, automating your employee onboarding improves employee retention by 82% and productivity by 70%. 

Automation can also be used to help improve project management. Lots of important data and information gets lost in emails and group chats, but with some handy automation tools, you can ensure vital information never gets lost. MailClark is a tool that allows you to create a shared inbox for you and your team, helping you all stay on top of the tasks coming your way.

Using project management automation tools like ClickUp, Teamwork, or Asana will allow you to stay organized and on top of tasks so you don’t lose focus. These tools can send notifications about tasks and update you when tasks are completed. They’re ideal for keeping projects on track. 

There are many ways to automate your in-house processes. If you’d like to take advantage of everything automation has to offer, consider getting in touch with an expert to help you integrate all the tools you need. 

If you're a bit confused about business process automation, getting some professional help is the right choice. 

The team at Agtivation has years of experience helping agricultural companies automate their business so they can improve their leads and get back to the job they love doing most. 

Start getting back to what you love by letting the team at Agtivation sort out your automation. 

Get in touch today!