As the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread, many businesses were forced to close their doors to customers and clients and send their employees home. Some had no choice but to layoff or furlough their employees during the downtime, as they ceased operations or scaled back as much as they could.
However, other businesses opted to shift gears and take things virtual. Even now, as vaccines roll out and life starts to go back to normal in many ways, many have chosen to continue to keep some or even all of their employees remote.
In a new world of remote operations, it has never been more important to look for new and improved ways to automate your operations and take them to the web. If your business is working remotely in 2021, keep reading to learn three automations that you should have in place.
1. Automated Interactions
Any upgrades that will save your employees time means less time wasted, more productivity and more profits in your pocket. Automated interactions are one of the best ways to not only save your employees time, but save them stress and hassle as well.
The term “automated interactions” actually covers a variety of tools and features. Any kind of customer self-service tool that allows customers and clients to answer their own questions or get instant help without interacting with a real, live employee is a type of automated interaction.
You can use an automated chatbot interaction to streamline initial communications with clients. In many cases, the answers they are looking for are somewhere on your website. Channeling these initial communications through the chatbot means your employees can spend their time dealing with more complicated customer problems.
2. Virtual Call Centers
With your employees now going to work at kitchen tables and home offices instead of cubicles and high rises, nearly every part of how they get work done has likely changed, even if their job description hasn’t. This has been easier on those in some positions than it has been for others.
One position that has faced a number of unique and difficult challenges in this new remote world are call center employees. Even small call centers often feature many employees in a smaller, confined space. Even for businesses moving some operations back to the office, many call centers have remained remote.
But moving your call center operations to the web is harder than just e-mailing out spreadsheets or opening a Slack channel for team members to chat. That’s where a virtual call center comes in. This software gives your call center employees all of the tools and features that they need to do their job effectively, from anywhere. In fact, it may be so effective, you might opt to keep it around even after things return to normal.
3. Workflow Automations
One thing that hasn’t changed now that employees are working virtually is that mundane, daily tasks still take a lot of time. Workflow automation is one solution for this.
This software can be implemented to automate regular daily tasks, like inputting data, setting reminders and more. Much like virtual call centers, workflow automation is a tool that many businesses will likely keep around after the pandemic for their convenience.
Automating Your Call Center in 2021
Adding automation to your call center is a great way to streamline operations and mitigate problems brought on by the new remote work world.
Whether you want to automate workflows, utilize a chatbot to instantly respond to customer inquiries or make the switch to a virtual call center, these features are a great way to increase productivity for your enterprise in 2021.