Businesses are in the midst of an unprecedented scenario – one that may forever leave a residual impact on workforces.  With so many employees teleworking suddenly, the “normal” human connections we’re used to have been pushed into the digital domain.  In many cases, even simple collaborative tasks have increased in complexity, simply because workers are engaged differently. 

It’s a great case study for automation technology, though.  As business processes develop, actions and processes are dependent on one another through a series of conditional statements.  If one event happens, then another must happen as a result.  It’s a normal course of business process development, but one that workers have made part of their normal routines, which are now disrupted. 

But, much of it today results in a series of repeated interactions, whether with customers or colleagues, many of which can be automated.  More than ever before, businesses need to be able to focus on their critical projects and customers, and the more they can reduce the time taken with tasks that can be handled with RPA technology, the more they are able to focus on more complex tasks that require human intervention.

Contact centers have been doing this for years – routing calls to the most appropriate agents to increase resolution time and rates.  But, there are countless repeated customer-facing and internal processes that can be automated.  Many of them the processes we have all become so accustomed to handling manually every day, often because it’s been convenient, or because that’s simply how things have always been done.  But, many of those conveniences that have enabled the traditional way of doing things have been pushed aside with everyone working remotely from their home offices.  Whether its claims processing, patient admissions, new client strategy development, product development processes, customer on-boarding, or countless other activities that happen repeatedly within a business, RPA not only speeds them up but reduces errors at the same time.

The simplest of actions take time, like emailing a new contract to colleagues to make sure everyone is aware of their responsibilities, takes time.  Then, someone has to track progress with all the necessary actions to ensure they all get done, and then communicate back to the client.  From the simplest things like distributing and tracking tasks, to much more complex processes that involve a series of actions and communications, time can be saved and errors can be reduced by leveraging automation.

A crisis like we’re all enduring now, as unfortunate is it is, can provide many lessons for businesses as they learn to implement new technologies to create more efficient communications processes and workflows. 

I’ll be moderating a Webinar with Automation Anywhere’s Vice President of Product Marketing Manish Rai, on Thursday, May 14 at 2pm EDT, where he will be talking about how businesses can leverage automation to overcome the disruptions in their daily operations to function more efficiently.  The truth is, while automation and other technologies have a spotlight on them due to the COVID-19 pandemic, technology-driven businesses learned long ago that the status quo isn’t always the best formula for success.  Join Manish and me to learn how intelligent automation can help businesses stay connected across internal teams and customer bases to ensure stability and customer support not only during the current situation, but on an ongoing basis once things start to normalize again.

Manish will be covering a number of topics, including an overview of RPA and intelligent automation technologies, how they are helping businesses manage the current crisis, and what solutions – free and others – are available to support them as they seek to remain productive.

Register today to learn how intelligent automation can help your business.