Process automation demystified (and why you need it)

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Process automation demystified (and why you need it)

Pain points, power and productivity

Across all industries, efficiency gains and optimized processes are a high priority for businesses and service providers. In fact, research from Forrester found that 73% of business decision-makers ranked increasing operational efficiency as a top business priority. Upping productivity by identifying more economical ways of working sets a clearer path to profitable growth. And that means finding new ways to apply tech solutions and digitize everyday tasks.

Process automation works to reduce agents’ workloads, saving them time and resources, and speeding up operations across the board. But this comes with challenges of its own – system integrations, for example. 

So, how can we bring all the disparate systems we’re using together to create unity and ensure business processes can be streamlined wherever possible? The answer lies in what we call process orchestration – creating harmony between all the solutions in your stack.

What is process automation?

Automation is the use of technology or software to reduce the need for human intervention. Process automation means taking manual, often repetitive and cumbersome tasks – ones that employees would normally take care of – and introducing a tech solution that streamlines a business process.

An example of process automation is sending proactive notifications to customers when, say, utilities or internet service providers plan to have service interruptions – and doing so on a customer’s channel of choice. This is a clearly defined, automated process that would have otherwise created headaches for agents, eating into invaluable time during an already challenging period for the business. The ability to use process automation to reduce friction, improve customer experience and free up agents is a huge competitive advantage.

“…using a combination of AI and process automation makes for a really connected and powerful CCaaS platform…”

At the heart of the Thrio platform, a process automation engine with interlinking AI engines makes seamless decision-making, routing and insights possible. Working together in a range of different combinations, these systems ensure complex workflows are simple to build and straightforward to optimize.

At the same time, process automation makes tasks repeatable and efficient. Combining AI and process automation creates a really connected and powerful CCaaS platform, and means businesses don’t have to rely on multiple vendors to satisfy all their contact center requirements. In fact, Thrio has helped businesses cut their vendor count down from as many as 7 to 1 – just think of all the time, money, integrations, licenses, maintenance issues, and headaches saved.

“…domestic businesses can achieve cost reductions of 65% using process automation, with an estimated return of between 30% and 200% in year one alone…”

Why should businesses use process automation?

Strategically deploying process automation can achieve numerous efficiencies and free up your employees to spend more time on more varied, complex and creative tasks. This, in turn, improves the customer experience, reduces errors and keeps both staff and end users happy. 

In contact centers, where employee retention can be a real challenge, process automation makes agents’ jobs easier by automating routine (often cumbersome or dreary) tasks. While technology does its thing, they can spend more time doing what they do best – being human, creating rapport with customers, and solving more strategic problems. All contributing to improved satisfaction for all parties.

And it’s not just a ‘nice to have’. All of this is great for the bottom line too. Research by NASSCOM shows that domestic businesses can achieve cost reductions of up to 65% using process automation, with an estimated return of between 30% and 200% in year one alone.

“…Thrio was created with an automation-first design…”

What are the challenges of using process automation?

One of the big challenges businesses face with process automation is that their systems aren’t built to deploy it. That means making costly upgrades, difficult integrations and looking to new vendors to satisfy these automation capabilities.

However, it has become clear over time that, at best, these cobbled-together solutions don’t perform as well as they should. Any potential time saved via automation is spent on the maintenance and deployment of these overly complicated systems. And they don’t provide the process orchestration capabilities required to create really valuable business optimizations. Having seen this problem time and again, we knew that the answer was to invest in a robust architecture  from day one.

Thrio was created with an automation-first design, combining all the benefits of the cloud, REST APIs, AI and what we call Native Process Automation.  

“…Thrio’s process automation capabilities were built into its architecture from day one…”

What is Native Process Automation?

Because Thrio’s process automation capabilities were built into its architecture from day one, we’re able to eliminate all the performance issues and deployment headaches that can be expected of automation functions grafted onto existing platforms. That’s why we call our solution Native Process Automation.

Uniquely, process automation opportunities can be implemented with Thrio’s no-code, drag-and-drop interface. This means that incredibly powerful automations can be built, tested and refined by non-technical employees.

“…incredibly powerful automations can be built, tested and refined by non-technical employees…”

While it can certainly help you up your game, automation alone won’t help you create a future-proof, tech-savvy business strategy.

To create impressive yet seamless automations at the agent/customer level, requires incredible complexity (and many moving parts) behind the scenes. And that means more can go wrong – quickly – if the technology powering those moving parts wasn’t initially built to accommodate. So be wary of vendors who offer the automation goods as an afterthought or add-on.

It’s a well-architected platform that’s both redundant and resilient with an automation-first approach that will give you a true competitive edge. Moreover, it’ll improve productivity, business continuity and, ultimately, your bottom line.

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