What to automate first in a small business

Five good first automations

1. Assign new enquiries to the right person by type of work or area.
2. Create a follow-up task when a quote is sent.
3. Remind the owner when a deal has had no activity for two weeks.
4. Create onboarding tasks when a deal is won.
5. Alert a manager when a support ticket is about to miss its target.

Each one creates or assigns work for a person, which is easy to check and low risk if something goes wrong.

Test before you trust

Before switching a rule on, check exactly which records it would affect. After it runs, look at its history: what triggered it, what it did and whether anything failed.

How to spot good candidates for automation

Look for tasks that are repetitive, predictable and easy to forget. A good test is to ask: if this didn’t happen, would anyone notice straight away? Follow-up reminders, task creation and internal notifications are usually good candidates. Anything that needs judgement or affects money directly is usually not.

A rollout plan

1. Pick one automation and switch it on for a week.
2. Check its run history daily. Did it do what you expected?
3. Ask the people affected whether it helped.
4. Only then add the next one.

Adding automations one at a time makes it easy to see which one caused a problem if something goes wrong.

Signs an automation needs fixing

• People are deleting the tasks it creates.
• It runs far more or less often than expected.
• It keeps failing in the run history.
• Nobody remembers why it exists.

Review your automations every six months and switch off anything that no longer earns its place.

Automation and the customer experience

Automation should make customers feel looked after, not processed. Use it to make sure follow-ups happen on time and nothing is forgotten. Keep messages personal and reviewed by a person where the content matters. Customers can tell the difference between a thoughtful reply and a generic one.

A worked example

A home services business switches on one rule: when a quote is sent, create a follow-up task for the person who sent it, due in two days. A month later, every quote has had at least one follow-up, which wasn’t true before. They add a second rule: when a job is marked complete, create a task to ask for a review. Two simple rules, each saving a little time and catching work that used to slip.

Quick checklist

• Start with automations that create or assign work for a person.
• Preview each rule before switching it on.
• Add one automation at a time.
• Check run history daily for the first week.
• Keep people in charge of decisions about money and complaints.
• Review every automation every six months.

Keep humans on judgement calls

Don’t automate decisions about pricing, refunds, complaints or anything you’d want to explain to a customer. Automate the reminder, not the response.

NovaSoft One workflow automation includes rule previews and a run history, and lead assignment routing shares out new enquiries. Automation is available on Professional plans and above.

Common questions

This guide is general information for Australian businesses, not legal, tax or financial advice. Check anything specific to your situation with a qualified adviser or the relevant government agency.