By relieving the stress of time-consuming and repetitive tasks, business automation tools tackle management's efficiency and customer satisfaction issues.
How does business automation tool help management?
No matter what business niche is, the success of any company largely depends on the ability to hack repetitive tasks into a manageable and efficient workflow. Business process automation transforms organizational management by getting more work done within less time.
Reducing human error and automating manual and repetitive tasks is the cardinal principle of business process automation. But as the years pass, the role of automation gets more extensive in our work ethic. Bringing business automation tools to your company culture can make a big difference in:
- Preventing human mistakes
- Creating followable processes
- Building a collaborative team environment
- Making smarter management
- Freeing up preoccupied minds
Technology empowers us to save time and money while orchestrating human and system operations into an automated business process. Whether sales, marketing, or workflow management software, these tools can take care of business by heavy-lifting mundane tasks. In this manner, business automation tool has a significant role in building greater resilience and moving your place to new heights.
The main automation tools for business that every small and large-scale firm should add to their arsenal are:
Workflow management: for automation of manual task delegation and coordination of team engagement.
Email marketing: email marketing software enables organization contacts, campaigns, and promotional materials.
Customer management: if you do not take care of your existing and ideal customers, you are eventually convicted of failure. CRM applications are integrated with a wide array of third-party apps, ensuring the complexity of client data.
Third-party integrations: although many automation tools integrate with other apps, it is unlikely that you can build your software infrastructure via native integration. Third-party integrations facilitate the exchange of information between different apps.
9 business automation tools to scale your operations
1. Booknetic
Primarily being an appointment booking plugin, Booknetic helps a range of businesses to automate their booking processes. The flexibility of its functions makes the software fit for law firms, consulting offices, educational courses, fitness trainers, medical institutions, and other business types of any industry.
Due to calendar sync, all created events are automatically saved in both clients' and employees' calendars. This gives managers control over staff workflow and adjusts their schedules accordingly.
To further increase the appointment attendance rate and reduce the cost of cancellations, it has automation notifications and reminders features. You either use the ready shortcode or write your reminder messages. Unlike most business automation tools, Booknetic has email, SMS, and WhatsApp notifications.
Online payment gateways are part of the business automation process. The plugin has native integration with PayPal, Stripe, and WooCommerce gateways where you can seamlessly hold transactions and sell e-commerce products. Facilitated billing allows users to handle invoice and tax bills within the platform.
Zoom integration is its star feature that lets consulting-based businesses streamline virtual meetings via the plugin. The dashboard provides insights into the number of scheduled events per location, service, and employee. You can compare the results and create better business decisions based on the results.
Booknetic offers $79 for all the mentioned features and the rest, including future updates. To know more about the automation process, you can now check the live demo.
Features:
- Appointment booking plugin suitable for various businesses.
- Calendar synchronization for events.
- Automated notifications and reminders via email, SMS, and WhatsApp.
- Integrations with PayPal, Stripe, and WooCommerce for payments.
- Zoom integration for virtual meetings.
- Dashboard insights for scheduling analytics.
Our Opinion
We believe that Booknetic stands out in the realm of business automation tools, especially for its appointment booking capabilities tailored to a wide array of industries. We suggest an enhancement to its dashboard analytics to provide deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences, which would be a powerful addition to strategic planning.
2. Planly
Planly is a social media management tool. With Planly, you can easily schedule your social media posts and view their analytics. With Planly, you can access exactly 8 social media networks - Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Twitter, Mastodon and YouTube.
Through Planly, you can instantly share or schedule your posts to several social media platforms simultaneously. In this process, if you want to write a unique caption, you can use AI content assistant. So your captions will be unique and clear. At the same time, you can monitor the posts you share, their impressions, engagement rate and analytics according to each social media platform. You can also get to know your audience. Thus, knowing the age, gender, and region of your followers, you can analyze them.
If you want to create a site to showcase all your social media accounts and other work, you can use Addto.bio without any coding knowledge. Thanks to Addto.bio, you can ensure your visibility on social media. You can then add your Addto.bio to your bio on your social media platforms.
Planly has 3 different plans. You can test the plan with many features, create a Planly account, and experiment. You can pay just $1 for 7 days.
Features:
- Social media management with access to 8 platforms.
- AI content assistant for unique captions.
- Analytics for engagement and follower demographics.
- Addto.bio feature to centralize social media and work profiles.
Our Opinion
Planly appears to be a robust social media management tool, providing comprehensive scheduling and analytics across eight major platforms, which is quite impressive. The AI content assistant for crafting unique captions is a thoughtful addition for businesses aiming to maintain an authentic voice across platforms.
3. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a CRM management software that matches businesses of B2B, B2C, and e-commerce. To provide a unique customer experience, it features different other marketing automation, email marketing, sales, and support services into its platform.
You can smoothly move prospects through your sales loop through well-prepared customer engagement. Automation segmentation and lead scoring data tell users which opportunities to prioritize and when to contact. This business automation tool uses all customer details and sends automated messages to increase sales engagement.
As a marketing automation tool, you can design an overall marketing campaign, add offline and online generated customer details to the system, and plan follow-up emailing.
In addition, it is one of the first visual tools to coordinate workflows in the market. It comes with over 200 templates to send welcome emails, feature abandoned cards, gather feedback, tag contacts, etc.
ActiveCampaign has an excellent customer support policy, where it provides tutorials and one-on-one onboarding meetings. If you want to move from your current CRM software, ActiveCampaign migrates that for free.
For all business types, its cheapest version starts at $19 per month, where you can add 1K contacts. But depending on the complexity of your needs, you can require a demo before purchasing.
Features:
- CRM software for B2B, B2C, and e-commerce.
- Marketing automation, email campaigns, and customer engagement tools.
- Visual workflow coordination with over 200 templates.
- Free migration from current CRM software.
Our Opinion
ActiveCampaign is a commendable CRM solution that effectively integrates marketing automation, email marketing, and customer support. Its strength lies in its visual workflow coordination, making complex sequences more manageable and accessible. ActiveCampaign could better serve small businesses by offering a more scaled-down version at a lower cost to accommodate those with simpler needs. Nonetheless, its comprehensive approach to CRM and marketing automation makes it a compelling choice for businesses looking to enhance their customer engagement and streamline their sales processes.
4. Slack
Even though email stays the most preferred customer communication channel, you can reduce its usage between staff. When it started to operate, Slack marketed its unique selling proposition as reduced emails within teams. Now, it handles tons of jobs for agile teams, product managers, startups, and large businesses.
Slack is a digital workspace for remote and office-based teams to communicate between members and coordinate their workflow through integrated applications. To delegate projects for responsible groups, it has organized spaces called channels. Channels can also be used to comment, file sharing, and interlink between multiple platforms. Bots and task manager is part of workflow management for fast and effective delivery.
You can use built-in voice and video calls for one-on-one communication and utilize screen sharing. But, by connecting video conferencing tools, you can instantly start or join video calls from the app. Additionally, it can be integrated with over 2000 tools from the app directory. Yet, you can use Slack API to create your custom app and connect other apps to it.
The key reason why professionals prefer Slack over many other digital workspace apps is easy connecting and costless integration. Slack comes with free and several paid plans for teams of any size. The free program includes one-on-one voice and video calls, 10K message history, and ten integration channels. While the Pro accounts cost $7 per month with unlimited message history, integrations, and group calls up to 15 minutes.
Features:
- Communication platform for teams with integrated applications.
- Organized spaces called channels for project delegation and file sharing.
- Built-in voice/video calls and screen sharing.
- Over 2000 integration tools and custom app development via Slack API.
Our Opinion
In our view, Slack has revolutionized workplace communication, offering a significant shift away from traditional email. Its channels system promotes organized and focused discussions, and the integration with a multitude of apps streamlines workflow management. The free version is a strong starting point for small teams, but we believe Slack could offer more competitive pricing for their Pro accounts, especially for startups and small businesses looking to scale. Nonetheless, Slack's contribution to reducing email clutter and fostering a collaborative environment is indisputable.
5. Omnisend
Omnisend is one of the best marketing tools to automate your business relations. The omnichannel platform is specifically developed for e-commerce to empower their different marketing channels and ultimately boost sales. It fully integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, and other e-commerce platforms where you can track your customer data. It dynamically syncs customer details into Facebook and Google for a practical ads experience.
You can start a series of messages for all interested visitors by identifying the email subject line and workflow. It has a drag and drop builder to facilitate the adjustments. There are also automation splits and A\B testing to optimize your sales incentives later and make data-driven decisions.
The various transactional events and customer behavior let you filter your customers and deliver intelligent customer campaigns. Reports give insights into how the audience engages with emails, which campaigns drive more sales, and track all KPIs in one place.
Omnisend has a free account for starting businesses, where they can send 500 emails, create sign-ups, run A\B testings. By paying $16 per month, you can automate emails, send unlimited web pushes, and get a customer success manager.
Features:
- Marketing automation tool designed for e-commerce.
- Integration with Shopify, WooCommerce, and others.
- Drag and drop builder for message workflows.
- Automation splits and A/B testing features.
Our Opinion
Omnisend's focus on e-commerce makes it a standout in marketing automation, particularly with its seamless integration with major e-commerce platforms. However, while Omnisend offers impressive features, the platform could benefit from expanding its services beyond email to include more diverse marketing channels like SMS and social media. The free account is a great entry point for small businesses, but the jump in pricing for automation features could be steep for some.
6. Zapier
Zapier comes high on the list of business automation tools. Connecting over 3K web apps lets business people save time and boost productivity.
Once you connect your apps, it automatically moves info between apps, helping you focus on the important ones. The integrated channels send notifications on new quests, customer feedback, opened boards, etc.
You can use built-in templates or tweak them to tailor automated workflow. When customers interact with your content or product, you can automatically add their contacts to an email list or CRM and use them in marketing campaigns.
A customizable dashboard provides insights into actions like task history, connected apps, zap creation, zap account, and Google Sheet import.
Additionally, it has a reformatter you can use to convert data into your preferred format automatically. The best thing about the business automation tool is you don't need coding knowledge to connect it.
You can add 100 tasks and five zaps per month with the free account. Starting from $20, premium packages include webhooks, unlimited integration apps, and zaps.
Features:
- Connects over 3K web apps for productivity enhancement.
- Automated info transfer between apps.
- Customizable workflow templates.
- Dashboard insights into tasks and app connections.
Our Opinion
Zapier stands as a pivotal tool in automating repetitive tasks by connecting a plethora of apps, fostering a more productive and efficient workflow. The free plan is generous, but we think Zapier could improve by providing more guidance and templates for beginners to get started with automation. Additionally, for advanced users, more robust error handling in zaps would be beneficial.
7. Asana
Asana is amongst the best tools to automate your business regarding project management. It assists with outlining business processes and organizing tasks. Its drag and drop visual builder helps to create boards that encourage interaction quickly.
Multiple workspaces allow business owners and managers to manage separate tasks without hassle. With team calendar software, all team members can concentrate on projects and track deadlines. Users receive auto-updates, automated notifications upon the status of events.
Reports tab provides real-time insights into the team performance by their priority, assignees, projects. You can also create customizable dashboards and charts, download or share them with the team. It directly integrates with GSuite, Azure, Dropbox, Slack Tableau, Salesforce, Jira, and other preliminary apps used in software development companies.
Starter teams and individuals can use the free version to create unlimited projects and collaborate with 15 individuals. Teams of upper size can get a Premium account at $11 per month for unlimited dashboards, task templates, admin consoles, and portfolio management features.
Features:
Project management tool with visual task boards.
Multiple workspaces and team calendar software.
Automated updates and notifications.
Integrations with various business apps.
Our Opinion
Asana has distinguished itself as a highly versatile project management tool. Its visual interface and drag-and-drop functionality are user-friendly and enhance project visualization, which is a major plus for team collaboration. However, Asana could improve by enhancing its mobile app functionality to match the desktop experience, as users are increasingly managing tasks on the go.
8. Freshdesk
We couldn't pass the business automation tool solutions list without touching a customer support tool. Freshdesk is an AI-powered tool to automate your business management and customer relations.
You can view messages from web chat, in-app chat, Facebook, Messenger, iMessage chats in one inbox. Depending on where customers reach you and the topic, it automatically assigns inquiries and prioritizes them. Tasks are also given to agents based on their previous engaged matters, current workload, customer service channels, or sent equally among them.
You can create AI-powered chatbots based on each platform. Analytics gives insights into the active hours of users and lets you send messages during those hours.
As with other customer service automation tools, Freshdesk also has a free plan where you can add 100 agents and create your chatbots. Paid accounts start from monthly 15 dollars where you get premium features like Facebook Messenger, segment users, and live translation.
Features:
- AI-powered customer support automation tool.
- Unified messaging inbox for various channels.
- Automatic inquiry assignment and prioritization.
- AI-powered chatbots for customer interaction.
Our Opinion
Freshdesk emerges as a powerful contender in the customer support automation arena, leveraging AI to streamline customer service processes. While Freshdesk’s automation features are commendable, the platform could further enhance user experience by offering deeper customization options for chatbots to provide a more personalized customer service.
9. GetGuru
GetGuru is a knowledge management tool that lets you create knowledge bases--centralized and universally accessible sources of important company information.
GetGuru is used by some of the world's largest companies to improve customer support, reduce training costs, and speed up product development.
With the integration of AI, your team will be coached in real-time within the Zendesk Suite. You can establish a single source of truth with Guru across all knowledge sources, documents, and teams. With Q&A functionality, you can also suggest the appropriate subject matter expert to answer your questions based on context.
You get access to templates, from onboarding to SOP templates, that help you create databases of information that amount to nothing less than the totality of all organizational knowledge that people can access when they need it. With GetGuru, you can find the answers to your customers' questions faster and easier.
GetGuru also allows you to share your knowledge with your team so they can be more efficient in their work. Its tiered pricing ranges from free (with $5 per additional user) to 10 and 20 dollars per user per month.
Features:
- Knowledge management with AI integration.
- Real-time coaching within Zendesk Suite.
- Centralized knowledge bases for company information.
- Templates for onboarding and SOPs.
Our Opinion
This product plays a critical role in knowledge management by centralizing company information, which is invaluable for large organizations. The AI integration within tools like Zendesk Suite for real-time coaching is a forward-thinking feature that can significantly enhance the customer service experience. GetGuru could improve accessibility by simplifying the interface for new users to ensure they can fully leverage the platform’s capabilities.
Conclusion
Managing a team is hard. Managing a team of experts is even more challenging. Because every professional has their approach for reaching the target thus have their priorities towards that. To track the performance and increase your bottom line, you need to purchase the right tools to automate your business. Thankfully, many business automation tools will let you stay on top of your workflow and drastically improve your management's efficiency.
But keep in mind that if you can afford that, you do not need to turn your workflow into a high-end tech hub. Pick the best business automation tool within the context of your business needs and goals.