Business owners considering automation often begin with the wrong question. They ask what AI is capable of, when the more productive question is which process the business repeats most often, and what it costs when that process is delayed.
Three criteria for a first automation
A process is a suitable first candidate when it is:
- Frequent. It occurs daily, not once a quarter.
- Repetitive. The steps are the same on each occasion, even where the details differ.
- Easily verified. It is immediately apparent whether the work has been completed correctly.
Responding to new enquiries usually satisfies all three criteria. So do appointment reminders, and the transfer of details from a form into accounting or booking software.
Processes to exclude initially
Any process in which an error would be costly or difficult to detect should be excluded at the outset. Pricing decisions, complaints, and matters of a medical, legal or financial nature should remain with a member of staff. Automation may prepare the work, for example by drafting a quotation, but a person should approve it.
A simple audit
For one week, ask each member of the team to record every occasion on which they perform the same task more than once. At the end of the week, rank the tasks by frequency. The first two or three are the candidates.
For each candidate, consider a further question: if the process operated unattended and produced an error once in every fifty instances, would the error be noticed, and would it be consequential? Where it would be noticed and would not be consequential, the process is a sound place to begin.
Begin with a single process
Select one process. Configure it so that every action it takes is visible to a member of staff. Operate it for a month and measure a single metric, such as the time a new enquiry waits for a response. If the metric improves, proceed to the next process. If it does not, revise the configuration before adding anything further.