automation | PAteam

The Top 3 Automation Trends For Logistics

by marketing | Jul 31, 2023 | Robotic Process Automation

While the logistics industry is fairly timeless, people have been storing and transporting goods for millennia; it’s seeing a remarkable transformation at the hands of technology. The means of storage and transportation have steadily evolved, but what we’re seeing now is changing the way businesses operate at their core. Automation is a core component of that change – and the businesses that want to keep up need to pay attention.

Automation In Supply Chain Management

One of the prominent areas where automation is making an impact is supply chain management. Automated demand forecasting systems leverage algorithms and machine learning to analyze historical data, market trends, and customer behavior, enabling businesses to make accurate predictions and optimize inventory levels.

Automated inventory management systems track stock levels, monitor replenishment needs, and trigger alerts, making sure that inventory control is accurate – reducing the risk of stockouts or overstocking. These automated systems save time and effort and improve supply chain efficiency, leading to improved customer delivery.

Warehouse Automation

Another area witnessing a big transformation is warehouse operations. The thinking for anyone outside of logistics is, “It’s just a storage space; how can it really change?”. If you work in logistics, you know how complex they can be.

Automated material handling systems, including robotics, conveyor belts, and autonomous vehicles, aren’t all that new – at least not for big businesses. But because technology is becoming more accessible, smaller organizations can now improve, revolutionizing how goods are moved, stored, and picked up in warehouses.

These technologies minimize manual labor, increase picking accuracy, and accelerate order fulfillment. Warehouse automation ensures efficient space utilization, reduces errors, and improves productivity, enabling businesses to meet customer demands more quickly and accurately. This physical automation of activities is now being more deeply integrated with backend software to visualize efficiency. This helps transport planners and supply chain managers more effectively manage the movement of goods.

Last-Mile Delivery Automation

The last-mile delivery is often considered the most critical and challenging aspect of logistics. Thankfully, tech is taking the industry not just a step closer but a good leap toward integrating it more easily into operations everywhere.

Automation technologies, such as route optimization algorithms and real-time tracking systems, are improving the efficiency and reliability of last-mile delivery. Route optimization algorithms analyze factors such as traffic conditions, delivery priorities, and vehicle capacities to determine the most efficient delivery routes.

Real-time tracking systems provide visibility into the delivery process, allowing businesses and customers to track shipments in real time and receive timely updates. This takes a big weight off customer service agents because they can find the information they need by themselves, allowing CS agents to focus on more important tasks.

What Does The Future Of Logistics Automation Look Like?

Looking ahead, the future of logistics automation holds even more exciting possibilities. Smart warehouses, equipped with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics, will transform the way warehouses operate. These intelligent warehouses will be able to optimize storage space, automate inventory management, and enable predictive maintenance on equipment throughout the site.

Technologies like autonomous drones and self-driving vehicles are expected to revolutionize delivery processes, but their biggest barrier to entry will be legislation designed to protect the public – and rightly so.

Automation reshapes the logistics industry, drives efficiency, and transforms traditional operations. From supply chain management to warehouse operations and last-mile delivery, automation is revolutionizing key areas of logistics. By leveraging automated systems and technologies, businesses can become more competitive and meet and even exceed customer expectations. As the logistics industry continues to evolve, embracing automation and staying ahead of the latest trends will be crucial for success.

To learn more about how automation can revolutionize your logistics operations, get in touch with PAteam today – we’re the experts you need.

Maximizing ROI Through Strategic Automation: A Roadmap For Business Leaders

by marketing | Jun 19, 2023 | Robotic Process Automation

Strategic automation is the application of technology to streamline business operations, increase productivity, and reduce costs. Safe to say it’s an essential tool in the modern business landscape. In this blog, we roll out a practical roadmap built on four key steps you can use to maximize your automation ROI.

The four steps to maximizing ROI roadmap

Step 1: Identify processes to automate

The first vital step in your automation journey involves identifying the right processes to automate. Not every operation within a business is an ideal candidate for automation, so careful consideration is needed to select processes that would truly benefit from it.

The objective is to find tasks that are repetitive, rule-based, and high-volume – areas where human error is a risk, and where automation can deliver improvements in accuracy and efficiency. Think about time-intensive data entry tasks or complex report generation – these can be perfect for automation and could free up valuable staff time.

Step 2: Define goals and objectives

Having clear goals and objectives can significantly enhance your automation ROI. A clarity of purpose allows your organization to focus on areas that will yield the most significant results.

To set effective goals, start with the broader business objectives – like increasing productivity, reducing operational costs, or improving customer service. Then, consider how automation can contribute to these objectives. For instance, you could aim to cut data processing time by half or aim to reduce manual errors by 80%. Clear, measurable goals will guide your automation strategy and keep your efforts aligned with the business’s broader mission.

Step 3: Develop a plan for implementation

A well-thought-out plan for implementation is another cornerstone in maximizing ROI through strategic automation. This includes establishing a realistic timeline, budgeting for the technology, and ensuring that you have the necessary human staff to implement the tech.

The implementation plan should also consider potential challenges and build contingencies for them. You need to consider questions like “What happens if the implementation takes longer than expected?”, “How will staff be trained to use the new systems?”, “What are the fallback plans in case of unforeseen hurdles?”. If you can build solid answers to these questions, you’ll be in very good stead.

Step 4: Measure and optimize

Finally, you need to measure the success of your automation projects and track your ROI. This involves setting up relevant metrics and benchmarks that align with the goals and objectives you set in step two.

By regularly evaluating your performance against these benchmarks, you can adjust and refine your approach. This continual cycle of measurement and optimization ensures that your automation efforts remain effective, efficient, and adaptable to evolving business needs and available technology.

The power of strategic automation

Maximizing ROI through strategic automation is more than just a business strategy – it’s a key to unlocking new levels of operational efficiency and effectiveness. By identifying suitable processes, defining goals, developing an implementation plan, and continuously optimizing, this four-step roadmap can guide your business toward success in its automation endeavors.

Ready to embark on your own strategic automation journey and unlock maximum ROI? Contact PAteam today and let’s start transforming your business together.

Unlocking The Power Of KPIs: A Guide To Optimizing Contact Center Performance

by marketing | May 23, 2023 | Robotic Process Automation

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial in shaping the success of any contact center. By understanding their importance and creating effective ways to optimize them, you can take your contact center’s performance to new heights.

In this blog post, we will explore what contact center KPIs are, why they’re important, the top four KPIs to focus on, how to set targets, and the best practices for KPI monitoring and optimization.

What are contact center KPIs and why are they important?

KPIs are the metrics that organizations use to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of everything they’re doing. When used correctly, they can provide valuable insight into performance, enabling businesses to identify areas for improvement and monitor progress toward broader business goals.

KPIs are essential for optimizing contact center performance because they’re environments with a lot of moving parts that rely on both people and technology. Those organizations that understand and implement KPIs are able to allocate resources more effectively, streamline their operations, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Top 4 KPIs in contact centers

There’s a huge variety in the KPIs you can choose to apply in your contact center, and what you choose will be based on your overall business goals, as well as how your contact center is organized. Here are our top 4 KPIs for use in contact centers.

Reducing customer effort: To improve the customer experience, contact centers should focus on reducing friction points and making interactions as smooth as possible. This involves identifying and eliminating obstacles in the customer journey, from navigating IVR menus, to accessing self-service options. For example, you could measure how long it takes for a customer to find a resolution with your web chatbot.
Reducing call volume: Using predictive analytics can help contact centers anticipate customer needs and proactively address them – reducing the overall call volume. This frees up agents to handle more complex issues that require a human touch, while also giving customers quicker resolutions via FAQs or chatbots. Measuring the number of calls you receive is a very basic metric, but a very important one, as it has a direct impact on the human resources you need.
Optimizing call-handling time: The goal is to strike the right balance between efficiency and customer satisfaction. Spending too little time on a call may leave the customer feeling rushed, while spending too much time can mean your operators aren’t working efficiently enough. The perfect call-handling time ensures that agents are providing thorough, efficient assistance that meets customer expectations. But that isn’t a totally qualitative metric. In fact, you can benchmark your staff when you set up the KPI and then track Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) alongside it: to see if improvements in time positively or negatively impact it.
Improved service quality: Several key metrics that reflect the overall quality of contact center performance include After Call Work (ACW), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Agent Satisfaction (ASAT), and First Call/Contact Resolution (FCR). By focusing on metrics like these, contact centers can enhance both agent performance and customer satisfaction – both of which contribute to wider goals like business growth. After all, happy staff do better work and happy customers spend more money – generally at least.

How to set KPIs

When setting KPIs, it’s important to establish realistic and achievable targets that align with the organization’s broader objectives – just like with any goal. This involves understanding the current performance levels and determining what improvements are attainable within a given timeframe.

Involving employees in the target-setting process can also go a long way in creating a sense of ownership and commitment within your organization, as they can contribute their insights and expertise and are given targets they actually believe in rather than something ‘invented’ by their managers.

Best practices for KPI monitoring and optimization

While KPIs are going to be reasonably unique between different contact centers – best practice covers them all. There are key principles you should follow if you want your KPIs to really deliver.

Regularly monitor and report: To effectively manage KPIs, contact centers should establish regular monitoring and reporting processes. This ensures that everyone involved stays up-to-date about performance trends, can identify issues early on, and can make data-driven decisions to address challenges.

Continuously review and refine: As business priorities and customer needs evolve, it’s essential to review and adjust KPIs accordingly. This involves analyzing performance data to identify new trends, reevaluating the relevance of existing KPIs, and establishing new ones to meet changing goals.
Celebrate successes and address failures: Recognizing and celebrating achievements can help to motivate employees and reinforce the importance of KPIs. Similarly, addressing areas where performance falls short enables organizations to learn from mistakes and make necessary improvements.

Putting it all together

Optimizing contact center performance hinges on understanding and leveraging KPIs effectively. By focusing on key metrics such as reducing customer effort, call volume, call-handling time, and service quality, organizations can drive growth and improve customer satisfaction.

Whether it’s customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, or top line growth, achieving well-mapped KPIs can go a long way in achieving wider business goals, providing you set realistic targets, involve employees, and monitor and review performance regularly.

Do you want to improve your contact center performance? Automation is perfectly placed to help and PAteam are the experts, so get in contact with us today.

Introducing Assisted Automation

by marketing | May 9, 2023 | Robotic Process Automation

As the automation industry continues to grow and evolve, we believe it’s time to reconsider the language we use to describe one of its key components. Tech buzzwords are thrown around with reckless abandon – but we want to seize a very specific term.

In fact, once we’re finished with this blog, we’re no longer going to use the term “attended automation”. From this day forward, it shall be called “assisted automation”. Here’s why.

Attended Automation: The Status Quo

Any automation that is designed to work alongside people (rather than replace them entirely) is usually called attended automation. It’s been created to build a more collaborative and integrated work environment, with human performance enhanced by the technology. We’re big fans of that concept… but not the name. ‘Attended’, to some, sounds like a less robust version of automation, and to others it means nothing at all – just another bit of jargon.

The Rebranding: Assisted Automation

Assisted is a far more accurate term to brand this breed of automation with. It focuses on the supportive nature of the technology, while also avoiding the sometimes negative connotations with the word ‘attended’. Remember, automation isn’t about replacing a person, it’s all about helping all people do better work – assisting them.

Why The Need For Change?

To start, clarity in technical jargon is long overdue in our industry (and many others). Using assisted automation as the go-to term from here on out will help to introduce new people to the technology in the clearest way. Easier to understand means easier to adopt. Also, ‘assisted’ just sounds nicer. People are going to be far less afraid of technology stealing their job if it’s positioned as a purely supportive tool.

‘Attended’ doesn’t really give us enough to work with. Is it the bot attending a problem? Is it a bot only working when a person is by its virtual side? That’s the problem with bad naming conventions: they don’t highlight the essence of something. If you’re trying to bring assisted automation into your business, the last thing you want to be doing is explaining the basics of it every time you start a new conversation with someone.

Here’s To A Helping Hand

Well, that’s it, we’re officially over the word ‘attended’ from…now. assisted automation is the future. It’s here to help, super useful across a host of applications – particularly in contact centers – and it’s only going to get more powerful. Get on the bandwagon and make assisted automation a part of your business, help your team work better, and deliver better results for your clients.

See the value of good names for great technology? assisted automation is everything you need and more, so start the journey today with PAteam.

Why Automation Is Perfect For Contact Centers

by marketing | Apr 21, 2023 | Robotic Process Automation

Automation offers contact centers improved efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction – it’s a revolutionary technology. In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits, discuss how to successfully implement automation, and even share some insight into our recent work with FedEx that demonstrates the power of automation in optimizing contact center performance.

The role of automation in contact centers

In the past few years, automation has been something of a revelation for contact centers, with a wide range of potential applications – from chatbots and voice bots to the automation of data capture and processing. By automating repetitive tasks and offering instant support to customers, these tools have revolutionized the way contact centers are able to operate.

For example, chatbots can handle a variety of customer queries, from providing information about products or services to troubleshooting basic issues, and all without the need for human intervention. Similarly, voice bots can interact with customers via telephone, offering quick and efficient responses, in a more personal way, but still without the need for a human operator.

This not only frees up customer service agents to handle more complex tasks but also ensures that customers receive assistance quickly, which can be one of the most common causes of frustration for customers using contact centers.

The benefits of automation in contact centers

Many of the standard benefits of automation are applicable in a contact center environment, here are a few of the headline improvements a contact center can tap into with the right automation:

Improved Efficiency and Productivity
Automation reduces the workload of human customer service agents, allowing them to focus on more critical tasks. This improves overall efficiency and productivity in the contact center, as well as employee satisfaction
Enhanced Customer Experience
Tools, like chatbots, offer rapid responses to customer queries, leading to higher customer satisfaction. Because these tools are always online, customers can receive support 24/7, without having to wait for contact centers to open

Increased Accuracy and Consistency
Automation ensures that customers receive accurate and consistent information, as automated responses are based on pre-set data. This helps reduce human error and maintain a high standard of service

4. Cost Savings and Improved ROI
Implementing automation can lead to significant cost savings, as fewer human agents are required to handle customer inquiries. The improved efficiency and customer satisfaction brought about by automation can lead to higher revenue and a better return on investment in the long term

Implementing automation in contact centers

If you’re interested in bringing automation into your contact center, there are some key steps you need to cover. Firstly, you need to identify the processes in your business and understand which can or can’t be automated, and which gives you the best ROI. When you’re starting out with automation, you want big wins earlier on to encourage momentum and wider adoption.

Once you understand what you want to automate, you need to pick the right tools to get it done. No two contact centers are the same, so finding technology that fits is very important. That might require you to tweak something off the shelf or build a totally bespoke solution, but either way, it’s got to work.

When you’ve got the tools to automate your chosen workflows, you need to put resources in place that your teams can lean on. That can be in the form of training – ready for the launch of your automation(s) – but may also be in things like a resource center, where FAQs can be covered, and more in-depth content can be available for advanced users or the people you want championing automation in your various departments.

Our FedEx example

We recently worked with FedEx to implement an automated phone system that uses voice recognition technology to identify customers and their needs. The system is able to handle a high volume of calls and can direct customers to the appropriate department quickly and efficiently. Since its implementation, FedEx has seen a significant improvement in customer satisfaction and a reduction in wait times – these are big wins in any contact center.

A Guide For You

While the benefits of automation in contact centers are clear, and the steps to implement seem straightforward, what is truly important is carefully considering the benefits and challenges of automation in the context of your specific business. To do that you might need a guide, an expert, or someone who has done it before. For that, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better partner than PAteam.

Want to make automation a reality in your contact center? Reach out to PAteam and get started today.

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