What are examples of workflow automation?
Examples of workflow automation span a wide range of business functions and industries, typically aimed at automating repetitive and manual tasks to boost efficiency, accuracy, and productivity.
Here are some concrete examples:
- Employee onboarding and offboarding: Automating the collection and sharing of new hire information across departments like HR, Payroll, and IT; offboarding workflows ensure security and information continuity when employees leave.
- Expense reimbursement: Employees submit online reimbursement requests which are routed automatically for manager approval, finance evaluation, and payroll integration, sometimes with rules for automatic approval of small expenses.
- Employee status changes: Automate updating employee status data across HRIS and other systems when promotions or terminations occur, sending notifications for each change.
- Customer service workflows: Automate case creation, customer ID verification, dispute handling, and notifications to speed up support and improve case resolution quality.
- Sales workflows: Automate quote creation, contract approvals, onboarding new customers, follow-up reminders, and renewal reminders to reduce admin work and accelerate sales cycles.
- Marketing workflows: Automate social media post scheduling, negative review responses, customer opt-out management, lead generation reports, and engagement tracking.
- IT support workflows: Automate employee account setups, software/device requests, project requests, and service ticket handling to accelerate IT operations.
- Project and task automation: Automatically assign tasks based on status changes, deadlines, and availability; streamline sprint planning and bug triage in product development.
- Customer support ticketing: Ticket routing, acknowledgment, and resolution tracking through automated systems reduce response times and free staff for complex issues.