As both existing and new technologies drive opportunities for automation which can result in the commoditization of services, how do you know when, where and to what extent you should invest in automation?
Of late, we’ve seen an increasing number of companies adopt current and, occasionally, emerging technologies in attempts to semi- and even wholly automate some of the business processes that connect them with their customers. Perhaps they saw larger companies in their sector do so and followed suit, perhaps skills became scarce and/or expensive, perhaps the technology can already match or exceed the median of human performance required to carry-out the task, perhaps it was a cost-cutting exercise, perhaps it was the diktat of leaders or perhaps it was just a case of ‘the technology enables us to do so, so we will’. Sometimes decision-makers got lucky, more-often-than-not, they didn’t and customer-loyalty was diluted and, sometimes, irreparably damaged by attempts to use technology.
The opportunities extend far beyond labour savings with research suggesting that benefits range from increased output to higher quality and improved reliability, as well as the potential to perform some tasks at superhuman levels, and typically deliver returns between three and ten times the cost. The magnitude of those benefits cannot be ignored and will become an important competitive differentiator but there’s a catch, you’ll need to remember the customer in all of this. These ideas could help you to avoid ‘bullying them into submission’;