Running an online business takes a lot of effort. Many businesses large and small are struggling to optimize productivity, leading to declining profit margins. Automation is the process of automating specific business processes, rather than using humans to increase efficiency. Automation helps companies avoid wasting employees on simple tasks 22 hours a week. Automation is designed to make processes more cost-effective, streamlined, error-proof and transparent, but implementing automated processes can be expensive.

Automation is definitely worth the money, but this can make a difference in terms of return on investment. So ideally, you need to know how much effort this business automation takes and how quickly you can get your money back. Finding the right balance is often a daunting task for operations managers and business owners. However, advances in technology and competition have created new opportunities. By focusing on tasks that are now easy and affordable to automate, businesses can keep profits soaring without a large capital investment.

So how should companies be looking to implement automated solutions?

Automated Customer Service

At first glance, it may seem counterintuitive to exclude humans from the problem-solving equation. But the software has come a long way since desperately trying to reach humans on the other end of automated recordings. Unlike humans, automated support systems are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They are also cheaper than human account managers. Here are some suggestions for a customer support system that can help you simplify and automate your business processes:

Canned responses: A preset email response to every ticket that assures customers your team is working to resolve the issue.

Customer Relationship Management Software (CRMs) is a tool that's designed to help your organization offer your customers a unique and seamless experience.

Chatbots and other automated customer service software can make the process of handling customer requests and problems easier. From opening new tickets to automatically answering simple questions, this type of software will help your team effectively handle communication without devoting all of your time to it.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) chatbot: An in-browser chat feature that can answer customer questions, direct customers to answers, or route them to the proper channel for support.

Reputation monitoring software can help your company stay on top of what your customers aren’t telling you. From review sites to social media, trying to keep up with all mentions of your brand online would be a never-ending job.

Financial Automation

Financial Automation Depending on your preferred software solution, it can include robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, or even a combination of the two in intelligent automation. Financial tasks can also take a lot of time, depending on the industry. While many e-commerce platforms like Shopify offer help with financial tasks like billing and invoicing, other industries may be entirely on their own. If you're looking for a little help with your finances, let's look at some examples of financial processes that are fully aligned with automated solutions.

Obviously, every business needs billing and invoicing. Automated software can quickly identify anomalies between accounts payable, receivables and invoices.With automation, your team can replace all manual accounts receivable processes so that invoices are uploaded quickly and human error is prevented. From credit management to invoicing, you can better manage cash flow using automation.

Taxes can also be a time-consuming (and sometimes painful) task for all kinds of businesses. Thankfully, a lot of the tax process can be automated. Tax payment automation software calculates and files tax documents, effectively doing the tax work for you. This frees your finance team from cumbersome manual processes and allows them to focus on strategic decisions. Many of the billing and invoicing software options also calculate taxes or offer plug-ins with tax-specific applications.

Automated Inventory

An automated inventory management system is a software that can handle many repetitive inventory management tasks on its own without the need for human labor. Most retail businesses now assume inventory automation, especially in e-commerce. However, not every business has access to automated inventory management tools, and they can be expensive. Finding the right tool depends on your budget and personal needs. An automated inventory management system provides accurate, real-time inventory counts for your inventory. With manual inventory management, you can only estimate the amount of available inventory between counts. Automated inventory management also greatly reduces human error by removing the human element from everything but the actual handling of items.

There are a wide variety of inventory management systems available today, from enterprise-level behemoths that can even run robotic pickers to very cost-effective systems meant to help SMBs improve their business processes. Before committing to any tool, do your research. Every tool will offer different levels of management and a variety of integration options. This may be an area where you want to allocate additional funds, as these automated tools often save a lot of time and labor in the end.

Marketing Automation

Whatever your focus, automating processes can make your life easier. Again, research will be important as these services vary widely. Here are some of the many options that exist:

Managing social media can be difficult -- especially for businesses with multiple brands or multiple products. Solutions that allow you to schedule posts for all your sites in one place can make this easier. It can also provide information to increase marketers’ understanding of customers and help them run more targeted and measurable effective campaigns. Some even offer options to post some curated content for you or let you manage your social inbox from one place.

Email outreach is another area where automation makes sense. Drip campaigns and email newsletters just got easier with software that does most of the work for you.

Programmatic marketing is a little different from the other items on our list in that it is an automated process.

It can be much more helpful than traditional means of advertising because it works in real-time and targets high-value potential customers. However, it is often prone to fraud and can be expensive.

Fraud Prevention

Unfortunately, every business must deal with fraud at some point. Automated Fraud Analytics allows you to make sure you learn about the possible fraudulent activity when it has not started yet, have all the data and analysis crucial to make accurate and timely decisions and uncover complicated fraud cases. With so much data available and new technology, it’s easier than ever for online fraud to persist.

Companies need a defense system that will protect them from all sides. Most fraud prevention companies specialize in a particular type of fraud, which could mean you’ll need more than one solution. Here are a few types of fraud prevention to consider:

Transaction fraud protection comes in a variety of forms. There are fully automated solutions or flexible rule-based solutions that give you more control. Look for a product that will integrate easily with your system and has a quick set-up to get started right away. Customized protection options are also available, but they can be more costly.

Ad fraud is also a concern online. There are a variety of ways that cyber criminals can carry out ad fraud. From retargeting fraud to pixel stuffing, there are a variety of ways your ad budget can be drained. Check for a solution that integrates easily with the ad networks and agencies you use. These solutions can be expensive, so consider how much you spend on advertising and set a budget accordingly.

Data breaches have been a large concern for companies lately. Even companies with a full-time data protection officer struggle to keep their information shielded from hackers and bad actors. Consider using an outside company to help keep your data secure, protected, and organized.

Sometimes the hardest part of implementing an automated system is deciding what you need now and what can wait until later. Our suggestion is to always start with things that could immediately affect your revenue — either positively or negatively. Hopefully, this guide will serve as a good primer. By now, you should have a clearer idea of which tools make sense for your company.