Process automation is completely transforming the way business activities are carried out, and has arrived as a new way to ensure customer satisfaction and increase productivity in companies.
Managing the day-to-day tasks of a business manually can be challenging for a number of reasons; firstly, the list of tasks involved in running a business is endless; and secondly, the time it can take to complete these tasks can be very long, not to mention the human factor, which can lead to major errors in the completion of day-to-day tasks.
The best way to speed up your workflow and become more productive and efficient is to invest in an automation software platform. Automation platforms allow you to create workflows that will perform all your tasks automatically for you. All you have to do is set them up once, and then they will run independently.
But what is the best automation tool for your business? Today we bring you a list of some of the best process automation tools on the market.
why should you have automation software?
Although automation software may seem difficult to use and complex at first, you shouldn't be overwhelmed by all the new features that come with these tools. Any of the programmes we recommend below have specific automation protocols that will be perfect for increasing the efficiency of your business and saving time.
You could fully automate your processes and use a platform like Hubspot, or you could stick with a programme like ActiveCampaign that has simpler and fewer automation features, but can certainly make it easier for you to access this technology. Regardless of which programme you choose, any of these platforms will help your business in the following ways:
- Time savings: By automating tasks, you will have more free time to focus on other equally or more important tasks.
- Increased productivity: Automated tasks run on their own schedule, which means you don't have to worry about forgetting or skipping a task.
- Increased efficiency: Automation keeps everything running smoothly and error-free.
- Reduces human error: Human error can be the cause of many missed opportunities or wasted resources. A good automation tool controls these errors.
10 tools to automate your processes
The following tools are some of the most widely used and efficient on the market:
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HubSpot
HubSpot has been around for a long time and is one of the most popular and beneficial options on this list. With its wide range of automation tools - including email marketing automation, sales funnel template creation and execution, and customer service streamlining - it is an extremely powerful CRM platform that can help automate many aspects of the user journey while tracking customer behaviour.
In Hubspot, you can easily create email workflows for your customers, contacts or leads. With Hubspot's visual editor, you can easily visualise these workflows in real time, whether you are creating simple follow-up campaigns or more complex campaigns.
Hubspot workflows can be used for different tasks - for example, you can create a workflow that triggers an internal notification to your team when a contact performs a specific action, or add a task to Salesforce when your sales team needs to follow up with certain contacts. The possibilities are endless.
One of the great things about HubSpot is its ability to integrate with some of the most popular platforms such as WordPress, Shopify or Magento.
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MailChimp
MailChimp is one of the best platforms out there for automating complex emails and newsletters. Among all of MailChimp's features, its automation tool allows you to send messages to your customers based on who they are and how they relate to your company. This way, you can prioritize those who are most likely to convert or build loyalty.
Some of the most important tasks to automate include:
- Shopper journey
- Personality-based messaging
- Transnational email
- RSS to email
In addition, the system notifies you of the best time to contact a potential customer and the best message to send based on data analysis.
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Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a platform for managing and automating different marketing tasks. It has features for creating and scheduling social media posts, as well as managing all your channels to monitor your posts and messages. Hootsuite also allows you to plan your future campaigns. Among its great benefits, you can interact with users from different networks in a single column.
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Zapier
Zapier is an integration platform that automatically moves information between different online tools, unlocking a more efficient way of working. By giving Zapier the power to handle repetitive tasks in the apps you use every day, you can save time and energy to focus on the things that are more important.
Zapier is a great tool to speed up your workflow and connect apps that wouldn't otherwise be possible through automated connections called Zaps. With Zaps, you can choose an app as a "trigger", which is where the information comes from. When this trigger event occurs, you can choose to send this information automatically and trigger one or more "actions" in another app. Zapier offers integrations with over 3,000 apps, including HubSpot, so it's very likely that your work tools are already included in the Zapier ecosystem.
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Salesforce
Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that provides all departments within an organisation, including marketing, sales, customer service and ecommerce, with a unified view of their customers in one integrated platform.
Thanks to its automation capabilities, your business can:
- Get high quality leads
- Create and target personalised emails
- Accelerate the sales process
- Keep track of the best leads
- Calculate the return on your marketing investment
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ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign's software is especially useful for smaller and growing businesses, offering a wide range of automation features such as email automation, lead capture, lead scoring, event tracking, customer segmentation and predictive sending.
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Asana
Asana is a project management tool that helps you integrate all your business tasks in one place - from planning and tracking your campaigns to closing sales.
Its user interface streamlines project management while encouraging use and interaction between teams in your organisation, and it has useful features such as a task scheduler, automation of repetitive tasks, pre-built templates and reporting dashboards to see where your business stands.
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Monday.com
Monday.com is a CRM designed to allow you to create customised business projects and workflows in minutes with a wide range of templates and blocks.
These visual resources can be applied to any process in any department or industry, and are so easy to use that all you have to do is arrange them and place them where they will be most useful.
This software is designed for professional teams of all sizes, allowing you to tailor it to the specific needs of your organisation, and its core component is a fully customisable table for managing day-to-day tasks as well as large business projects.
In addition to all its advantages, it can also be integrated with HubSpot's CRM, offering a much more complete and efficient experience for your business.
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WorkProject
WorkProject is a project and cost management software that uses market-exclusive technology to determine which project is being worked on and automate time allocation, assisting in project management, task tracking and workload monitoring.
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Buffer
Buffer is a tool that, in addition to automating tasks, allows you to perform audience analysis to determine which content is most successful and engaging.
With its automation feature, you can plan, collaborate and publish your content across multiple channels and social networks, receive reminders to schedule posts, and if you need to make a post of your own, the platform will alert you ahead of time.
