5 Signs Your Business Needs AI Automation for Growth

How do I know if my business needs AI automation?

To run a business successfully you will have to balance many areas including your customer expectations, processes, employee productivity and long term growth. As your company grows, processes that used to be done in minutes can turn into time consuming repeated processes. This can cause employees to waste time doing tasks like updating spreadsheets, answering general queries, managing data and chasing up tasks.

Using AI automation within your business can help streamline your repetitive processes, help organise your data and speed up processes. However, you want to make sure you aren’t using AI automation just because it’s the latest trend. Your processes should have a genuine problem to solve, fit within your processes and provide real value.

Quick Answer

If your business is encountering issues with time spent on repetitive tasks, problems with managing customer queries, disorganised data, frequent errors or pressure to grow your business then AI automation could be helpful. However, if your process is unclear, data is unreliable or you don’t have enough tasks then it would be wise to improve the basics first.

5 Signs Your Business Could Benefit From AI Automation

1. Too much time spent on repetitive tasks

If your team are spending too much time doing the same admin tasks then you could benefit from AI automation.

These tasks can include:

• Data entry across multiple spreadsheets and software applications.
• Organising incoming emails and assigning requests.
• Creating regular reports from multiple data sources.
• Sending reminders and follow-ups.
• Extracting data from invoices, forms or documents.

Although these tasks can seem trivial, they can add up and take away valuable time from your team to focus on building strong relationships with your customers, planning and problem solving.

For example, if your sales team are manually checking all incoming queries, adding details to the CRM system and assigning leads to the correct person then using a suitable automation process can help extract the right information, sort the queries and assign to the correct team member.

You won’t completely replace your employees with automation, but it will help reduce any unnecessary manual processes.

What to do next

• Identify the top 3 most repetitive tasks your team are completing. 
• Try to estimate how much time they’re spending and whether there are rules or guidelines for the process. 
• These would be good candidates to start with.
  
  

2. Difficult to manage customer queries

Customers expect quick responses, clear information and reliable service. If your business is receiving a high number of queries that your team can’t easily cope with then your response times may start to suffer.

This often happens when your team are having to manually monitor all customer communications.

AI automation can help with:

• Categorising customer queries.
• Answering general queries using approved information.
• Assigning queries to the correct department.
• Summarising conversations for your customer service team.
• Highlighting queries that need urgent human attention.

If your online retail business is receiving lots of queries related to order status, stock availability, delivery and returns then automation can help answer simple queries quickly. If there are complex queries then these can be sent through to a human.

You won’t want to fully automate any complaints, sensitive data, unusual requests or anything that requires discretion. However, it’s important to have a clear process in place to get the right person to help with these queries.

MatchBest can help your business understand what technology and processes you would need to implement for a wider AI automation solution.

What to do next

• Review your most common customer queries and see what can be answered accurately using approved information. 
• Start with a few simple queries.

3. You’re making frequent mistakes due to manual processes

Whilst manual processes shouldn’t be inherently unreliable, experienced employees can be great at completing complex tasks. However, if your process consists of regularly copying, checking and moving data then mistakes can occur.

This could include entering the wrong customer details, missing out a field on an invoice, assigning requests to the wrong team or using an outdated spreadsheet. Reoccurring mistakes can affect your customer experience, reporting and decisions.

Using AI assisted automation can help extract data, check fields against rules, highlight discrepancies and assign exceptions.

If your accounts team are processing supplier invoices then data can be extracted to show invoice number, date, amount and supplier. This can then be matched to existing information. Any missing fields or unusual data can be highlighted.

However, there can be mistakes made with AI systems. If data isn’t correctly extracted from documents, unclear information or unexpected inputs then incorrect data can be created. It’s important to have validation rules, audit trails and the correct human checks in place.

What to do next

• Identify what mistakes are commonly made, why they’re likely to happen and what impact they’re causing. 
• If you have a repeatable process that is causing mistakes to be made then automation with validation can help reduce these.
  
  

4. Disorganised business data

If your data is spread across multiple systems including spreadsheets, emails, customer databases, project management systems and documents then your employees can struggle to get a full picture.

Employees may be wasting time searching through multiple applications to answer simple queries or create reports. Different departments may also be holding conflicting information.

AI automation can help with connecting processes, summarising relevant data, categorising documents and finding information. Depending on what systems you have in place, data can be pulled from approved sources and a summary created.

For example, if your project manager is using a process to pull together updates, identify any outstanding items and create a summary report then they can focus on understanding why they are delayed and what they need to focus on.

However, you won’t want to connect systems if your data isn’t consistent. Automation won’t reliably help with inconsistent data, unclear ownership and missing information.

What to do next

• Identify where key business data is held, who owns it and what systems need to interact. 
• Ensure you have the correct permissions and reliable data sources.
• Once this is in place you can look at adding AI features.

For businesses planning a broader technology upgrade, MatchBest Group's approach to AI, cloud, and digital transformation provides additional context on these connected areas.

5. Growth pressure

Even if your sales are doing well, you may encounter pressure from growing your business. This can cause more queries, transactions, reports, support requests and coordination internally.

You may need to employ more staff however some processes can be streamlined to help your existing team cope with the increased workload.

For example, if your professional services business is growing then you may want to automate sending reminders for appointments, categorising initial queries, gathering documents and providing regular project updates. This can free up more time for your employees to focus on talking to clients, making complex decisions and delivering a high quality.

Identify what processes can be automated and what requires expertise.

Make sure that your process can scale. If you’re only receiving 20 requests a week then your process maybe different if you receive 2000 requests. Think about what permissions you’ll need, capacity of systems, exception handling and monitoring.

What to do next

• Identify what processes are causing a bottleneck as demand increases. 
• Try to estimate how much it will cost to improve these processes.
• Focus on processes that will provide clear business value.

3 Signs Your Business Doesn’t Need AI Automation

It’s also important to know when not to implement AI automation. If your business doesn’t have a clear problem to solve then it may be wise to delay.

1. Unclear or frequently changing processes

AI automation works best when there is a clear process to improve. If your employees are doing things differently every time, roles aren’t clear or approvals change unexpectedly then automation could cause confusion.

For example, if you automate your sales approval process but haven’t decided who should be approving discounts then queries could be sent to the wrong person, creating unnecessary delays and decisions being made without the correct authorisation.

AI can help with interpreting some variations however you shouldn’t expect it to help with all disagreements.

Instead, document your process, decide who is responsible, what exceptions there are and make sure the process is standardised where needed. Once your process is stable you can look at automation.

3.  Unreliable data and no security controls in place

AI systems will rely on the data available. If there is old data, duplicates, missing fields and conflicting sources then your automation may not produce quality data.

It’s also important to consider security. Make sure you understand what data your AI system will have access to, how it will process it and who will have access to the output.

For example, if you connect your AI assistant to a shared drive without carefully considering who has access then you could be exposing documents to the wrong people.

Instead, clean up your key data, decide who has access, review how your vendor will handle your data and set rules for sensitive data. Think about the risk.

3. Not frequent enough or unclear benefits

Not all manual processes will require an AI solution. If your process doesn’t happen very often, doesn’t take much time and doesn’t cause many errors then it may not be worth the cost of implementing and maintaining an automation solution.

A simple spreadsheet, standard operating procedure, calendar reminder or traditional software integration may be a better solution.

For example, if your small company only sends a few invoices a month then you may not need an advanced AI invoice processing solution. A basic accounting tool may be sufficient.

Instead, try to estimate how much time you’ll save, how much it will cost to implement, how much effort will be required to maintain, how many errors you’ll reduce and what impact it could have on your business. If you don’t think there will be much benefit then improve your process.

AI Automation vs Traditional Automation

AI automation and traditional automation can often overlap. It will depend on what process you’re trying to automate.

Traditional automation is often the easiest option to use if you have clear rules and predictable inputs. AI can be a more useful option if your process requires interpretation, categorising varied data or creating a draft.

Some businesses will benefit from a hybrid solution. Using standard rules to manage permissions and predictable processes whilst using AI to help with interpretation. Where there are serious consequences for incorrect results it’s important to have human review.

How to Decide if AI Automation is Worthwhile

Before investing in a new solution try using a simple process to analyse the task.

Step 1 – Identify the problem. What is the issue you’re facing? For example, customer queries are taking too long to assign or your employees are spending several hours creating reports.

Step 2 – Measure the current process. How often is the task being completed? How much time is being spent? How many errors are occurring? Are there any delays? Who is completing the task? Try to observe rather than assume.

Step 3 – Pick the simplest solution. Compare improvements to your process, traditional automation, software integrations and AI assisted processes. AI should only be chosen if it will solve a specific problem.

Explore MatchBest's technology solutions to find options that align with your business needs.

Step 4 – Pilot. Start with one process, a small group of people and clear success criteria. Try with normal inputs and unusual/failure inputs.

Step 5 – Review. Compare your pilot to your original process. How much time have you saved? Has it improved accuracy? What impact has it had on your running costs? Has it improved the experience for your employees? What impact has it had on your customers? How much human input is still needed?

A useful thing to do is calculate the net benefit.

Net benefit = Measurable benefits – Cost to implement and maintain.

Benefits could include less manual work, less errors and faster service. Costs could include software, development, integration, training, monitoring and maintenance. Not all benefits will be monetary however it’s good to be clear on your assumptions to avoid unrealistic expectations.

For organisations wanting to understand the risks of using AI, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework can help.

Final Thoughts

AI automation can be a great option for your business if you’re facing issues with repetitive processes, frequent errors, customer service, disorganised data or pressure to grow. The best place to start will usually be a specific task that can be measured, trialled and improved.

However, if your processes aren’t clear, data isn’t reliable, you don’t have security controls in place or you’re unsure what the return will be then it would often be more practical to improve the basics.

The aim of using AI automation is to make everyday tasks more reliable, free up your employees to do valuable tasks and provide processes to help your business grow.

For more technology insights, business updates, and information about MatchBest Group, connect with MatchBest Group on LinkedIn.