Automation just makes things go wrong quicker!
Many years and several business lifetimes ago, during a meeting about organising stock handling, it seemed an obvious solution, to me at least, to computerise and automate the entire process.
Parts come in, they are checked against the computer for accuracy against order, entered into the stock and then a barcode is printed and stuck to the box or bag, to scan when they are removed. Pretty simple. And we were all talking positively about how this could be implemented when, the then Technical Director made a statement, “simply adding automation will just make things go wrong faster”. Internally I screamed “Luddite!” but the doubt was cast and the meeting ended with the project on hold.
With the magnifying glass of hindsight and experience, I can now see that he was absolutely right. Without a stress-tested and robust process in place, there is no level of automation that can overcome or make up for inherent problems in the system. If you want evidence of this, you only need to try and contact any large UK institution or company and ready yourself for the extreme ‘Thumb War’ that trying to speak to someone has now become.
We, like yourselves I am sure, have seen adverts for AI systems being touted as the solution to freeing up staff to do more of the jobs that they want to do. The reality seems to be, that without corrections to their systems, more personnel have now become involved in firefighting the increasing numbers of ‘automation system’ angered customers. Surely it is common sense, that if we could answer our issue without waiting ice ages for chatbots or phones to be answered, then we would.
For small businesses the answer is clear. Make sure your systems are accurate, organised, and streamlined, then you will score really heavily in terms of overall customer satisfaction over your larger competitors. It is then up to your team to turn this positivity into enquiries and ultimately sales coming in.
Creatively Yours…
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