A few months ago we made a post about how AI can help small businesses weather the storm. Now it’s time to write about how, in turn, RPA can be leveraged by SMBs for the same purpose and also in order to boost efficiency, reduce error rates, and help compete with larger rivals.
As data volumes and customer expectations rapidly increase, SMBs now face many of the same challenges as their enterprise-level counterparts – but often without the in-house staffing or infrastructure to handle the flood.
RPA can be the right means to bridge this gap by shifting responsibility for tedious and repetitive tasks from human staffers to software “robots” capable of completing the same jobs more efficiently and with fewer mistakes. Let’s mention three ways SMBs can benefit from using RPA to boost operational outcomes.
- RPA Can Add Customer Support Channels
RPA tools can help small businesses boost customer support as consumer expectations evolve. About 20% of small businesses think that the ideal response time to customer inquiries is less than 10 minutes. RPA can streamline this process by underpinning new connective solutions such as chatbots, virtual agents capable of responding to common customer queries thus improving customer service without the need for additional staff. - RPA Automates E-Commerce Tasks
RPA solutions offer a way to level the playing field. For example, the tools could be used to collect and compile customer data from disparate sources to help marketers identify ideal advertising strategies that match target consumer expectations. Or they could be used in e-commerce payment processes to ensure credit card data is handled in compliance with key regulations, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. - RPA Simplifies Data Backups
According to Security Boulevard, even an hour of downtime can cost small businesses up to $50,000 and irreparable loss of customers which means a disaster for SMBs. RPA solutions can reduce potential downtime by automating backup and recovery. Robotic processes can be programmed to regularly copy critical data from onsite servers to cloud services or physical media, and they can be used to recover this data if downtime is detected.
RPA is on the way up, that’s why small businesses are best served by applying automation to marketing, data backup, and customer support processes ASAP.
