The Things You Can Automate and Still Stay Human

By: Harmeet Singh

Whenever automation takes center stage, the audience responds with wonderment on their faces while presuming that humans will be replaced. This is a natural response—one that has intensified after witnessing automation taking over production, manufacturing, and IT industries.

However, assuming that humans will be replaced is nothing but baseless conjecture. Let me ask you:

• Did the 18th-century industrialization disregard the human touch?
• Did the late 20th-century technological revolution discard human creativity?

Have the first two decades of the 21st century replaced the competent human workforce with the long-anticipated robots?

Humans cannot be replaced because we are a species that is known for adaption and growth.

If anything has changed, that's performance. With the advent of automation, human performance has exponentially increased. For that precise reason, this article focuses on staying human in the age of automation and classifying the jobs that can be automated without compromising with the human workforce.

Automation Makes Us More Human

AI-powered systems are gifted with great cognitive skills, which makes them useful for a number of things. These things reflect upon the tasks which require the utmost level of concentration and are redundant in nature. A typical example of such a task is data analytics i.e., analyzing massive chunks of unstructured and repetitive data to create patterns and trends valuable for developing excellent recommendation systems for consumers.

Likewise, numerous big/small and complex/simple repetitive tasks can be automated to eliminate the need of the human brain and employ it in other VALUABLE activities. I'm talking about task reservations and not about a human replacement—point to be noted.

For instance, let's say that you work in the customer support industry. Your daily routine includes analyzing the consumer trends, prioritizing the emails, directing them towards respective sectors, etc. Your job profile, however, requires you to be innovative at developing recommendations that can intrigue the users. But you simply don't have time for the most important thing.

Now, let's assume that your company brings in an AI bot that can do all the aforementioned things. From investigating the patterns on the social network of the users to tagging the important conversations, this bot enables you to reserve time to be creative. It does all the redundant tasks and creates space for innovation and creativity—virtues that define a human and how he/she is different from robots.

Simply put, don't consider AI as smarter because you have qualities that a chatbot can only dream of. We're talking things like creativity, empathy, emotional understanding and you're good to go for satisfying eminent profiles.

Think of AI as the assistant that eases your workload and engages you in the work that is purely human because it is actually an ASSISTANT.

So, what are the things you can automate?

Businesses are often perplexed about the aspects they should automate. This is because several recommendations and promotions pour in whenever help desk automation comes into the picture.

Response

It is reasonable to start from the first level of your business. Primarily, the interaction between you and your clients. Because you are not the only one in your niche, you have to respond fast. For that, you can bring in an automated chatbot for the website. As soon as the client opens the message box, the chatbot starts the conversation and directs them according to their inquiries. This way, your customer knows that your business is responsive and is also swift to respond.

In addition to that, you can automate inquiries related to your company's information often found on the website from which the visitor can receive an immediate response. If I were running a website, I would immediately shoot an email to the client who has completed a form on the website. This email will let the client know that his/her message has reached me and that I will get in touch shortly.

Remember, the first impression is the last impression. Don't leave any stone unturned in developing an effective communication funnel.

The Sales Pipeline

It is difficult to say which lead will convert into a potential customer and whether any lead is ready for becoming the customer in the first place. That's why it is essential that a proper approach to the administering of leads is put in place.

In other words, your business should be aware of the appropriate passageway to lead nurturing. From promoting your products and/or services at every stage of the sales pipeline to listening to the needs of the leads, a business should be equipped with all the resources to intrigue the lead and convert them into a customer.

This is precisely where automation can bring about positive disruption. For instance, if the lead didn't show any signs of converting, you can automate the process of emailing where promotional emails are sent every month. These emails can keep the interest of your lead in your product and services intact.

What about leads that show signs of converting?

For answering this, it's important that we know what the term 'lead scoring' is. In simple words, it is the measurement of a lead's readiness to convert. With efficient automated software in place, lead scoring is something that can be readily achieved. As soon as you identify the prioritized leads, you can always employ professionals to strengthen communication.

Marketing

This is one of the most conspicuous domains of industrial automation for two reasons:

1. It has a definite passageway through which the audience can be targeted.
2. It facilitates the fine integration of the consistency of automated software and the creativity of humans.

For example, if your company endeavors to target a specific audience through the Facebook post, you can always use Facebook's post and event scheduling automation software. This way, the marketing team can spend more time developing visually appealing graphics and equally engaging content.

Another vivid example of marketing automation is email marketing. As explained above, automated software can send emails at regular intervals to identified leads, thus, saving your loads of email-drafting time.

In broad terms, you can entirely automate your marketing strategy for nurturing leads.

Customer Support

Out of all industries, customer support is a sector that confronts immense workload because it is highly active. For that reason, it is viable to automate certain things, including follows ups, behavior prediction, conversation transfer, feedback requests, etc.

An automated chatbot, for instance, can bridge the gap between customers and the customer support representative by seamless transfer of call or message. Other automated technologies can garner insights about consumer's behavior so that the representative is aware of the things that can engage the customer instantly.

It has been observed that the integration of automated software in customer support has led to increased customer satisfaction and reduction of workload. Both customers and employees appear content with the proceedings, which is want a company aspires to achieve. Thus, automation in customer support paves the way for a win-win scenario.

Automation is, undoubtedly, the disruptive force that is in the process of revolutionizing the organizational sector. However, it has to be used for complementing the existing system and not replacing it. Simply put, you wouldn't want to trade creativity, innovation, and empathy for consistency and intelligence. Instead, what you should do is understand both these sides as your arms in the highly competitive market.