At work, most of us are constantly fighting fires trying to meet one or more deadlines.

What could potentially make our lives easier and our hours more productive is delegating work to software built specifically to automate tasks. These can come in handy to get more work done in less time. 

But that’s not all. Not only would the tasks get accomplished without manual intervention, but they would also be free of error and inconsistencies. 

This brings us to our main argument. To survive in a world where speed is your only ally, it is great to have automation tools in your arsenal.

What is task automation?

Task automation is the use of modern technology to accomplish a task for you at work. It helps eliminate any manual interference from your end in the day-to-day activities. With automation, you can free up human time and leave more hours to allocate to better work, not repetitive tasks that can easily be left to machines or a few lines of code.

Think of the welcome email you receive whenever you sign up for a product. These are triggered by an email automation service that sends you the email as soon as you register. Imagine sending them out individually. If you think that would be impossible, you’re correct. And that’s where automation comes in. 

Recommended reading: The ultimate guide to task automation

8 tasks you can automate right away

1. Posting on social media

As a marketing channel, every social media platform now plays a crucial role in attracting and retaining users for the business. This is where brands get recognized and gain popularity.

But given how the channels are so remarkably different from one other, you must have a unique strategy for each. 

This necessitates a different schedule for posting as well, with hours that attract maximum users and engagement.

If you’ve been posting manually and sticking to your schedule, we feel for you. Also, please don’t do that anymore. With a social media automation tool, you’d be able to update brand pages, schedule posts on different platforms, and maximize your reach all from one place. 

If you are looking for a free tool, try out Publer. 

2. Sending outreach emails

No matter how big or small your company is, reaching out to hundreds of potential customers will always be the primary responsibility of your sales team. 

And it is one task that consumes the maximum amount of time. 

Sales personnel or founders type out the same pitch repetitively and send it out to hundreds of folks to find and nurture potential leads when they can save time and use it to craft and execute the right strategies. 

To eliminate manual busywork and save 10+ hours a week, the sales team must adopt text expanders. 

‍Text expanders are tools that can automatically insert predefined text or snippets of text into a document or message. They replace text snippets you repetitively type out with shortcuts to save you time. You can use a text expander to automatically fill out a text block with content in emails, pitches, customer responses, blogs, or code. 

These can be used everywhere you work to insert snippets that include words, paragraphs, formatted lists, images, rich text, or anything you need.

Looking to send out hundreds of outreach emails in a matter of seconds? Try out OSlash today. 

Recommended reading: Embrace fast messaging and better user interactions with OSlash text expander

3. Backing up business data

In the wake of the increasing ransom attacks, backing up business data that is crucial for your organization is no longer an option. 

A data backup process ensures that the organization does not lose any valuable data, thereby ruining its reputation and the trust of the customers.  

Fortunately, you can automate the entire backup process so that the organization can back up files, folders, and systems with zero human intervention. This software not only simplifies backup procedures but also ensures speedy recovery. 

Automated backup systems gather, compress, encrypt and transfer data automatically from a computer system to a backup service provider’s servers An ABS also includes a simple user interface to ensure daily automatic backups occur without further input from the end user. 

This can even be applied to paper documents, thanks to cutting edge optical character recognition (OCR) solutions. That way you can convert bank statements, policy documents and all sorts of other critical pieces of information into a digital format that’s easier to deal with, both for backup purposes and everyday use.

4. Improving customer service

Customer support executives have a hard time replying to 10-100 customers every day who often ask the same questions. 

Replying to each one personally is not just an inefficient (read: expensive) use of their time, it is also extremely taxing on the employees.

Using an automation tool such as OSlash, it is possible for customer support executives to use canned responses to reply quickly, correctly, and consistently. It would allow you to insert templates filled with words in under a second. They are true saviors when support executives have to deal with a high volume of repetitive questions with prompt, respectful, and accurate responses.

Quick tip: A canned response is a quick, standard, and predetermined reply to a routine question. Learn all about canned responses here. 

5. Scheduling meetings

“Can we schedule a call on Tuesday? What time would you prefer?

“Hey just following up on the above.”

“Hey, so would the next week be okay?”

“Nah I am going on a vacation. How about the week after?”

“Sure. I will message you closer to the date.”

How many times do people end up going back & forth until all hopes of such a meeting vanish in thin air? The power of your calendar lies in sharing your availability with others. And it’s great that there are so many tools that can make scheduling all kinds of meetings instantly a breeze. 

With an automatic scheduler, you get a unique URL for each of your event types, which you can customize and share. This allows you to share different availability as well as locations, durations, etc. based on the intent of your meeting and who you’re inviting. It’s all tied to your link! 

You can check out Calendly or SavvyCal. 

6. Processing invoices

Processing and sending out invoices is the most important part of a business. It affects everyone from the management, and employees, to client/vendor relationships. Keeping track of your finances is the only way to ensure what you are doing is actually boosting revenue. Trying to fill and track invoicing and billing details manually is a surefire way to make errors. If you choose to automate just one aspect of your business, it should be finance.

Using automation software for processing invoices makes certain that every legitimate invoice is processed for payment and you are prepared for an audit. 

So try out one of the many invoice processing tools to save your time, and effort, and get an accurate representation of the financial health of your company easily. 

7. Onboarding new employees

Hiring is a long, arduous process and onboarding new hires is critical if recruitment teams don’t want to waste a lot of time and money.

Many new employees simply have to wait around for somebody more experienced to show them the ropes. If the seniors in the team are busy, the new hires are likely to feel lost, disillusioned, unwelcome, and detached from the company and its vision. 

For a process so critical, it is important to leave it up to automation to onboard employees. With workflow software, the employees can be shown the exact work and training they need to complete in the initial two weeks so that they are brought up to speed with the company, its values, its future roadmap, and their role in the larger picture. 

8. Reconciling accounts

Financial statements are supposed to line up to the last penny. There is a tremendous amount of labor that goes into the reconciliation process which can be easily automated.

Accounting reconciliation software can eliminate paper-based, manual spreadsheets by adding new ERP accounts automatically, creating segregation of duties, making post-certification view-only records, and providing visibility into the whole process.

With automated reconciliation, teams can save a whole lot of time, money spent on hiring an accountant right from the start, and can have a more accurate picture of the finances. 

Use OSlash to automate your workflow today

OSlash text expander not just helps you transform your most used snippets into shortcuts that can summon content in an instant, it also helps convert your most frequently-used links into human-readable words such as o/roadmap or o/payslip. 

With such powers, users can save ~30 hours a month trying to surface information manually. OSlash helps users work blazingly fast and open, find, and share all the organizational documents in an instant. 

And that should be enough to make you want to try it out today!