India’s startup ecosystem is the third-largest in the world in terms of the number of tech startups. Almost every day, a new startup emerges in India, but 90% do not cross the 5-year mark. To beat the competition and thrive, startups need to invest in the right technology – one that helps them to create a market for their products, stay customer-obsessed, and make the right business decisions at the right time.
Take marketing, for example. For a boot-strapped startup, there is probably one marketing resource who does everything – from sending out emails to prospective clients, to following up on prospects who have shown interest. Not to mention creating marketing content that must be periodically published on the blog, website, and social media handles.
Now, what if some of these processes were to be automated without the need for heavy time or capital investment? What if the marketer could harness the power of business process automation and focus on tasks that deserve their attention the most?
The age of hyperautomation: How can it help startups rise above their challenges?
Hyperautomation can be the backbone for startups looking to ride the digital wave. Gartner rated hyperautomation as the #1 tech trend of 2020, and rightly so, as hyperautomation has become the next frontier for Industry 4.0.
Hyperautomation goes beyond the automation of manual tasks. A mix of technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), hyperautomation lends sophistication and efficiency to the way business processes transform digitally. AI’s data processing and analytical capabilities enable data-driven decision-making. And ML ensures continuous improvement of business processes.
Here’s how business automation can help startups gear up for success:
1. Discover insights for data-based decision-making
Startups are inherently agile, selling innovative products that solve very specific customer problems, or introducing a new service in a previously lagging market. Those startups that navigate changing customer needs succeed. But when startup leaders are struck with analysis-paralysis, they skip or delay decisions that could make or break their chances of survival.
Leaning on AI to analyse massive datasets and extract actionable insights can help a startup balance analysis with action. While the leadership can continue to brainstorm, hyperautomation will streamline decision-making for the team members, so there is never a period of a business lull on account of indecisiveness.
For example, with readily available insights on customer profiles, targeted and personalised marketing campaigns can quickly be deployed at scale. Similarly, if the inside sales rep at a startup has easy access to a list of leads that are most likely to convert, they can dive right into it, saving time and maximising the ability to win deals.
Customer service is no different. With hyperautomation, AI-enabled chatbots can service most of your customer’s top, routine issues and enable a smooth handoff to an agent only for more complex requests. And with Salesforce Einstein, building such customised bots is a matter of clicks, not code.
2. Predict outcomes and optimise investments
With hyperautomation, startups can leverage predictive analysis to make data-backed sales forecasts and measure the anticipated impact of their marketing efforts. Dollars can then be invested in activities with the highest ROI. For instance, when a startup adopts hyperautomation driven by Salesforce Einstein:
- A 24/7 interactive marketing report helps monitor and improve every investment made across campaigns and channels. You have real-time access to in-depth KPIs, performance trends, and campaign analysis for platforms like Google Analytics, Facebook, Adwords, and others. Similarly, insights on the performance of email marketing and advertising campaigns are also readily available, enabling you to understand which campaigns and channels are offering the best bang for your buck.
- Sales pipeline trends are uncovered to highlight forecasted amounts at the rep, period, and summary levels to help you take the necessary actions. Based on sales forecasts, the company can realistically adjust its goals. Management can also identify sales reps who are on track to beat their targets, and reward star performers for keeping the good work going.
- Service requests can be resolved faster, bringing down the customer hold time. Einstein analyses incoming cases to make case field predictions, enable automatic triage and routing, and recommend the next steps; so service is not only fast, but also satisfactory. Agents can use the saved time in building 1-to-1 relationships with customers, gathering feedback that helps inform product design and service offerings, and identifying upselling and cross-selling opportunities. Hyperautomation makes room for service agents to evolve beyond their limited roles, and startups can invest in agent training accordingly.
How can a startup ensure it never misses a beat across teams, functions, campaigns, KPIs, and the many customer engagement channels?
With a ‘smart’ CRM solution!
Such CRM solutions, with built-in AI and ML capabilities integrate customer data, both online and offline, across business functions – sales, service, marketing – to give startups:
- a 360-degree customer view
- an end-to-end view of business processes
- insights and recommendations through the execution of business strategies
Such hyperautomation-ready CRM solutions ensure that the startup always knows what to do next. AI-powered intelligent recommendations and suggestions answer critical questions like:
- What to upsell or cross-sell to a customer?
- How to tailor offers to suit customer interests and intent?
- What can be done to reduce customer attrition?
- What is the best time, messaging, and marketing platform to reach out to a customer?
- How can an agent service a particular customer issue with the best possible support in the least possible time?
AI has been around for a while now and has already shown extraordinary results for various industries. Startups have the advantage to leapfrog and onboard the most pathbreaking technologies and emerge as trailblazers. By using tools with built-in AI capabilities, startups can leverage the power of hyperautomation across business functions and operations, accelerating growth, responding agilely to changes in customer behaviour and market dynamics, and becoming future-ready.
Looking for a solution to kickstart your huperautomation journey – one that can seamlessly integrate with your existing startup infrastructure, suits your budget, and is available anytime-anywhere?
Salesforce Customer 360, with built-in AI capabilities, is your perfect hyperautomation partner. Ready to use straight out of the box, Salesforce is a cloud-based solution available at customised pricing for startups. Find out more.
