5 Ways to Foster a Culture of Innovation with Automation and Self-Service
Innovation has seemed to be a big buzzword in the business space for quite a while now. Everybody wants to implement it, but when faced with real innovation opportunities, like automation, many are reluctant and prefer to stick to the status quo by carrying operations with legacy means of doing business. On the other hand, many companies pride themselves on being innovative by adopting a new tool or piece of software from time to time without being mindful of their overall goals or how the tool integrates within their daily operations.
The catch is that you can foster a culture of innovation with technology. Being fully aware of company goals and how your tech stack helps achieve these goals is a sure way of creating a proper environment where innovation thrives, from the bottom to the top. Below are some of the easiest ways to use automation and self-service to foster a culture of innovation.
1. Automate Repetitive Tasks
One of the best ways to foster a culture of innovation is by automating repetitive tasks. With staffing concerns at a peak, companies must find innovative ways to ensure that all processes are successfully carried out at an organizational level with a limited number of employees. Naturally, fostering a culture of innovation in a hectic workplace becomes a growing challenge, if not almost impossible.
Task automation frees up your teams’ time and allows them to focus on solving their daily challenges creatively.
For example, you can automate tasks like data entry, report generation, and steps in the customer support process. By automating these tasks, your teams can focus on building new ideas and relationships with customers and crafting new sales strategies.
Automation allows companies to eliminate manual labor without neglecting customer experiences.
2. Use Self-Service Portals
Customer experience (CX) is no longer an option. Companies strive to achieve the level of CX that will turn customers into brand ambassadors. And once again, technology can come to your organization’s help. Another way to give your employees back their time and let them focus on getting creative in their daily tasks is by implementing self-service portals. Such tools also help you craft unique, positive experiences for your customers.
Self-Service portals allow customers to find information on some of the most common issues and questions that appear across your customer base while freeing up your Customer Support team’s time, allowing them to focus on getting creative where such portals don’t provide help.
When employees are no longer stuck in a routine when they need to answer repetitive questions from customers, they can get creative in tailoring unique experiences for your audience and customer base. CX is one of the areas where a culture of innovation can be fostered with ease, especially in 2023, when we face a series of economic risks. Modern companies need to find creative ways to secure a high CX standard with fewer resources (employees and ROI equally).
3. Implement Chatbots
Chatbots can automate customer support inquiries and reduce the workload of your support representatives. In the long run, this allows support representatives to focus on customer interactions that are more specific and complicated, enabling them to find new innovative solutions.
Chatbot implementation can aid a culture of innovation in other ways as well. They can be used to collect customer feedback and suggestions, allowing your organization to identify areas that require innovation.
Chatbots can also be implemented internally, helping employees quickly find answers to their administrative questions and reducing the time spent on low-reward tasks. Combined, these scenarios, where you can implement chatbots, will encourage employees to provide new insights and ideas, leading to a more innovative workplace.
4. Use Analytics In Your Daily Operations
Analytics can be used in multiple ways within an organization, from identifying new product or service opportunities to high-stakes sales opportunities and even areas where innovation opportunities arise. By analyzing internal and third-party data, companies can identify patterns and trends that help them develop new products and improve existing ones. Process improvement is also possible, thanks to analytics. This can increase efficiency and productivity across all departments in the long run.
By leveraging analytics, companies can foster a culture of innovation by providing employees with the necessary data to develop new ideas and creative solutions to internal struggles.
You can also use analytics to track the success of innovation initiatives, allowing you to fine-tune your approach and prepare the terrain for further innovation.
5. Offer Training and Development Opportunities
Training and development opportunities are essential to foster a culture of innovation. Such programs expand your employees’ skill base, which is necessary for innovation. Look into training and development sessions focusing on design thinking, creativity, prototyping, etc.
You can also look into and encourage employees to attend networking events. Such conferences are developed around new ideas and trends, increasing creativity and innovation across all departments.
Cross-functional training is another solution to look into when you aim to foster a culture of innovation. This helps employees to learn new skills and gain a broader perspective on different aspects of the business.
Wrapping It Up
In today’s business environment, innovation is decisive in your company’s success. By leveraging automation and self-service opportunities, you enable your teams to find the time to focus on crafting new ideas and solutions and shifting their perspective to age-old business struggles. Doing so will help you stay ahead of your competition and secure long-term success.
Want to learn more about how you can foster a culture of innovation with the help of Automation and Self-Service tools? Watch our Improve CX with Self-Service Webinar!
