Top Metrics to Uncover the True Value of Your Automation efforts

Quixy Editorial Team

August 9, 2023

This article was first published on Customer Think.

“Adding Automation to the workplace equals higher productivity.”

Let us first understand what automation is.

Automation simplifies every aspect of a business by automatically accomplishing things that you or a worker need to do manually. But how do we know if automation works for us and not against us? Are there any key automation metrics to track?

57% of organizations want to use automation to boost employee productivity and performance. And by 2024, according to Gartner’s report, 69% of daily management tasks will be completely automated.

One straightforward application of automation is in the hiring process, which helps automate tasks like scheduling interviews and using automated payroll processes to make accounting easier. From delegating tasks to getting them done in a snap of a finger, automation is the new hero at every workplace. When choosing a workflow automation software there is a list of features one should keep in mind after evaluating the business requirements.

So that’s about Automation. Let’s find out the top automation KPIs to track.

List of key automation metrics to track

Keep track of the following automation KPIs to extract the true value of your automation efforts.

1. Cost cut

They say “Penny saved is the penny earned.”

Business costs are equally as crucial as business revenue, and this is because managing and cutting costs will significantly impact your entire profit margin. And automation helps you keep costs under control!

Automation provides businesses with a competitive advantage over competitors who are traditionally operated. You only need to use the appropriate statistic to assess its influence on your savings. For example, one of the major cost cuts is the labor cost that your business incurs for manually completing a task.

To calculate cost savings: A simple calculation of how many hours your employees spend manually completing a task multiplied by their hourly rate against how many hours it takes after automating the task.

2. Time saved

“The huge amount of time that could be saved by automating a task rather than performing it manually.”

Did you know? Employees estimate that automating tasks might save them 240 hours annually, while company leaders feel it could save them 360 hours annually.

Automation can eliminate repetitive and monotonous tasks like

• Automating the process of sending out emails,
• Help desk assistance,
• Call center operations with bots
• Tracking time etc.

It helps employees to focus more on critical business tasks.

To calculate the time saved: Calculate the number of hours saved by monitoring how long it takes to carry out the procedure manually.

This metric allows you to analyze how much time you could save in a given period by automating operations. Then you can compare that to the time it would take you to accomplish the same process manually.

Also read: Top 11 Workflow Automation Software for your Business

3. Error frequency

“The higher the frequency, the higher the chances of missed opportunities and losses.”

Did you know that in 95% of paperwork accidents, human error is a contributing factor?

When it comes to laborious chores like data entry, which includes copying and pasting data, document creation and organization, which provides for establishing meeting agendas, to-do lists, and so on, there is a high possibility of doing it incorrectly.

The more tiresome the task, the more likely humans are to make mistakes. Hence, many businesses have recognized the same and have implemented automation into their workflow to improve accountability and data transparency.

Using this metric, one can track the number of errors your team makes when executing jobs manually against the number of mistakes in your team’s automation.

To calculate: When completing specific operations manually, compare the number of errors made versus when the same activities are automated.

4. ROI

“The ROI is evident in cost reductions, more efficient operations, and improved asset use.”

Automation provides businesses with a competitive advantage over competitors who are traditionally operated. As a result, ROI is a crucial player in this scenario.

ROI can be quantitative as well as qualitative. Quantitative benefits include time saved and cost savings, as well as qualitative benefits such as employee satisfaction and improved customer experience.

To calculate quantitative ROI: Compares the financial value of an investment against its cost.

5. Productivity with efficiency

“The amount of additional work produced is the number of new tasks you can perform since you’ve incorporated automation in your firm.”

As previously noted, employees become more innovative and focused when chores are automated, increasing productivity and energizing the workplace.

It also enables managers to assign responsibilities appropriately; thus, staff morale improves when they can spend more time on jobs they enjoy.

Automation not only lessens staff workload but also boosts employee satisfaction.

Additionally, 65% of people said that implementing automation at work helps them feel less stressed, according to a survey. Furthermore, 1 in 5 individuals believes that automation increases their productivity at work.

To measure: You may assess this by measuring the time of teams with automated processes and seeing how they use it to increase productivity in the workplace.

Also read: 11 Tips to Selecting the Right Workflow Automation Software

6. Customer satisfaction

“The consistency at which you provide quality services to your customers.”

Consistency portrays your business as trustworthy, which can help you gain more clients.

You can anticipate consistent results every time you automate a business procedure. Effective automation can help your firm to improve lead generation by up to 20% and maintain existing ones by improving the customer experience.

For instance, when you automate the call process using automation to process operations of customer services, customer satisfaction improves as they will continuously receive the same quality of service from your company.

To measure: You can assess this by comparing customer satisfaction data before and after you automate your business activities.

7. Deviation rate

“It is the number of times you have to deviate or manually adjust stages in a workflow as a proportion of the total steps in the workflow.”

In some cases, there is a possibility that the process your automated might not be very efficient. But how do you check that? The deviation rate comes into play.

This metric allows you to track how efficient and streamlined your automated workflows are. The lower the rate, the higher the optimization and vice-versa. With emerging technology in the field of digital transformation, automation has found a ferry. No-code development solutions enables business users to build their own solutions to automate processes. Who knows the problem better than the one who is faced with it?

By building solutions with no-code you can ensure that the solutions are efficient and optimized.

To calculate:

• Counting the number of steps when you have to alter the step or deviate from the procedure manually.
• Dividing that figure by the total number of steps in the workflow.

If the number of times you deviate from the workflow is high, there is a great chance to optimize the workflow.

8. Bounce rate

Some of your automated workflows and processes will be designed specifically for your consumers.

The percentage of users who skip or fail to complete one of these external workflows will demonstrate how simple and smooth they are.

To calculate this automation KPI: Divide the number of clients who exited your workflow by the number of users who entered the workflow. The smaller your bounce rate, the more natural and smooth your workflow.

Bottom Line

There are numerous benefits to adopting automation into your organization, ranging from task minimization to cost savings. Even small and medium-sized businesses can easily incorporate automation into their processes through no-code platforms.

It’s time to stop the never-ending menial work and hand it over to automation! Quixy is a workflow and business process automation tool. It enables you to automate tasks and actions that will save you a lot of resources and enables your business users to turn ideas into reality.