Ecommerce is one of the pillars of modern-day business and it does not seem like it is going to go away anytime soon. Trends suggest that eCommerce businesses will keep on growing and thriving in the coming years. However, it’s not always easy to manage an eCommerce business, even with a great team. There are certain bottlenecks that hit every company, and a way to fix them is through workflow automation (or eCommerce automation). By automating certain tasks, you can free up your team to spend more time on tasks that cannot be automated – creative tasks that demand soft skills. 🗣️ What Is Workflow Automation? Workflow automation means using software to turn manual tasks into automated workflows. But what does this mean? We’ll give an example. A simple example of an automated workflow is when you set up an automated email to be sent when a specific event occurs. Let’s say you want to assure customers that their ticket is going to be taken care of. So you set a condition (new ticket created) and whenever a user creates a ticket, this triggers an email to be automatically sent to the customer, mentioning the ticket number and that someone from your team will be in touch in the next 24 hours. As you can guess, this can be quite time-consuming to do manually every time a customer submits a ticket. So, by automating this task, you save time and money – and your customers are happy knowing that their issue is going to be taken care of. So, knowing what workflow automation consists of, why should you use it? Read on to find out! Why Should You Automate Your Workflow? 1. Efficiency Ecommerce involves a lot of tasks that are repetitive and unfulfilling. Yet, no matter how menial, these tasks are essential for your business to run smoothly. Stuff like confirming orders, printing parcel labels, confirming a subscription, and so on, take a lot of time and effort if done manually. Automation solves this problem. By automating some of your workflows, you make those processes more efficient, which means they become faster and cheaper. 🤑 2. Data And Task Accuracy Machines have evolved to a point where it is easy to mimic human intelligence for some purposes. While we don’t advocate automating all your interactions with users, not only can smart use of eCommerce automations copy human skill, but it can also enhance it to a point. Many tasks need extreme accuracy, and machines don’t get tired, they don’t need to take breaks. Automation combines human knowledge in decision-making with a precision that is very difficult to achieve. Therefore, data accuracy and precision in task execution are easier to achieve if you use workflow automation. 3. Productivity As mentioned previously, dealing with repetitive tasks through automation gives you and your team more time to focus on tasks that shouldn’t be automated. This means creative tasks, customer support, sales, social media, content… By giving your team more free time, you can upgrade your operations without compromising on talent. Now that it’s clear what you can earn from eCommerce automation, let’s move on to some examples. If you’re wondering, almost all of these following automations can be put into practice in your eCommerce business using Platformly. Examples Of Workflow Automations You Should Try For Ecommerce 1. Track And Reward Your Most Loyal Customers For this purpose, you should define a measure of engagement – for example, the number of recent orders, the amount spent, the number of clicks on your emails… anything that is a relevant KPI for your eCommerce business. Then, you create an automation that tracks customer orders. Once a customer achieves the point you have defined, an email is triggered. This email will offer the customers a coupon or discount code as a reward for their business. 👔 This automation allows you to create a reward system for your top customers. Make sure you make it clear in the email content that this is an exclusive offer. Everyone likes to be part of an exclusive group. 2. Sync Your CRM With Your Email List An essential automation for eCommerce is to sync your CRM with your email list. This means that every new subscriber to your email list is going to be added to your CRM. Of course, remember to set up a two-step confirmation process so that you’re sure those readers are interested in your content. This prevents spam complaints and unsubscribes. By adding new visitors to your CRM, you register them as possible leads and might add them to another automation that is more conversion-oriented. 3. Get Feedback After A Purchase Automate your feedback from customers by sending an email a few days after delivery of a product with a survey link. You just need to automate the email sending and collect the answers to the survey. This automation will help you understand how you can improve your service, your products and the whole buying process for your customers. Also, don’t be afraid to face any issues your customers might have encountered. The perfect user experience takes time to achieve and can always be improved. So, own your mistakes and fix anything that is not working well. 🎁 TRY PLATFORMLY NOW 15-day free trial, 30-day money back guarantee 4. Reach Out To Negative Reviews As mentioned above, you should own your mistakes. But there’s also a way to go the extra mile for your customers. If your survey has negative feedback, automate an email to ask your customers about what could be improved, suggestions on what to change, and what your customers would like to see when engaging with your brand. This gives you tips on where your roadmap should lead, and what you should focus on sooner rather than later. 5. Tag And Segment Customers Based On Buying Behavior Tags and segments group customers in your CRM and in your automations. Segments usually are related to a customer status: let’s say you have three segments, these would be “Active Members”, “Cancelled Members”, and “Refunded Members” (this is just an example, but it is a common way to use segments). Tags offer an extra layer of personalization by referring to data that is more granular, such as if those readers have ordered anything, which product they ordered, and so on. Ideally, you should use both segments and tags to split your audience into meaningful groups that help you target each user. If you have data about buying behavior, it’s ideal to use that data to personalize your emails. This works especially well when sharing recommended products with your customers. 🛍️ 6. Keep Your Leads Close With Lead Nurturing Email Sequences As you might have heard before, “the money’s on the list”. This means your leads are extremely valuable and you cannot afford to let them go without converting. So, you need to nurture each lead with a dedicated email sequence. This allows you to stay top of mind for these leads and slowly convince them to convert. For example, you can set up an automation for users that had contact with your brand at some point, by creating an email sequence that acknowledges them and shares more information about your products and services. By slowly warming up these leads, you’ll get customers that are well informed and know precisely what they want. 7. Automate Inventory Management For Low-Stock Items If you use WooCommerce, it’s possible to automate inventory management. This will notify you when specific products have low stock before you actually run out. This helps prevent frustration on the part of customers when they try to order something, just to find out that the product is no longer available. By getting these notifications, you can order a new batch of products just in time to stock up. 8. Automate Your Shipping Labels To Make Sending Products Faster And Easier Sending products is always a time-consuming process. But you can automate certain parts of it, like creating shipping labels. Automating your shipping labels means that a form will pull the data from your CRM in order to fill in the blanks in the labels without you having to enter that data manually. This makes it a lot faster to send your products: you just need to import the data for the labels, print them, prepare the package, and stick the label to the parcel. And there you go. Once again, ecommerce automation saves the day. 9. Send Reminders For Users To Re-Order If you sell a consumable product, it might be nice to set reminders for your customers asking if they’re running out. A great example is contact lenses. Each pack has an expiration date, so you can set up a reminder for each customer before they go through with the last lenses. This is an easy sale for you and is helpful for your customers as well, since contact lenses (and many other products that would work for this automation as well) are a product you can’t go without. Use this need to your advantage. 10. Send Abandoned Cart Emails This is a common eCommerce automation that you should set up too. It is extremely efficient at increasing your conversion rate. First, you set a trigger for when a user has products in their cart but abandons the page. That trigger will result in an email being sent. In that email, you offer another opportunity for that customer to convert. The email will have the products in the cart listed, with the prices and the total value. To give your indecisive customers a push, we recommend offering something in your abandoned cart email: free shipping, a discount code, a coupon, anything that might get you the sale. If the customer does not come back in, let’s say, three days, you can automate an email for them with a slight nudge. Don’t be pushy, though. If the customer does not act on the second email, might as well leave it for next time. 🛍️ 11. Automate Follow Up Emails For Leads Follow up emails can be automated very effectively to save your team’s time. There’s always information that can be relayed automatically – such as chasing back an answer, asking for feedback, and even sharing features of your products. Our point is, there are many follow ups that can be automated. The automated email gets the reader to engage, and then you just need to collect your leads on the other side. This is part of what makes a qualified lead. 12. Track And Register Data From Calls With Customers, Prospects And Leads Your CRM can be your best ally when it comes to selling. You can track all interactions with prospects on Platformly, and you’ll get a lead score for each of those leads. Lead scoring is a good practice – it shows you which leads your sales team should focus on and which ones can be left hanging for a bit longer. Interactions with customers are also important. You need to keep track of every email sent and received, every phone call and what was discussed, and so on. Ecommerce automation brings many benefits in this aspect, especially when it comes to keeping your sales team on the same page. Wrapping Up To crush the competition, your business processes need to be down to a T. That’s why workflow automation is something you can’t afford to ignore. When those jobs get automated, your workers can complete the tasks that demand human intelligence and attention. In this article, we shared a few ideas for automations that can improve your productivity, increase conversions, and more. What do you think of these ideas? Would you like to find out more about Platformly? Check us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. TRY PLATFORMLY NOW 15-day free trial, 30-day money back guarantee