AI (Artificial Intelligence) is all the rage right now but is it ready to help us in our businesses? Unfortunately, the answer is “not yet”, but automations are! Automations can help your business now and are already tried and true. We have many clients that are using automated emails in really meaningful ways.
Here are some valuable examples of scenarios where email automations can perform a task on a regular schedule or as needed.
| What’s the scenario? | Email Recipient? | Why? |
| Quotes about to expire | Your Salesperson | To close the deal |
| Thank you and onboarding information to new customers | Your Customer | To kick-off your new customer’s experience with positivity |
| Daily/Weekly/Monthly Sales by Salesrep | Your Sales Manager | To give managers the tools to help their team succeed |
| Order Confirmations | Your Customer | To ensure the order is right before it goes out the door |
| Shipment Tracking Link | Your Customer | To improve your customer satisfaction and cut-down on calls to check on shipments |
| Or, Shipment Tracking Link | Your Salesperson | To give one more touch point where your salesperson can ensure the goods arrived |
| Daily – Inventory Below Reorder Point | Your Purchaser | To stay on top of key purchasing requirements |
| Hourly Sales by Product Code | Your Marketing Manager | To track marketing promotion effectiveness |
| New Production Orders | Your Production Manager | To stay on top of new manufacturing jobs immediately |
| Expense Exceeds G/L Budget | Your Controller | To keep up-to-date on potential red flags |
| Customer’s Sales Have Reached Target | Your Salesperson | To thank your customer and move them to a preferred price list |
You get the picture. The sky is the limit!
Here’s a sample of what an automated email could look like:
How, you say? Your Spire system uses a database to store all the data that has been entered, such as inventory items, customers, sales, purchases, job costing, production, financial transactions to name a few. The database either exists on your on-premise server or a cloud server. All the historical, transactional, and operational data allows Spire to complete daily business tasks but it also represents a source of value. The same data that fuels Spire, can be leveraged to accomplish a range of other tasks outside of Spire, from analytics and reporting to real-time customer facing updates. Data pipeline tools that can connect to Spire data and link to other programs that process the data, can also provide the outcome to the specific stakeholders. One such connection option is email. Email services have a server for incoming mail (IMAP) and one for outgoing mail (SMTP). Connecting data to email servers opens many possibilities for providing reports through email to customers, purchasers, salespeople, etc. Combining data pipeline projects with scheduling tools results in automated solutions provided on a regular schedule.
The consistency of these projects can free up staff to focus on more dynamic and less repetitive work and allow for decision-making using up-to-date data delivered directly to an inbox.
Once programed with your custom requirements, the automated projects will continue to run without any involvement by staff. Taking advantage of automated solutions creates useful outcomes tailored to satisfy specific needs without training or hiring new staff. Automations are ready to help your business; it’s time to start the ball rolling and put your data to work!
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