Business automation tools are revolutionizing how companies operate, accelerating growth by eliminating mundane tasks and leveraging technological advancements. The post-pandemic landscape, particularly after the Great Resignation, has made automation even more enticing for businesses aiming to optimize their operations.
Zapier’s 2021 research highlights the widespread endorsement of automation across various sectors:
- Two-thirds of knowledge workers would recommend automation to other businesses.
- 88% of Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) say automation allows their company to compete with larger companies.
- 9 out of 10 knowledge workers say that automation has improved people’s lives in the workplace.
- 2 out of 3 knowledge workers say automation has helped them be more productive at work.
- 65% of knowledge workers are less stressed at work because they automate manual tasks.
Most knowledge workers advocate for automation, noting its major benefits in competitiveness for SMBs, workplace satisfaction, productivity enhancements, and stress reduction by automating repetitive tasks. As impressive as some of those stats are, they all came before Large Language Models and Generative AI, so it will likely become more impactful in 2024!
What are business automation tools?
Business automation tools are massive upgrades for modern businesses looking to optimize their digital operations. These solutions are built to automate routine and sometimes mundane tasks across various organizational processes—from customer service, customer relationship management, and email marketing to financial accounting and people operations. By replacing manual processes with a business automation tools system, companies can save time, reduce the likelihood of human error, and enhance overall productivity.
The core of B2B marketing automation tools is their ability to integrate into existing business ecosystems and tools. They connect existing systems, allowing for data flow and communication across platforms without requiring someone to watch over them. This integration capability ensures that information is up-to-date, accessible, and available to the full team for transparency.
The scalability of these business automation tools plays a major role in their effectiveness for companies of all sizes. Whether for a small startup or a worldwide corporation, business automation software can be customized to meet the specific needs of any team or company. Many of the tools are designed for a small team looking to compete against worldwide companies while also being able to grow with the company as it grows. In other words, businesses of all sizes can deploy and see a massive return on investment from business automation tools.
In addition to operational efficiencies, business automation tools also offer advanced statistics and reporting features. These features provide valuable insights into business health, customer behavior, and industry trends. With this data, business leaders can make informed hiring decisions, personalize their offerings to customers, and predict future trends more accurately.
Why does business automation matter in 2024?
In 2024, business automation tools have been brought into the limelight due to the emergence of generative AI and the pressing need for companies to maximize their existing resources, as many sectors of the economy are seeing slowdowns.
As organizations strive for maximum efficiency, business automation tools are critical. They not only enable businesses to streamline their operations but also to encourage creativity and strategic growth. Integrating generative AI into automation tools enhances their capability to perform complex tasks, making it a cornerstone for companies preparing for 2024, 2025, and beyond. This strategic shift allows businesses to remain competitive, agile, and forward-thinking in a rapidly evolving world.
What are the top business automation tools in 2024?
TextExpander: A key business automation tool
TextExpander is a great tool for streamlining customer communication with its Snippet usage for responding to common questions and inputting repeating data with simple keystrokes. As a business automation tool, TextExpander can speed up response times for customer service teams. With a need to ‘do more with less,’ customer service agents can provide a fast response with a human touch while clearing their support inbox in a fraction of the time.
The team at SketchUp saw major benefits from using TextExpander as a business automation tool
“TextExpander was actually the second thing I learned about, after how to use the espresso machine. It was kind of a mind-blowing moment of, ‘Where has this been and why have I not had this for the last ten years?’”
Ty Schalamon, SketchUp
Read the entire case study to see how SketchUp’s eight-person technical support team saves more than 270 working days a year using TextExpander.
Key features:
- Automates repetitive typing tasks with Fill-in Forms
- Ensures consistent communication while speeding up responses
- Includes a team-sharing feature
ClickUp: Streamline your projects
ClickUp is an incredible project management business automation tool that helps automate tasks and streamline project workflows, making it easier to collaborate and track progress on major tasks. It recently built in some incredible generative AI functionality to speed up how teams track tasks and projects.
The MLB’s San Diego Padres uses Clickup to improve teamwork and efficiency. Read the full case study to learn more.
Key features:
- Customizable for various project needs
- Works great for small and larger teams
- Compatible with TextExpander
- Built-in generative AI functionality
HubSpot: automate your marketing and sales
HubSpot is a complete business automation tool that streamlines customer relationship management (CRM), marketing, sales, and customer service, automating key processes for growth. If your team wants to work smarter with customer acquisition, HubSpot is where you start.
By partnering with HubSpot, Kahoot! created a centralized information hub, facilitating smoother interactions between its various departments. Moreover, introducing business automation tools has significantly reduced the time dedicated to forecasting and extracting data on customer usage. Read the full case study to learn more.
Key features:
- Inbound marketing automation
- Sales pipeline management
- Built-in email marketing
- Compatible with TextExpander
- Customer service automation features
Zapier: Connect and automate across apps
Zapier is a powerful business automation tool that connects different apps and services, automating workflows and tasks without the need for coding.
“We don’t have thousands of dollars to build a custom app, so the fact that we could build this in five hours with Zapier is huge for us.” —Mike Freeman, Founder of Man Over Machine
Read the full case study to see how Man Over Machine had 18+ business days of manual work removed with Zapier.
Key features:
- Supports automation across thousands of apps
- Easy to set up custom workflows
- No coding is required for automation
IFTTT: Personalize your automation
IFTTT is a business automation tool that personalizes and automates interactions between your favorite apps and devices, enhancing efficiency and productivity.
Key features:
- Wide range of applets for automation
- Supports smart devices and web services
- User-friendly interface for creating applets
Okta: Secure identity access management
Okta provides secure identity management, a crucial aspect of business automation tools, ensuring safe access to applications and services across your organization. Instead of manually creating user accounts for all of our corporate applications, Okta can streamline the onboarding and offboarding of employee SaaS app access.
FedEx leveraged Okta to integrate five critical apps in 36 hours to improve security and automation with onboarding and off-boarding employees dramatically. Read the full case study to learn more.
Key features:
- Single sign-on for ease of access
- Multi-factor authentication for enhanced security
- Extensive app integration
Grammarly: Enhance your communications
Grammarly is an essential business automation tool for improving written communications, offering real-time grammar, punctuation, and style suggestions. The company is also working on integrating generative AI into its tools as a beta feature.
Key Features:
- Works alongside TextExpander
- Advanced writing corrections
- Style and tone guidance
- Teams can leverage its tone of voice and dictionary for streamlined communications
- Plagiarism checker
Generative AI tools like Google Bard and ChatGPT
These tools changed how enterprises looked at business automation tools in 2023. Looking ahead to 2024, we expect these Large Language Model applications to still be incredibly popular as AI transforms operations, but we also expect these tools to somewhat fade away over time. Will Generative AI go away? Absolutely not, but we expect this technology to be built into all of your existing tools vs acting as standalone tools.
Key Features:
- AI-driven content and data analysis
- Automates complex decision-making processes
- Wide applicability across industries and applications
ActiveCampaign: customer experience automation
ActiveCampaign combines email marketing with CRM and sales automation, making it a powerful business automation tool for nurturing leads and personalizing customer experiences. We mentioned HubSpot earlier, and it’s worth noting they are competitors as a business automation tool, but both are worth a look.
By adopting ActiveCampaign, Pit Boss Grills improved their marketing approach with superior business automation tool ability – enabling efficient communication at scale. They gained $76,717 in revenue from a single email campaign. Learn more about their outcomes by leveraging business automation tools in their case study.
Key Features:
- Email marketing automation
- Compatible with TextExpander
- Integrated sales and CRM features
- Lead and contact scoring
- Extensive functionality
Freshbooks: Simplify your accounting
Freshbooks is a fantastic billing and accounting software, crucial for automating financial tasks and managing invoices, making it an important business automation tool for small businesses without a dedicated financing team
Key features:
- Easy invoice and expense tracking
- Time tracking for projects
- Integration with Stripe and other credit card processing companies
- Compatible with TextExpander
- Customizable reports for financial insights
Wrap-up on Business Automation Tools
As we finish looking at some of the top business automation tools for 2024, we must remember the importance of choosing a vendor with a strong track record in the industry. This ensures reliability, continued support, and access to the latest updates and innovations. When selecting the right tools, consider integration capabilities, scalability, user-friendliness, specific business needs, and the vendor’s industry experience. With the rise of Generative AI tools, many “new companies” are basically OpenAI ChatGPT wrappers that could quickly disappear in the coming years. Is Generative AI a huge deal? Yes, but look for existing companies with a long track record in the business automation tools space.
This careful deployment will help businesses leverage the full potential of automation tools, leading to improved efficiency, accuracy, and growth.
FAQ on Business Automation Tools
Can small businesses benefit from business automation tools?
YES! Business automation tools are not just for large corporations; small businesses can significantly benefit from them by streamlining operations, reducing costs, and improving customer service. In some ways, business automation tools give small businesses the speed of a larger business
How do business automation tools improve workplace productivity?
Business automation tools automate routine and mundane tasks, allowing employees to focus on more complex and creative work. This boosts productivity and enhances job satisfaction by reducing everyday tasks. Tools like TextExpander for quickly responding to messages and ClickUp for project management are examples of how automation can aid workplace efficiency.
