10 Tasks Businesses can Automate to Save Time & Boost Efficiency.
Running a business is demanding—there’s always something that needs your attention. But what if you could automate repetitive tasks and free up hours every week?
The truth is, businesses of all sizes waste valuable time on manual tasks that could be streamlined with automation. From customer follow-ups to managing inventory, automating these tasks can increase efficiency, reduce errors, and free you up to focus on growth.
Not sure where to start? Here are 10 tasks every SME should consider automating to work smarter, not harder.
1️⃣ Customer Follow-Ups & Email Sequences
🔹 The Problem: Following up with leads, checking in with customers, and sending promotions manually takes way too much time.
💡 How to Automate: Use a eDM system such as ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Flodesk or HubSpot to create automated email sequences. These tools can welcome new leads, nurture prospects, and follow up on abandoned carts—without you lifting a finger. (I’m currently using Flodesk for my email nuture sequence)
🚀 Benefit: Keeps leads engaged, improves customer retention, and saves hours on manual emails every week.
2️⃣ Appointment Scheduling (No More Email Ping-Pong!)
🔹 The Problem: Booking client meetings, sales calls, or internal check-ins can turn into a never-ending back-and-forth email chain.
💡 How to Automate: Use Calendly, Acuity Scheduling, or Setmore to let clients and team members book directly into your calendar based on your availability. I currently use Setmore to allow potential clients to book a discovery call at a time that works for them.
🚀 Benefit: No more scheduling headaches—clients or staff book a time that works for them, based on your synced calendar, and reminders are sent automatically.
3️⃣ Social Media Posting & Engagement
🔹 The Problem: Staying active on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter is important, but posting daily can be overwhelming.
💡 How to Automate: Use Meta Business Suite, Buffer, or Later to schedule content in advance and set up auto-replies for FAQs. You can even set up automations for DM responses via ManyChat. Whilst automating routine aspects of social media is helpful, be careful not to lose the human connection that is so important in SOCIAL media. Make sure you are still engaging organically with content when you can.
🚀 Benefit: Keeps your brand active and engaging without daily manual posting.
4️⃣ Invoicing & Payment Reminders
🔹 The Problem: Chasing down late payments can be awkward and time-consuming.
💡 How to Automate: Use Xero, QuickBooks, or Stripe to send automatic invoices and payment reminders before they’re overdue. You are likely already using a finance program that can automate this process, it’s just a matter of turning it on.
🚀 Benefit: Reduces late payments and ensures you get paid on time without having to nag clients.
5️⃣ Lead Capture & CRM Updates
🔹 The Problem: Manually tracking leads from website inquiries, social media messages, and email inquiries leads to missed opportunities.
💡 How to Automate: Use Zapier, HubSpot, or Pipedrive to automatically collect leads from your website, social media, and email forms and add them into your CRM.
🚀 Benefit: Never lose a lead again—your pipeline is always up-to-date. This works well as your control system for lead nuturing amongst your team too.
6️⃣ Employee Onboarding & Training
🔹 The Problem: Every time you hire someone new, you have to manually walk them through everything—from company policies to job-specific training.
💡 How to Automate: Use Trainual, Notion, or Google Sites to set up a self-guided onboarding system with company policies, training videos, and SOPs.
🚀 Benefit: New hires get consistent, structured training, reducing onboarding time by 50% or more. You also reduce the staff time required to hand-hold a new hire through this process. Make sure to include face-to-face aspects in the onboarding too - tours and introductions.
7️⃣ Customer Support & FAQ Responses
🔹 The Problem: Answering the same customer questions over and over eats into your time.
💡 How to Automate: Use Chatbots (Drift, Tidio, or Facebook Messenger Bots) to answer FAQs automatically, freeing up time for bigger priorities. Similarly, setting up ‘track my order’ flows can reduce customer enquiries significantly.
🚀 Benefit: Customers get instant answers 24/7, and your team can focus on more complex support requests.
8️⃣ Inventory & Order Management
🔹 The Problem: Running out of stock or over-ordering products leads to lost sales and wasted money.
💡 How to Automate: Use Shopify, TradeGecko, Unleashed, or even just a spreadsheet linked through Zapier to track stock levels in real time and automatically reorder supplies when needed.
🚀 Benefit: Prevents stockouts, improves cash flow, and keeps inventory levels optimised. You can tailor reorder points to change with seasonality too.
9️⃣ Internal Task & Workflow Automation
🔹 The Problem: Managing tasks across different teams using manual spreadsheets or emails creates delays and miscommunication.
💡 How to Automate: Use a cloud based project management program such as Asana, Monday.com, or ClickUp to set up automated workflows for assigning tasks, tracking progress, and following up. You can compliment this with a dashboard that shows project and task status at a glance.
🚀 Benefit: Keeps everyone on track and accountable—no more missed deadlines.
🔟 Performance Tracking & KPI Dashboards
🔹 The Problem: Checking business performance shouldn’t require digging through multiple reports.
💡 How to Automate: Use Google Data Studio, Power BI, or Tableau to pull real-time data from different sources into one dashboard with key metrics.
🚀 Benefit: Instantly see what’s working (and what’s not) without running manual reports.
What’s the ROI of Automating These Tasks?
Let’s break it down with a simple example.
Scenario: Staff in a small business spend:
2 hours per week manually sending follow-up emails
1 hour per week scheduling appointments
2 hours per week managing invoices and payments
3 hours per week updating spreadsheets and tracking performance
2 hours per week checking stock levels and making decisions on reorders
3 hours per week answering repetitive customer enquiries
That’s 13 hours per week spent on repetitive tasks = 52 hours per month. More than 1 day of the week is taken up by tasks that could be reduced.
Now imagine automating those tasks and reinvesting that time into growth, strategy, and higher-value activities instead.
Where to Start?
The key to successful automation is starting small. Choose ONE area that eats up your time and implement a simple automation. Once you see the benefits, scale up from there!
Need help identifying what to automate first? Take our FREE Business Efficiency Health Check and get a personalized report on where your biggest efficiency gaps are.
Final Thoughts
The best businesses run on systems, not stress. If you find yourself drowning in manual tasks, it’s time to leverage automation and take back control of your time.
Start automating today—and watch your efficiency, profits, and sanity skyrocket. 🚀
Would you like help implementing automation in your business? Email us!