How to Achieve Cost Savings with Workflow Automation

Remember the days when investigating a customer query meant your employees needed to carry out a checklist of manual steps? We do. And in spite of the digitization of the telecom environment, many providers still retain some of these steps as part of their process. It’s not unheard of for an employee to spend between 15 and 20 minutes investigating a single issue, such as whether a client's usage records are accurate or not. When doing so requires accessing one system, gathering the information, and then using it to access another system (or more), it can be a lengthy process. The solution is to automate as many tasks in your workflow as possible, and stitch all of the information together with a workflow manager.

Automating Tasks and Processes

Any task performed manually by a person that takes more than a split second to complete could be (and should be) automated by a workflow manager.

Some of the processes that can be automated in a typical telecom provider include:

• Usage investigation
• Order to bill monitoring
• LNP triggering
• Revenue assurance & fraud investigations

We reproduce the way humans perform a task and allow it to be done electronically. When multiple tasks are automated, linking steps together digitally creates a workflow process that vastly reduces the amount of human interaction required.

Achieving Cost Savings

There are multiple benefits for using a workflow manager to automate your telecom business processes, but the primary advantage is the opportunity it offers to save on operational costs. If you can eliminate the human component from an active function, you can achieve multiple benefits such as:

1. Fewer tasks requiring human interaction results in fewer person-hours. Manual tasks performed by highly trained and well paid employees come at a high cost.  Automation allows you to accomplish more by utilizing fewer resources.
2. Eliminate human error by ensuring that every action is performed identically – resulting in high quality, reliable results and alleviating the need for process re-work.
3. Improved turnaround time is not only a competitive advantage, it helps increase profitability, customer satisfaction and retention. The faster you can process orders, the less likely you are to receive queries and complaints about delivery, or costly cancellations. 

Implementing a fully automated workflow manager program can be an expensive exercise, but at ATS we specialize in unique, tech-focused solutions to match your needs and budget.

Click Here for more information on ATS' workflow manager.