Time is arguably the most important resource any one of us has. If it’s valuable to us, it’s likely valuable to the businesses we run. For that reason, it’s important to be mindful of how you spend time, what you invest it in, and how you structure certain processes to save it. We all know about cost-cutting, but time-cutting isn’t necessarily as well understood or universally practiced.
Moreover, sometimes saving time for the sake of it is not the best approach to take. It’s good to invest your time into things well, but if you can make small adjustments here and there, it’s important to know what this extra time will be for the benefit of.
In this post, we’ll discuss the four pillars of saving time in business. We believe that if you’re dedicated, such an approach can help you learn more about optimization and the curation of your brand for the better.
- Time-Saving Must Be Scaleable
We all know that spending and budgeting needs to scale with our enterprise, but so does time. Make certain that the methods you use scale with the size of your operation, as saving a few minutes here and there on small tasks is great, but what happens when your company doubles in size? Will those same time-saving techniques still hold up, or will they need constant rethinking?
Let’s say you automate customer responses for a handful of emails. That’s helpful, but if your business starts receiving hundreds or thousands of inquiries, you’ll need a system that can handle that volume without just providing generic responses for the diversity of support requests you get. The hidden secret is to implement time-saving methods that can grow with you.
That might involve using a QuickBooks Stripe connector to make your payouts and financial tracking much easier as you grow, or using a managed IT service that provides a full suite of server hosting with modular applications you can use or not use at your leisure. It all counts.
- Time-Saving Must Never Impede Quality
Worthwhile, true optimization should enhance both time efficiency and quality at the same time. A quick example would e McDonald’s, as they haven’t built its empire by cutting corners on its general consistency despite speed improvements. Instead, they’ve refined each step of the process so that speed enhances consistency without sacrificing the end product even with many locations around the globe.
Of course, this is also known as working smarter, not harder. For example, a bakery might pre-measure ingredients to streamline the baking process without rushing through the mixing and baking phases. We see this even in big restaurants where they set up the “mis en place” to have everything on hand ready to cook before an order comes in. Similarly, a content creation team might use templates for blog posts or social media graphics, but the creativity and effort still go into the final touch. This is what people are often suggesting about AI – to be used well it can’t just be wholeheartedly responsible for your final product, but empower your workers to do more, and more quickly.
Just remember that if the shortcuts you’re taking affect the quality of your product or service, it will catch up to you in the long run. Think about a sit-down restaurant dinner for an evening meal – your customers don’t necessarily want their food to come within a minute. They want to know you spent time making it because that often suggests quality. So the balance should be considered here.
- Time-Saving Shouldn’t Shred Human Connection
Many of us assume that AI is quite personable now, and perhaps it is, but in this example, you still may wish to have a human on the other wise. Imagine a customer reaching out with a complex issue and being met with an unhelpful automated response. At its worst, it could be a recipe for frustration, and it might lead them to take their business elsewhere. While automation is fantastic for handling repetitive tasks or high-volume demand if correctly set up, there are moments when human interaction is irreplaceable. For example, if an employee wishes to book time off because of a bereavement, using a HR AI to feign sympathy isn’t exactly going to feel right.
The best approach isn’t to avoid automation entirely, but to balance it with the same personability your brand is known for. Automate where it makes sense – like sending out appointment reminders or handling basic customer support requests – but make sure there’s always an easy way for someone to reach a real person when needed.
For example, offering a “speak to a representative” option early in an automated call system shows you value the customer’s time or will let them skip all the other stuff, while you can still automate the security process such as by asking for information only they would know to avoid a lengthy in-person process.
- Time-Saving Should Be Universally Useful
A decent time-saving strategy should benefit everyone involved, not just the business owner or a specific department. If only one group is saving time while others are overloaded, the whole system becomes unbalanced and most people will notice it.
To use an example, perhaps your sales team implements a new tool that speeds up their workflow, but the customer service team is left to deal with a flood of new requests based on that without any additional support. You’ve saved time in one area but created a headache in another.
The best time-saving practices should spread the benefits as much as you can, and this goes back to our point about scaling correctly. For instance, implementing a central database for customer data can make life easier for your marketing, sales, and customer service teams all at once provided you manage access to it as expected and don’t breach security. Or, maybe having everyone on a messaging app like Slack can help you keep both official and informal communications in line with one another.
With this advice, we believe you’ll be able to save even more time in business and thrive as you deserve to, but without throwing yourself into it without any thought or temperance.