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Score each task before you automate it
List the repetitive tasks your team does in a normal week. Then score each one from 1 to 3 on four questions:
| Question | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| How often does it happen? | Monthly | Weekly | Daily or more |
| How long does it take each time? | A minute or two | 5 to 15 minutes | Longer |
| What happens when it is missed or done wrong? | Minor annoyance | A delay or a chase | Lost money, a lost client or a compliance problem |
| How clear are the rules? | Needs judgement every time | Mostly clear, some exceptions | Always done the same way |
Add up the scores. 10 or more: automate it. 7 to 9: automate the routine part and keep a person for the exceptions. 6 or less: leave it for now.
A task that scores low on clear rules should never be fully automated, however often it happens. That is where a person reviews the work and the automation prepares it.
Worked example
Say a new enquiry arrives through your website several times a day. Someone copies the details into the CRM, assigns an owner, sends a reply and sets a follow-up reminder. It takes about ten minutes each time, and a missed one is a lost lead.
- Frequency: daily, so 3.
- Time: 5 to 15 minutes, so 2.
- Cost of a miss: a lost client, so 3.
- Rules: always the same, so 3.
That is 11 out of 12, so automate it. The enquiry lands in the CRM with its source, an owner is assigned by your rules, the first reply goes out within minutes, and a task is created for the follow-up. Your team only steps in for the conversation itself.
The usual first automations
- Enquiry capture and routing. Every form, call and message lands in the CRM with an owner. See our workflow automation page.
- Speed-to-lead replies. A useful first reply within minutes, written in your voice. Covered on our follow-up and nurture page.
- Booking reminders. Confirmations and reminders before every appointment, with an easy way to reschedule.
- Onboarding kick-off. When a deal is marked won, the welcome email, the onboarding tasks and the internal handover happen on their own.
- Weekly reporting. Numbers pulled from your tools into one view, instead of a spreadsheet someone rebuilds every Monday.
What not to automate
- A process that keeps changing. Settle how it should work first. Automating a moving target means rebuilding the automation every month.
- Decisions that need judgement. Pricing exceptions, refunds, complaints and anything regulated. Let automation gather the information and put the decision in front of a person.
- Messages sent in your name without review, until you have seen enough of them to trust the rules.
- Work that happens twice a year. The time to build and maintain it will not pay back.
How we approach it
We start by mapping how work actually moves through your business: where enquiries arrive, where they wait and who has to chase whom. Then we score the tasks with you, automate the high scorers inside the tools you already use, add a review step wherever judgement is needed, and set up monitoring so a failed automation is flagged instead of silently stopping. Our approach page goes through each stage.
Projects start at £4,500, with a written scope and price before anything is built.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need new software to automate our workflows?
Usually not. Most first automations connect the tools you already have. New software is only worth it when your current tools cannot hold the process.
Is Zapier enough?
For simple, low-volume tasks, often yes. We compare the two on our Zapier vs custom automation page.
What happens when an automation fails?
It should tell someone. We build monitoring into every workflow so failures are flagged to a person, not discovered weeks later by a customer.
How quickly will we see time back?
The first automations are usually the enquiry and booking flows, and they save time from the week they go live. Your scores tell you roughly how much.