Automation saves you time, and in some cases it’s perfectly fine to let something automate itself. However, sometimes automation can impact not only your image as a company, but your customer trust and perceived business ethics. While automating some things can leave you more time to focus on more important aspects of your business, it’s important to know which aspects you should be focusing on and which are okay to let a robot handle. Here are just a few examples of what you shouldn’t be automating.

Money

Of course, harnessing the power of bookkeeping software is a good idea, but a program shouldn’t be free to do everything on its own. Computers make mistakes, and finances could, at the very least, be misfiled as things that they are not. In addition, without the human touch, payments can go out too late or too early, leaving you to answer to those companies. A human eye – or two – is very important when it comes to your finances.

Messages Delivered to Customers

Although some auto-responders are fine, especially those that simply say that a message has reached you and when a customer should expect a reply, having scripted responses for everything is very risky. Spend some time on the emails you write to customers, even if you’ve said the same thing to a hundred different people before. In addition, make sure any ad campaign you have going targets the people it’s directed at instead of being generic and “spammy”.

Social Presence

Yes, some things about your social presence can be automated, like scheduling tweets or blog posts a few days or weeks ahead of time. But not everything on social media is meant to be automated. You need to target your audience and add that “human” quality to your posts to really harness the power of the word “social” in “social media”. Make sure that everyone gets a customized response on your blog, and that you always reply with thought as well.

Automation can make your life much easier, but make sure you use it sparingly so it can help your company grow in the long run.

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