Before
Outbound follow-up that is an afternoon on hold, every afternoon.
After
The checks happen on their own. Exceptions come back with everything already filled in.
Outbound follow-up that is an afternoon on hold, every afternoon. The checks happen on their own. Exceptions come back with everything already filled in.
After lunch someone picks up the list. Call the carrier, sit on hold, ask where the shipment is, write it down. Call the vendor, sit on hold, ask if the order shipped. In the companies we meet this is an afternoon, every afternoon, and the same person does it.
Most of the answers are the same as yesterday. The few that changed are the ones that matter, and they are buried in the rest.
Call a fully loaded employee $45,000 a year, as an illustration. An afternoon a day is about 20 hours a week, half a person, spent mostly on hold.
Typical figures, using $45,000 as an illustrative fully loaded cost. Your numbers go in the calculator below. If your version is a couple of hours a week, that still counts.
We start by sorting the list. Anything the other side exposes through a portal or a connection gets a plain automation that checks it on a schedule and writes the answer down. That is usually most of the list.
For the checks that only a phone call can do, we build a voice agent that places the call, asks the question you would ask, and records the answer. This part is AI, and we say so. If the call goes somewhere the agent cannot handle, it hands off to a person with the details already filled in.
Plain automation handles most repetitive work. We use newer tools only where they clearly earn their place, and we tell you when we do. On this task the line is clear: portals get automation, phone calls get the agent.
What the person gets back is the afternoon. They see only the exceptions, with the status, the reference number and the notes already in place.
Is this AI?
This is mixed, and we tell you which is which. Where the other side has a portal or a connection, plain automation does the check. Where a call is the only way, an AI voice agent makes the call and records the answer.
Automation vs. AI: which one your task needsBefore
Outbound follow-up that is an afternoon on hold, every afternoon.
After
The checks happen on their own. Exceptions come back with everything already filled in.
Real work from real clients, with the names left out. What matters is the shape of the problem, and how often we see it.
This kind of project
Depends on how the checks can be done
The portal checks are ordinary automation and scope like any other lookup. The phone calls are the involved part: a voice agent, a handoff for anything unexpected, and a running cost per call. If most of your list can be checked without a call, the project is smaller than it looks.
Set to the typical figures for this task. Change them to match your team, however small the number.
Hours a week, times the people doing it, at whatever a person costs you. $45,000 a year is an illustration; set it to your own figure.
People doing this work
1
Hours each, per week
Half an hour counts. 40 is a full week.
20
Fully loaded cost per person, per year
Salary, benefits, taxes, overhead. $45,000 is an illustration; set it to yours.
$45,000
Time spent on this task
20 hrs / week
About 1,040 hours a year of a person's time.
These figures show the value of time spent on the task, not a project quote or guaranteed cash savings. We will help estimate what can realistically be automated.
Every morning, every Friday, or every time an order comes in. Small tasks and larger workflows are both welcome. The evaluation is free, and if we take it on, first deliverables are running in your operation within 30 days of kickoff.
Free evaluation. Fixed quote before work begins.
Plain automation
Automate looking up statuses on vendor and carrier portals
An automation checks every portal overnight and hands the team only the exceptions.
Uses AI
Automate routine inbound calls so staff only take the ones that need a person
Routine calls are handled. Staff take only the ones that need a human.
Everything we automate
Fourteen tasks, each with what it takes today, what we build instead, and what shapes the scope.