Modern automation technology is inexpensive to implement and will save you money, because it reduces or prevents costly human errors by enforcing your business rules. It also frees up resources that would otherwise be squandered.
Automation in the Abstract
Consider that inefficient processes and people cost money and entire industries have come into existence in pursuit of efficiency, such as consultant-based analysis, artificial-intelligence and automation. Unfortunately, these technologies are too expensive to justify the benefit for many businesses. However, machine automation has been around for a century and digital automation for half a century, which means automations exist that are inexpensive to implement and will save you money.
Automation Will Free-Up Resources
Imagine an employee that performs a consistent and repetitive task throughout the day, such as a front-desk clerk that logs customers as they enter your facility. Consider how many hours of wages are dedicated to running that task each month. Using modern automation technology, the entry of your facility can be operated with mechanical door actuators, laser-imaging scanners and live-database confirmation. Therefore, automation would free-up that employee and their time can be leveraged into revenue producing activities, such as making sales calls, instead of being an ongoing operating expense.
Automation Will Enforce Business Rules
Imagine the same employee above — no amount of training can guarantee that employee will deny entry to a customer that isn’t up-to-date with their payments or is not a paying customer to begin with. Now, there are circumstances where offering trial access is advantageous, but doing so should be a business decision and not done by the whim of an employee.
Alternatively, machines are unyielding, but their Boolean logic can be a boon in circumstances where consumers would otherwise take advantage of a lackadaisical front-desk employee. A machine will allow access to properly authenticated and up-to-date consumers 100% of the time, deny access to non-paying consumers 100% of the time, and will not alter its decision erroneously or against your business rules.
Automation Will Reduce Human Error
Human error refers to the natural tendency of people to make mistakes that, and as it applies to large samples of work, guarantees that errors will exist. Certain mistakes are harmless, but some mistakes can alternatively be costly. Consider a person running reports to collect payments on consumers or even issuing collection emails, phone calls or collection attempts — each month they perform the task hundreds of times, ensuring they will incorrectly contact or bill a consumer. Such an error can be harmless, or that consumer can become irate, issue a chargeback and make public claims against your organization.
Automated billing allows collection on the correct day, for the correct amount and from the correct customers while outputting reports to management without requiring human intervention, thereby circumventing the potential for human error and its associated detriments.
In conclusion, automation is an effective tool that can be inexpensively deployed into your organization to save money. Your organization likely uses a form of automation already to free-up resources, enforce business rules or reduce human error. However, there is always room for improvement and as technology advances new automations and their associated benefits become more feasible.
Take some time to overview your organization’s goals and see what automations are available to increase your organization’s efficiency, and consider utilizing a club management software to automate tasks within your facility.
Kurt Schneider is a developer by trade, having worked on numerous projects for over a decade, and believes in continuous education. Previously, Kurt has pursued education in diverse fields from technology management to piloting, and is presently pursuing a Juris Doctor degree. Kurt is the compliance manager for RhinoFit Gym Management Software. For more information visit www.rhinofit.ca, visit admin@rhinofit.ca or call 866-858-0304.
