We are living in the age of fast-paced technology that has paved the way for Automation, to a point where human intervention has become unnecessary. If something can be done without human interaction, by just giving some sort of “start signal” (e.g. pushing a button), this can be considered automation.

Automation can save time and money, delight customers who no longer have to wait in line for a person to assist them with a transaction, and impede human error.

It might come out as a surprise for some people, but automation is already everywhere around us!

Examples of everyday automation that most people experience on a daily basis; Washing machine, dishwasher, refrigerators, bus doors, Air Condition systems in a car, turning on a complete home theater system with the push of just one button, etc. And these are just a few examples to quote.

Automation is quite broad in terms of its applications, significance, and its opportunities. This scope has long vexed the imagination of some of the world’s greatest thinkers. On that note, here are some of the finest and intriguing automation quotes to ponder upon along with insights on the lessons they offer.

In a 1994 famous science horror film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the protagonist creates an intelligent life using inanimate materials. However, far from the perfect artificially created specimen imagined, the result is a hideous creature that brings terrible consequences.

Takeaway: So, this very first entry in the list of our automation quotes reminds us to be careful of what we automate. Just because you can automate something doesn’t imply that you should be automating it. In fact, automating the wrong things can trigger a ripple effect of damage. Wondering what could be these wrong things? Some examples:

• Prolonged Customer Service Calls: No one wants to be stuck in an automated phone call that lasts for all eternity. Slowly making your way through random questions while keeping patient is painful. With long automated phone calls, customers end up getting frustrated which means a bad experience and low customer satisfaction.
• Highly complex processes: Automation software is capable of complex processes but sometimes during complex processes, one needs human intervention and decision-making. If it’s a process that demands significant human attention at many stages, it’s better not to automate it all. Instead, automate the smaller, simpler segments.

Moreover, attempting to automate everything puts you at the risk of losing the human touch and friendly face of your company. When customers can’t get support from a human, and the automation in place isn’t equipped to help them, they’ll inevitably feel alienated.

Here’s another entry in the list of automation quotes that meaningfully sums up an important message: You should not attempt to automate broken processes.

Automation is not a cure-all remedy, so it’s important to understand it will not mend your broken processes.  Automation will do only what you tell it to do. If you tell it to complete a broken or faulty process, it will. As a result, you’ll get broken, faulty results. And, they’ll be on a much larger scale, as automation efficiently replicates your inefficient operations.

So, remember the thumb rule: Automation is best for common, constant, and systematic tasks that follow a standard pattern. Always start small as it will let you identify errors and correct them as you move forward. Initially, stick to a goal followed by trimming minutes from predictable, repetitive processes, with small benefits adding up over time.

Using automation to replace humans is one of the biggest automation pitfalls. It fuels automation anxiety in your office, meaning that the remaining human team members worry about being replaced by technology. This hurts office morale and can see valued employees jumping ship.

Not to forget, automation can’t do everything a human can do anyway. Automation isn’t capable of out-of-the-box thinking, problem-solving, or analysis – you need the human members of your team for that.

It’s imperative that you find the right balance between automation and human intelligence within your business. Automation is shy; it’s great for boring, repetitive tasks behind the scenes, but not so much when it comes to the frontlines. So, leave representing your business — be that to customers, partners, or other employees — to human team members.

Business Process Automation is not Artificial Intelligence. Remember, Automation is not ‘smart’ as it will only do what you tell it to do. This means that it doesn’t learn or adapt by itself. You must instruct it. If you tell it to do something incorrectly, it will complete the task incorrectly.

So, there is no flexibility in automation. It will neither offer a magic solution to all your problems nor recognize faulty or broken processes.

Takeaway: While Automation might not be able to learn for its mistakes, Humans always Can.  And these mistakes can always be corrected. To Sum up at its best: Data is a useful tool, but human initiative and understanding remain at the heart of any successful business.

Moving next in the list of best automation quotes is a best practice curtain call. If you visualize automation as a means to cut corners or avoid certain processes, mind it but your outlook is all wrong.

Daily workflows across various business departments are loaded with small repetitive tasks. It’s no surprise that your team performs them as a part of everyday challenges. When these tasks expand and burden your team, don’t ask who should be handling them, instead Focus on how to handle them. In other words, a good automation approach will start by assessing your company’s work and how best it should be done.

Personal Takeaway: A different way to put this together: improving your business processes shouldn’t be a ‘who’ question, but a ‘how’ question.

Asking ‘how’ splits your business workflows up into the individual processes and tasks they comprise. This offers an opportunity to review the workflow from end to end and find areas both to automate and to optimize.

While this may be the age of automation, nothing can beat human touch and personalization. In fact, in many services industries, human labor is considered a mark of luxury.  So, at the same time robots are said to destroy manufacturing jobs, the demand for labor-intensive services is soaring.

The good part, we can see it all around us.

• The rise of Etsy, an online marketplace whose main selling point is that the products are not mass-produced.
• Then there’s the craze for restaurants with organic, locally sourced ingredients that often come from smaller, less mechanized farms.
• In recent years, there has been an exponential rise of coffee breweries where Hand/manual coffee picking requires laborers to pick the coffees, quite literally, by hand.

These are all cases where greater automation is technologically feasible, but companies are using their lack of automation as a selling point. They’re doing this because customers like the feeling of a personal connection to the farmers, brewers, and artisans who make the products they’re buying. So, while automation undoubtedly makes products cheaper and readily available people will increasingly shift their spending to goods and services where a connection to a human provider is seen as a key benefit.

…. Choose the automation path that works for you

Each of these quotes draws on a very real element of the automation reality. Why not use them to get you thinking about how to implement automation successfully in your own business?

Tigersheet is a uber-fast modern-day no-code platform that can help automate and streamline business processes in quick and easy steps. The intuitive drag and drop interface allows users with zero coding knowledge to create workflows and share them with your employees.

Using automation quotes as a catalyst. Want to give it a try? Try a 30-day free trial of Tigersheet to witness the change in your organization today!