Digital Operations is a buzzword you need in your business
Digital Operations focuses on the internal business processes that support a top-tier customer journey, and weave the entire business ecosystem together to achieve it.
For the majority of us who run online businesses, our tech stacks have become over-developed, chaotic messes. We pay for software that still requires us to complete repetitive tasks manually because the masses say to use X, rather than Y. And, due to the influx of customers through our doors, we spend little time reviewing those use cases, to determine how to automate them, to increase the customer experience.
This is Digital Operations. The scenario just described is the primary reason some of the best businesses fail. Inside, we see teams working IN the business, rather than ON the business; pushing the needle forward with radical innovations, relationships, and reaching their designated OKRs.
Defined best by Cognizant, Digital Operations is “the concept of infusing business processes with the agility, intelligence, and automation to create operational models that delight customers and improve performance.”
Simply put, processes can be as complex as onboarding a new client or as simple as allowing someone to book time on your calendar. In either situation, strategically developing these procedures allow you and your team to focus less on the minuscule details of the process, and more on the experience your customer receives when hiring your company.
In today’s economy, more than 55% of consumers search a company’s reviews before making a purchase. The majority of those reviews, discuss the customer experience, which means that without the proper systems and processes in place, it’s almost impossible to maintain a high standard for any customer.
A Digital Operations ecosystem can support influxes of virality, kickstart a feedback loop, and reignite dead leads in any sales funnel. Chances are you have some digital operations already in place. Imagine you are a service-based business and require all of your potential clients to book a discovery call to help you better understand their needs to ultimately write a proposal. To make things easier, you set up a Calendly account, so those leads can book a call with you when it’s convenient for them.
LET’S BREAK DOWN THE PERKS OF THIS PROCESS:
Removes the manual back and forth of sharing availability;
Allows the client to not feel pressured in selecting a date/time, resulting in a higher probability of them attending the call;
You gain back 30+ minutes of your time to work on something else.
This is a simple, yet effective digital operations process, that removes a repetitive process from your sales team’s plate and provides the ability to do more important work.
The goal of Digital Operations is to streamline processes, automate as much as possible, and remove distractions.
By doing so, your customers’ buying patterns will become clearer, so you’ll be able to solve their problems more efficiently and effectively. A more complex Dig Ops example is an automated onboarding process for your clients.
If developed through a digital operations lens, would look like this:
The client views their proposal;
They click “approve” on the proposal, which redirects them to review & sign their contract;
Another redirect sends them automatically pay the project deposit.
Upon submission of the contract, two Zaps in Zapier are triggered,
the first, adds all client data to the company CRM;
then creates a new Notion Client Portal for their project;
(within Notion) the Client Portal template is duplicated, auto-creating all the necessary documents you & the client need for the project;
And lastly, a final Zap in Zapier is triggered to notify you to do a quality check before inviting the client to the workspace.
The key here is quality control. When manual work is done, human errors are inevitable due to distractions, burn-out, and employee retention. As a small business, with even fewer resources, a strategic Digital Operations ecosystem prevents the finer details from slipping through the cracks.
In the past five years of running my agency, 99 & Saint Claire, most clients have the same narrative; “we want to work more autonomously”. Their goal is simple.
By creating a workflow that matches their business model, increases productivity, reduces operating costs, and proactively responds to customer data; the company will succeed long-term.
While you can’t eliminate all operating costs or manual work (even as a online business), you can set out a plan that supports focusing less on admin-style, repetitive tasks where errors are being caused and direct your attention to customer satisfaction. To truly master a healthy Digital Operations ecosystem, you must dedicate time to creating and reviewing your company’s feedback loop. This is the second most important aspect of Dig Ops is using the data you’ve received to better any process within your business.
A few examples of feedback loops;
Sending clients a post-project survey
Reviewing project success/failures with your team
Sharing a poll on social media
With every question you ask, you collect information about your business — whether it be internally or customer-facing. This knowledge isn’t meant to be filed away in a Notion database or saved in a Google Form “for future use”. No, the feedback should be reviewed regularly so you can add, improve or remove elements of the intended customer experience.
Once a feedback loop is added, it is then you will not only be able to create OKRs, but achieve them.
THINK OF THIS ENTIRE CONCEPT AS BUILDING A LEGO HOUSE.
First, we have a jangled mess of processes - some automated, some copied from another company, but not really embraced, others forgotten or not followed at all. None of this turns our vision into reality.
Next, you take all of those processes and sort them into categories by similarity, before auditing each one unbiasedly. It is expected that some processes will be removed, some added, and potentially combined.
Each process must serve a purpose and efficiency in your business. They are the foundational elements to your LEGO house.
“AUTOMATION APPLIED TO ANY INEFFICIENT OPERATION WILL MAGNIFY THE INEFFICIENCY.”
- BILL GATES
By determining the purpose of each process, you can select software that maintains said efficiency through automated workflows. Each workflow, when linked together, builds your LEGO house, and turns your vision into a longstanding company.
Companies with decades-long success, such as Macy’s, Coco-Cola, H-E-B, are people-centric. They respond proactively to their feedback loop and create top-tier experiences for not only their customers but their employees. They are aware the success of the brand is not due to sales but to the retention and the intentionality of upkeeping their “house”.
Your Digital Operations ecosystem will show you when cracks become apparent within the business model, and it is the responsibility of the CEO or COO to emphasize its importance in helping drive the bigger picture.
To sum this concept up, there are three key pieces to remember. First, to succeed long-term you must transform your business into a people-first operation. To do so, you must create a feedback loop to collect information on the experiences individuals have with your company both internally and as a customer. Lastly, with this information, you must review your processes to add, improve or remove workflows that are not serving the greater narrative, and utilize your tech stack to reduce human error and maximize team productivity.
Written By: Sara Loretta
👋🏼 Sara Loretta is the Chief Digital Architect & Founder @ SYSTMS™ — she’s also the 10th US Certified Notion Consultant, and 1st Certified Paperform Expert. Through her work and creatorship, Sara is focused on connecting and educating teams on tech, workflows, and all the ways they can optimize their business to scale.
