How Automation Makes AutomaMA Work Smarter
AutomaMA actually consists of not 1 but 4 companies. Namely the 2 travel agencies Travel Magical Nepal, Travel Magical Morocco, the webshop HelpLocalwithLove. And also the IT branch: AutomaMA itself. The funny thing is that in today’s rapidly evolving world, where technological advancement is the norm, where it is essential for businesses to work smarter to stay competitive, automation makes it possible to keep this going with very little manpower. How? Thanks to automation; a powerful tool to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve overall performance. Let’s take a look at how automation has helped each of these business areas work smarter.
A step back
AutomaMA has actually been around for 19 years; In 2005 I registered it with the Chamber of Commerce – with a crawling child at my feet – and since then I have worked partly as a self-employed person, partly as an employee. Until I finally decided to start my own company/self-employed 8 years ago. In the beginning completely as a self-employed person. For example, I spent about 3 years at ABN Amro Worked as a Developer in a DevOps team. And later for a social enterprise (which didn’t end so happily). I have learned from this that it is wise to generate income in multiple ways. And that’s what I started doing over the years. This resulted in two travel agencies and a webshop.
Thanks to Hilde Radt and Shelley Barendrecht I have become a fan of (financial) planning and overview and structure of my company. And I have now reached the point where I have started automating quite a bit. And this time for myself :-).
How Travel Magical Morocco’s automation was addressed
For a travel agency, automation can make the difference between time-consuming manual processes and efficient, streamlined operations. Here are some ways we implemented automation:
Booking processes
By implementing an automated booking system, customers can book their trips themselves, eliminating the need for manual entry and confirmations. This reduces the chance of errors and saves valuable time of your employees. We recently started working with WeTravel for booking travel. I have to say; a pleasant and user-friendly product that also processes payments immediately.
Communication
We recently started working with automated emails to inform customers about travel, send payment reminders and provide travel updates. Not only does it reduce the need for manual follow-ups and improve customer satisfaction, but it also saves a huge amount of time. Where you previously had to keep track of all departure dates and create emails with your agenda in hand, you now enter your name and departure date once, and you’re done. We work with MailTribe (ActiveCampaign).
Customer service
Of course we also have our website There is a WhatsApp button to quickly answer questions and help customers plan their trips.
Planning
We are working with our self-developed tool for planning. In which we can keep track of the exact status of the trips, the itinerary and the various components. I must honestly say that the travel agency is now becoming too big to keep putting it in an Excel sheet. So I’m very curious to see how this experiment will turn out.
How HelpLocalwithLove’s automation has been addressed
For an online store, automation offers opportunities to streamline the ordering and shipping process, improve inventory management and optimize the overall customer experience. At HelpLocalwithLove we have tackled this as follows:
Order processing and inventory management
We have outsourced the entire order processing to Sipack. A decision that I am still very happy with to this day. Because not only are our home accessories neatly packaged and shipped. We also immediately started using their automated systems to process orders, manage inventory and generate shipping labels. This reduces the chance of human error (read: my fumbling), speeds up the fulfillment process and I have an excellent view of the stock, so I can order more in a timely manner. Something that gives a lot of peace.
In addition, the great guys at Sipack are very professional and approachable, so I know that the entire handling of the webshop is in good hands.
Payments
Payments are processed by Stripe in the webshop. And the great thing is that thanks to Webwinkelfacturen I have an automatic link with my favorite accounting program Jortt. So when an order is placed, the invoice is automatically created in Jortt and the order is automatically shipped. What else do you want? One more thing…
Reviews and waiting customers
Thanks to MailTribe (ActiveCampaign ) and its link with my Woocommerce webshop – when an order is shipped – a process is automatically started in ActiveCampaign; requesting a review. I have prepared a whole bunch of emails for this purpose; personalized down product. So that a customer can immediately leave a review on the correct page of my webshop. Perhaps cumbersome; personalize to product. But this way I have the greatest chance of getting reviews on my site. And I am careful with that.
An additional advantage is that the process in ActiveCampaign starts the moment someone makes a purchase in the webshop. Such a customer is placed on hold status. And as soon as a customer has to wait longer than 2 weeks, a message is automatically sent again.
The people at Sipack are very fast and ship immediately the next day. But if something has to come from Morocco or Sri Lanka, it takes time. Thanks to ActiveCampaign, I now have a good idea of which people are waiting. And they regularly receive an email that the order is on its way. In short; These customers and their orders are closely monitored until we receive the product and can ship it.
How AutomaMA’s automation was addressed
For an IT company, automation can help improve internal processes, provide better customer support, and increase operational efficiency. But now the funny thing is that AutomaMA is perhaps the least automated. Although.
System Monitoring
We have our own VPS. Which is neatly monitored via automated monitoring tools to continuously check the performance of the network, server and applications. This allows us to proactively identify and resolve problems before they have serious consequences.
Software development
We have a lot in-house for software development. Like GitLab. While I can work with automated test suites and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines to improve the speed and quality of software development, we don’t currently have that in-house. Such tools reduce the time required for manual testing and deployments and ensure faster time-to-market for new products and features.
But I’m actually going in a slightly different direction; the direction of low/no-code developments and developing them step by step. Curious about what that will bring.
Overall
I also use some ‘general’ software tools. Such as Loomly for social media planning and the aforementioned Jorrt. All are easy to use and very time-saving.
In conclusion, automation is an extremely powerful tool to make Travel Magical Morocco, HelpLocalwithLove, and AutomaMA work smarter. By automating repetitive tasks, I can save valuable time and resources, increase operational efficiency, and improve overall productivity. It allows me to gain a competitive advantage by not having to do many tasks myself. And – with the help of a number of others – I am able to automate a lot of things. Something that is a huge advantage in the rapidly changing business environment. And; I am and will remain a kind of programmer; it’s also just plain fun! 😉
This article contains a few affiliate links. Most links are ‘normal’ to products. And I am satisfied and enthusiastic about everything! Everything helps you work smarter.
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