Automation Metrics: 6 Ways to Gauge Automation Effectiveness
The following article outlines the 6 most important automation metrics you should track in your business. This article has been summarized from an post on the Integromat Blog
1. Time Saved
Time saved is an automation metric that measures the amount of time you can save by automating a process compared to when you do it manually.
Tracking automation metrics can help you measure the effectiveness of your automated processes while you boost your team’s productivity.
In the business world, people like to say that there aren’t enough hours in the day. And it’s for good reason. According to TinyPulse, over 70% of workers feel like they have too much on their plate each week and can’t get their work done on time.
However, since one third of tasks in 60% of occupations can be fully automated, implementing automation into your business could buy your team the time they need to finish their tasks on time, every time.
Time saved is the amount of time you can save by automating a process compared to when you do it manually.
2. Error Ratio
Error ratio is an automation metric compares the number of mistakes that your team makes completing tasks manually to the number of mistakes that occur in your team’s automations.
One of the main benefits of automation is that it can drastically reduce the number of errors committed during a workflow or process.
When your team completes tasks manually, they’re prone to making errors, especially if they’ve been doing it for a long time or if tasks are particularly boring and repetitive. It’s human nature.
But how do you know how effective your automations are at reducing errors? One of the automation metrics you can track is error ratio.
3. Deviation Rate
Deviation rate is an automation metric used to measure how optimized and effective your automations are.
Deviation rate is the number of times that you have to deviate or manually change steps in a workflow as a percentage of the total steps in the workflow.
You can measure your workflow’s deviation rate by:
- Combing through the workflow
- Counting the number of steps where you have to manually adjust the step or deviate from the workflow
- Dividing that number by the total number of steps in the workflow
The lower the rate, the more effective your workflow is.
4. New Work Created
New work created is an automation metric that measures the amount of new work you’re able to complete because you’ve implemented automations into your business.
The main benefit of automation is that it can take care of manual, repetitive tasks so your team can focus on the work that matters most to your business. And if you start tracking new work created, you’ll know exactly how much more impactful work you can do now because of automation.
5. Cost Savings
Cost savings is an automation metric that measures the amount of money your automated processes have slashed from your operations.
Every business wants to save money, and automation is one of the best ways to economize. You just need to measure its impact on your savings using the right metric. More specifically, cost savings.
6. Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is an automation metric that measures the percentage of users who don’t finish an automated workflows.
Some of your automated processes and workflows will actually be built for your users, like a native onboarding experience in your product with learning paths, suggestions, and microcopy.
Measuring bounce rate — the percentage of users who leave or don’t finish one of these external workflows — will show you how intuitive and seamless they are.
To gauge bounce rate, take the number of users who bounced from your workflow and divide it by the number of users who entered the workflow. The lower the bounce rate, the more intuitive and seamless your workflow is.
Measuring the performance of your automations
Implementing automations into your business is an exciting endeavor but it’s even more thrilling when you can see how much they’re improving your productivity and benefiting your bottom line.
Ideally, you can track all six of the metrics to fully understand how your automations are performing. But if you want to start small, we recommend tracking the most fundamental automation metrics, like time saved, new work created, and cost savings.