Recently, one of my clients had an issue with disorganized documents.
Their clients were sending files via email that were supposed to be saved on Google Drive. However, the documents were often missing or hard to find. The root cause was that employees either didn’t save the files or put them in the wrong location.
To fix this, we created an email-based automation. Here’s how it works:
- When you receive an email with documents.
- Copy the sender’s email address.
- Click “forward”.
- Paste the sender’s email address into the subject line. (Yes, the subject line – automation will use it later.)
- Enter “[email protected]” in the “To” field.
Then the “[email protected]” address uses automation to handle the incoming email:
- It takes the email address from the subject line.
- It checks if the client is in the CRM.
- If the client is found, it saves the files in their dedicated folder. If not, the automation saves files in a special inbox folder to manually sort documents later.
- The system sends a response with success or any errors, along with instructions on how to fix any issues.
Copy, forward, paste, enter the special address, and send.
That’s all the employees have to do now.
They don’t even leave their email client anymore.
The takeaway? When aiming to improve a process, ask yourself, “How can I reduce friction here?” The simpler the process, the fewer chances for errors and the higher the chance to finish it.
Have you ever faced similar friction related to a task? What was it? Reply to this email and share your story. I’d love to hear from you and discuss potential solutions!