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The Sweet Spot of Automation

By January 10, 2018 June 28th, 2019 No Comments

As we get into the nitty gritty of onboarding a new client here at Snowfly, we often hear the following comments (or something close to it) from them: “We’ve been manually tracking the performance metrics and manually rewarding our employees for so long, I don’t know where to start with automation. Can you just automate everything for us?”

While the answer may be “Yes, we can automate anything you would like,” the reality is, automation is not automatic. There is definitely a sweet spot when it comes to automation and the costs involved (both tangible and intangible) must be weighed when deciding on what portions of a process make the most sense to automate first and how to prioritize the workflow. With our customers, Snowfly begins by looking at the two or three processes within the organization where manual entry is the most prevalent and which could be the costliest in the form of time involved and potential for mistakes. From there, we take over and provide much needed relief in the form of automated processes.

One major area where automation provides significant cost savings is that of real-time prize fulfillment – a unique feature and specialty of Snowfly. There are many other gamification companies out there who provide software to “gamify” the workplace or workday experience. There are also many incentive companies who can easily handle the prize fulfillment process for your employees. What makes Snowfly truly unique is our ability to provide BOTH a gamification platform complete with Leaderboards, Badges, Reports, Data Validation, etc. but then to also provide the prize fulfillment automation based upon the gamification data we are already processing for our clients…automation that pays for itself.

Other incentive companies can provide pre-loaded debit cards or VISA/MC Gift Cards, physical gift cards to various online and brick-and-mortar retailers, and even licensed merchandise/company swag. Snowfly does all of that too, but we also offer something unique in our real-time prize fulfillment that does not involve any waiting time to receive earned prizes. We automate the process of providing rewards that are tied directly to employee performance metrics through our gamification platform and can deliver the actual prize immediately and securely through email and or direct debit card loads.

A big reason Snowfly has been successful in the automated prize fulfillment area for our clients is because many of them have spent years hassling with managing a “drawer full of gift cards”, outdated and cumbersome Excel spreadsheets and/or multiple steps of payroll processing for the incentive rewards to appear on employees’ paychecks…sometimes weeks or even months after the incentive was earned. Manually managing these processes for any business requires a significant number of hours per month by one (or more) full-time personnel to ensure everything is completed accurately and on-time each week/month/quarter. Manually managing these processes also exposes companies to the perils of inaccurate data entry, potential for theft, loss of traceability of prize funds and many other dangerous risks. Because we can process and send electronic gift cards and automatically fund reloadable debit cards already in the possession of employees means the process is fully auditable and prizes can be received by employees immediately…with NO manual intervention on your part whatsoever.

Imagine a world where gamification, incentives, and real-time prize fulfillment are all available to you at a fraction of the cost of manually managing any of these processes individually and where real-time reporting ensures you can see the ROI of such tools any time you want. Now THAT is the Sweet Spot of Automation and Snowfly can help you get there faster than you think.

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