EPISODE 82 OF WHAT WOULD THEY DO? THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PODCAST FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
NOTE: Some of the tools and resources mentioned in these shownotes could be affiliate links. That means when you click the link to create an account, start a free trial or make a purchase, it won’t cost you any more but I may receive a commission for introducing you. One thing I want to stress is that I would never recommend anything or anyone I haven’t successfully worked with myself or trust unconditionally.
Just because you can automate something in your business does that mean you should?
As your business grows, automation can feel like the obvious answer to buying back much-needed time and capacity.
But there are two extremes I see all the time: Those who automate everything because they’ve been told that’s what scaling looks like. And those who automate absolutely nothing because the tech feels so overwhelming that running everything manually somehow seems easier.
Neither approach is particularly helpful.
So in this episode, I’m sharing the three questions I ask myself before I automate anything in my own business or my clients’ businesses.
Because good automation is about knowing where your personal touch makes a real difference, what you need to keep visibility of, and whether removing yourself from one interaction gives you more capacity to show up somewhere more valuable.
What we cover:
Why automating everything isn’t necessarily the answer to scaling your business
The risk of removing yourself from customer touchpoints that need you
Why visibility matters when you’re automating a course, membership or program
How customer data can help you make better long-term decisions about your offer
Why every automation should buy back capacity for something more valuable
How to audit automations you’ve already built using these three questions
Soundbites:
“Automation for the sake of it, means you’re wasting precious hours on automating things that never needed automating in the first place. Rather than just removing personal touch points, you want to redirect your energy somewhere where you can have more impact.”
“We’ve hopefully established that automation in your business is not the enemy of personalization, but automating things definitely needs the right filter and the right questions you’re asking yourself before you apply a blanket rule or someone else’s system to your business.”
😍 Love the show?
Submit your question so I can answer it in an upcoming episode (or invite the perfect guest expert!).
Post a screenshot with your key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @candocontent and #WWTDpod so I can repost your content.
Your next steps:
Grab your FREE access to the 2026 State of the Customer Report right here.
Generate 10 tailored-to-you survey questions FREE right here.
Join the Retention Lab 🧪, the membership for savvy online business owners determined to grow their revenue, referrals and repeat business without more marketing. Join here!
Find out how you can get my strategic customer experience brain on your brand here.
Grab the FREE State of the Customer online business industry report with first-hand findings, gaps & opportunities PLUS proven strategies to boost your customer experience. Download FREE here!
Check out my favourite CX tools and resources here.
Episode Transcript:
Nadine (00:00)
Hello, hello, and welcome back to the podcast. In this week’s episode, we are picking up where we left off last week, where I took you deep inside a client project where I automated a 12 months program onboarding experience.
This week we are looking at the three questions that I ask myself before I automate anything in my business or in my clients’ businesses. before we get stuck in, let’s address the elephant in the room.
Automation can feel totally overwhelming and totally risky. I have that many conversations inside Retention Lab with my members where they have ideas, they know what they need and want to automate, but taking that first step and making it happen feels just so overwhelming, so daunting.
The moving tech pieces are just holding them back from taking action and freeing up that much needed capacity in their online business.
and often what I see is that people start to automate everything simply because they’ve been told to, or they think that is the next step to help them scale. Or they’re automating nothing because they feel stuck in that cycle of overwhelm, fear, and yeah, the tech gremlins simply are too much for them.
The problem is that as your online business grows and you add more offers, more opportunities to work with you, you are eventually going to burn yourself out running everything manually.
Or you’re going to build something 100% automated that leaves your clients, your students, your customers hanging because you have removed yourself totally from the equation via automations that replicate those precious interactions that people have signed up for in the first place.
So today we are going to dive into the three important questions you need to ask yourself before you do anything in your business or automate anything. And if you’ve already automated something, this is your permission slip to revisit those automations and run them through this audit that we are going to kick off right now.
So question one is what would I lose if this was automated? And I want you in this step here to have a look at every single touch point in your course membership or program experience. The onboarding email, the onboarding survey, the welcome video that you potentially send. Really have a look at every interaction.
And every touch point your students or clients or customers or members currently have inside your program and your client journey. and yeah, what would be lost if you automated a step and removed yourself from the equation. And unfortunately, far too many people start automating things and removing themselves from the picture without.
Asking this important question. And then once they’ve removed themselves, it is too late to add yourself back into the picture. And as I mentioned in last week’s episode, you can automate things in a way that feel totally bespoke and then really amplify those unscalable moments that are critical to the success of your students. If you haven’t listened yet, make sure you listen to the last episode because it really is going to make you look at
How you on board and how you support your students inside your program membership or course right now. Question two is what do you need to keep or create visibility of? So that is touching on the things you need to be able to measure and quantify, even in an evergreen capacity, to be able to intentionally support your.
students and your clients because if you don’t see the things they’re doing or not doing that means you are supporting them blindly
Automations that run invisibly in the background quickly become a liability for you because if you are reminding people of things they’ve already taken care of, they’re going to stop reading your emails.
And on the flip side, if you are rewarding people and congratulating them for doing something, they might not even have got to, again, it removes the relevance for that particular student in your program and the likelihood is they’re going to start disengaging with your program because it feels so impersonal and so generic.
that it is crystal clear you’ve automated yourself out of the picture and you have no idea where they’re at on their journey,
And as I mentioned in last week’s episode, I love using intentional action tracking systems as a signal inside your automation. So you always know where people are at, what actions they have already ticked off, and how they’re engaging with the many things that are on offer inside your course program or membership. And quantifying things and measuring things.
Even if you don’t use them in every single touch point, just means that you always have visibility how a particular student is going in case they, for example, are unhappy with the program, they’re complaining. Being able to quantify what they’ve done, how they’ve shown up for themselves means you can show up
with data in hand to those conversations. And you can also make long term decisions around the structure and the way your program is designed to support your students in the best way possible. Question three, last but not least, we need to ask ourselves does this buy back time for something that matters more? Because automation, for the sake of it, means.
you’re just losing personality and personal touch points with no gain on the other side. Plus, you’re wasting precious hours on automating things that never needed automating in the first place. So rather than just removing effort and your personal touch points, you want to redirect your energy somewhere.
where you can have more impact. So in my client’s case from last week’s episode, she removed herself from the touch points and from the reminders that didn’t need her personal input. So she had more energy to show up for the live sessions to give feedback on client work and engage in the community. So automating that part
of the onboarding experience meant she had more capacity to give specific one on one experiences on the flip side. And
if an automation doesn’t free you up for something more valuable, I would always question why you’re building it in the first place. Why do you need this automation if it doesn’t have any benefit on the other side? So, three powerful questions, particularly paired with last week’s episode, to hopefully make you think how automating your
Onboarding experience in your business can totally free up capacity, give you peace of mind and make sure you’re setting your students up for success without you having to hold their hand at every step of the way.
your takeaway from this episode and your little to-do is to pick one thing you’re either about to automate or you already have automated in your business, and then run it through those three questions. Obviously, it’s
easier to answer those questions if you haven’t automated because then you’re saving yourself a lot of time. But it’s always worth auditing your automations to see where you
Are automating for the sake of it, where you have removed too many personal touch points and where you’re not measuring the things that you really should be measuring and likely can be measuring super easily with the right tech tools. So we’ve hopefully established that automation in your business is not your enemy and not the enemy of personalization, but
Automating things definitely needs the right filter and the right questions you’re asking yourself before you just apply a blanket rule or someone else’s system to your business. If you want this filter applied to your business by someone who has implemented onboarding experiences for a whole lot of businesses in the online business space.
We can absolutely do that together inside the CX catalyst where I apply that filter for you, I make sure we’re asking the right questions, we’re measuring the right things, and we’re also keeping track of the right actions and signals. So you can then remove yourself from the things that can be automated and infuse yourself in those key moments that matter. If you want to do it with my support yourself.
Retention Lab is the place to do that. I, as I mentioned last week, have just dropped an interactive tool to help you use my Retention Lab onboarding experience as the baseline and as a starting point for your own customer experience inside your course program or membership. Thanks so much for tuning in this week. it’s always a pleasure to
Have a chat with you in inverted commas. if you haven’t subscribed to or followed the show yet, depending on where you’re listening or watching, please make sure you hit subscribe and follow so you don’t miss any future episodes. And I will be back in your airpods next week.
