Some time ago, only big players had the privilege of business processes automation and it helped them gain the competitive advantage over time. It’s no strange that everyone talks about business automation these days.
There’s a whole world of software out there that specialize in helping you work more efficiently. Some even do most of the work for us. Best of all — it’s no longer the privilege of a chosen few!
Automated workflow enables teams to get things done in a simple, streamlined way.
Online forms help businesses switch to working in the cloud. The data you collect online is always accessible and can even flow to other apps you use in your day to day work. If you’re an entrepreneur, your time is limited and your team is on tight schedules mostly.
Forms help you collect, store, and use all kinds of data. You might be looking for ways to close deals on your website, or you might need contracts signed, registrations submitted, applications, payments, inquiries, feedback, and similar useful data collected online. So, here are the top 5 forms to automate your processes, boost team collaboration and get you intelligence on your business.
1. Job Application Form
Everyone needs new team members from time to time, and if you often do, it means your business is growing fast! Job application forms help you recruit the best people on your website or social networks. Interested candidates can fill in your questionnaire and attach files like resumes, cover letters, photos, and portfolios, that get stored in your secure online account. Easily search and analyze all applicants, create reports, and export data to other platforms like Google Sheets, MailChimp, or Trello.
Here’s our job application form template that you can adjust and use for free — even without a website, because it can act as a web page hosted on EmailMeForm’s secure servers.
2. Online Registration Form
Educational institutions like schools, universities, sports centers, camps, various associations and different event facilities, use online forms to register new students, members, attendants, employees, visitors, and so on. Travel agencies and independent vacation specialists have long been selling tours and travel packages online with the help of registration and payment forms. Even churches have gone online with their congregation registrations. Nonprofit organizations and public institutions often recruit and need to have open memberships via online forms.
And it feels good to know we save trees with this paperless data and money exchange.
3. Order and Payment Form
This brings us to the next type of form you cannot imagine your online business without — order forms! They are our hero simply because they help us sell to the worldwide Internet community. Never in the history of mankind has it been easier to build a brand and sell goods and services to the world. Online forms help automate this process from the first until the last touchpoint with customers.
Today’s business environment requires multiple third party apps for success. This success relies mainly on automation. There are massive platforms like Salesforce, SugarCRM, Basecamp, and others that help you manage all aspects of your business in one place, no matter how big or small your company is. Payment forms you create with EmailMeForm can connect with all these apps and get you set up in seconds for worry-free automated online sales, pre and post sale marketing, bookkeeping, and even recurring payments.
4. Inquiry / Quote Request Form
Why wouldn’t you accept service and quote inquiries on your website or social media? Web inquiries are much smoother, easier, and cheaper for both you and your potential customers than phone calls or personal visits. By creating a smart service request form, you can present your products/services with descriptions and images and get a clear idea about your customers’ needs, which will then enable you to put up your best offer in terms of service and quote.
When deals fall through the cracks, you can always send potential clients your offers via MailChimp, MyEmma, Constant Contact, or other marketing automation tool. Your inquiry forms are connected to these platforms and the leads you collect will be automatically imported there, while you concentrate on creating effective marketing campaigns.
5. Bug Reports & Support
For bug reporting and support automation you can use both external forms for user-generated requests and internal forms for your team to manage support tickets. This will help your technicians and support team sort through the tickets and prioritize their work.
Choose dropdown form fields and include a list of possible issues for your users to choose from and then set up logic rules to redirect these tickets to the appropriate technicians for quick response. For example, issues with payments can be redirected to your billing team so that they can react as soon as they receive tickets in their inbox.
Here’s our example of an Issue Tracker Form for teams to use internally:
Form submissions will be safely stored in your account and your team can access them anytime to sort through the bug reports, track the issues, collaborate, and even generate daily, weekly, or monthly reports. You can then analyze the data and determine problematic areas in your service to work on and fix in the future.
Finally, for complete automation and workflow simplification, you can integrate your forms with 3rd party apps you use. Limit the scope of human mistakes, frustration and time consumption, by setting up logic rules and integrations on your forms. Our Pro plan offers up to 5 custom app integrations via our CustomWorks service. With CustomWorks, you can also order beautiful, branded forms to be built for your website by our team.
If you need quick solutions for your form creations, go to our Templates gallery and choose a free template as a starting point.
And remember:
Automation is the new creation, simplifying the way we work and communicate!
Jovana Milankovic
Jovana is a content creator and marketing manager at EmailMeForm. Her job is to curate our software to the world and make it more human for our users.
