Set a baseline before workflow automation

Why a baseline matters for workflow automation

After an automation project, someone will ask whether it was worth it. Without a baseline, the answer is an impression: “it feels faster”. Impressions are easily shaped by a good week, a busy month or enthusiasm for the new system.

A baseline turns the question into a comparison. You measured response time before; you measure it again after. The difference is evidence, not opinion.

Four measures to start with

1. Response time. The time from an enquiry arriving to the first meaningful reply. Record it in working hours if that is how you operate.
2. Follow-up completion. The share of agreed next steps that happened on or before their date.
3. Manual effort. The time people spend on routine handling: copying details, checking for duplicates, writing standard replies. Estimate it by timing a sample of enquiries.
4. Progression. The share of enquiries that move to the next stage, such as a booked appointment.

These are the measures Joinify uses in the Enquiry-to-Appointment Pilot, agreed during discovery before any building starts.

How to collect the data

You do not need perfect data. You need data collected the same way before and after.

• Use what you already have. Email timestamps and CRM records often give response times without extra work.
• Sample if needed. If records are incomplete, take a fixed sample, such as the last 30 enquiries, and check them by hand.
• Time the manual work. Ask the people handling enquiries to time a handful of them from arrival to logged follow-up.
• Set up automated reporting if you can. If your CRM can produce a scheduled report, use it for the baseline and keep the same report afterwards.
• Write down how you measured. The method matters as much as the number, because you will repeat it later.

Turn the baseline into success measures

A baseline on its own is just a description. Before building anything, agree what improvement you are aiming for on each measure. Be specific about the direction and, where you can, the size of the change you would treat as worthwhile.

For example, you might agree that the aim is for every enquiry to receive an acknowledgement and an owner on the day it arrives, or that routine copying between systems should no longer be needed. Targets like these are easy to check and hard to argue about later.

Avoid promising outcomes the workflow cannot control. Better enquiry handling can support more booked appointments, but the number of enquiries, their quality and the sales conversation all play a part. Our workflow automation services start from this kind of agreed measure.

Choose a fair period

Pick a period that reflects normal trading. Avoid holiday weeks, a product launch or a month when a key person was away, unless those are normal for you. If your enquiries are seasonal, compare like with like: the same months, or a period long enough to cover the cycle.

Note anything else that changes at the same time. If you launch an advertising campaign alongside the automation, enquiry volume and quality will change too, and the comparison becomes harder to read.

Be honest about what you can attribute

Some measures link directly to the automation. If enquiries are now captured into the CRM automatically, the time spent copying them is gone, and you can say so.

Revenue is harder. Many things affect whether an enquiry becomes a client: price, fit, competition and the conversation itself. Linking revenue to automation depends on the quality and availability of your CRM data. Claim what you can show, and be clear about what you cannot.

Workflow automation checklist: before you start

• Agree the four measures and how each will be calculated.
• Collect them over a normal period, using a written method.
• Record anything else that is changing at the same time.
• Agree when you will measure again, and with the same method.
• Agree in advance what result would count as success.