75% of employees believe RPA will improve their performance, reduce errors, grow sales and increase customer experience, according to a survey by NICE.

More than 2000 employees in the US and UK were surveyed for NICE’s State of Automation in Customer Service survey. Significantly, managers and employees both believe in the benefits of automation, but for different reasons.

In the US, 34% of managers managing employees in customer-facing roles believe that RPA helps their company deliver better customer experiences. In the UK, 31% believe that RPA enhances overall sales or saves the company money. When it comes to employees executing back-office tasks, both respondents in the US and UK believe that RPA will be most beneficial for reducing errors and ensuring compliance (over 40%).

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When looking specifically at respondents that perform back-office work, the desire for automation around data-related tasks is significant: 40% of U.S. back-office employees and 42% of UK back-office employees said RPA would be most beneficial for accurately processing data, tasks, forms and reports.

Employees also voiced frustration around being bogged down with repetitive tasks. Most employees said they spend over 50% of their working day on repetitive tasks, often a source of employee frustration and turnover that can ultimately result in poor customer service. A quarter of respondents said that over 75% of their working day is taken up by repetitive tasks.

“This survey is a distinct indicator of the shift in mindset within the customer service industry, marking an exciting time for enterprises to invest in intelligent, employee-centric solutions such as NICE RPA,” Barry Cooper, President, NICE Enterprise Product Group, said. “Employees and managers alike now more clearly understand the benefits of RPA and are ready to embrace it. Delivering exceptional customer experience is essential. Brands will only succeed if they provide employees with solutions that help them focus on customer service and alleviate them of repetitive tasks.”

“It’s about augmenting people,” says NICE, a leading player in RPA and software robots

“RPA and software robotics is not always about automating tasks; it’s also about accuracy, having the right conversation, it’s about supporting and augmenting people,” says Gareth Hole, alliances director at NICE, as he spoke to Information Age

See also: How organisations are enjoying the benefits of RPA – With any transformational, fast-evolving, relatively new technology like RPA comes hype and confusion. Therefore, it’s important to understand what factors are currently fuelling RPA adoption in the real world