Course 3 - Module 3 - Lesson 1
Sales, support, admin, reporting, and operations workflows as starter maps
Business Workflow Shortcuts
Draw the workflow before adding AI
A workflow map shows how work moves from a trigger to a useful result. Name the input, the person or system handling each step, the decisions, and the output. Include handoffs: many delays come from waiting for missing information rather than from typing slowly.
For sales, a starter map could be inquiry, check supplied needs, draft follow-up, review, and record the next step. For support, it could be ticket, retrieve approved policy, draft answer, and escalate exceptions. Both need a clear owner for promises made to customers.
Find a small drafting or checking step
Admin work might involve extracting fields from supplied forms, then checking them against the originals. Reporting might combine verified totals with a draft explanation. Operations might compare expected and observed stock, then produce an exception list. Each workflow needs a different definition of correctness.
Take a weekly service report as an example. The confirmed table says eight tickets opened and six closed. AI can draft a readable summary, but it should not invent the cause of the two remaining tickets or calculate a customer satisfaction score without data.
Keep handoffs explicit
Mark where a person reviews the output and what that person needs to see. A support reviewer needs the relevant policy passage; an admin reviewer needs the original field; a report reviewer needs the calculation. Put evidence next to the draft to reduce checking effort.
Pilot just one step in the map using sample inputs. Measure whether the next person receives clearer, more complete work. An impressive draft that creates more follow-up questions can slow the overall workflow even if the drafting step itself becomes faster.
Tiny experiment
Map a five-step support workflow from incoming ticket to reviewed reply. Circle one AI drafting step and write the evidence the reviewer needs beside it.
Confidence check
Which delay in your map is caused by missing information rather than by work an AI helper could perform?