Field guide / client intake
Should you automate
client intake?
A busy inbox is a signal to investigate. The useful question is how much repeatable work you can remove while keeping the quality your clients expect.
By Dobson Development · 15 October 2026 · About 4 minutes
1. What actually repeats?
Pick one narrow stretch of work: receiving an enquiry, checking required details, identifying gaps and preparing a follow-up. Write down the steps and who handles each one. Separate routine cases from exceptions before choosing technology.
2. How much effort is there?
Sample recent cases and record active handling time. Include the second look, the tracker update and the eventual correction. Waiting three days for a client response is not the same as spending three days doing work.
Record the sample size and date. A small sample can support a first hypothesis, but unusual cases or busy periods may change the picture.
3. What work will remain?
Keep human review, exception handling, corrections and system upkeep in your estimate. Allow for cases that will stay manual. A first pilot should make that remaining work visible.
Illustrative example / not a client result
Count the time you keep.
| Assumption | Example input |
|---|---|
| Client intake cases | 120 per month |
| Current active handling | 15 minutes each |
| Cases using the new workflow | 75% |
| Work retained per adopted case | 4 minutes |
| Additional human review | 3 minutes |
Net capacity recovered:
120 × 75% × (15 − 4 − 3) ÷ 60 = 12 hours per month.
This assumes 90 adopted cases save eight minutes each. The other 30 cases keep their current effort. Retained work must include an allowance for exceptions; review is counted separately.
Those 12 hours are capacity, not cash in the bank. A cash saving requires an expense that actually stops. Additional revenue would also require demand, available capacity and a realistic margin.
4. Does the benefit justify the full cost?
List setup effort, subscriptions, internal testing, training and ongoing maintenance. Include the time before the workflow starts returning value. Run a lower-benefit and higher-cost case as well as your central estimate.
Value Lab lets you change these assumptions and compare the result. Its defaults are fictional examples: replace them with your own evidence.
5. What would make you keep it?
Agree the decision rule before building. A pilot should answer a small set of questions:
- Did active handling time fall after including review and exceptions?
- Did missing information, rework or service quality get worse?
- Can the team see, correct and override the output?
- Are the ongoing costs acceptable at the actual volume?
- Can you stop or revert the workflow without losing the work?
Set your own threshold and sample period with the process owner. If the workflow is too variable, the controls are insufficient or the value is weak, improve the process first or stop the experiment.
Your next step
Bring one workflow.
Use the free Value Lab to form a first view, or explore a paid Value Review to establish the baseline and scope a measured pilot.