THE ONE AUTOMATION FLOP 20K+ PEOPLE NOTICED IN ONE DAY
Written by Jessica Murray
Social media is a funny place sometimes.
On Monday morning, I shared a cold-outbound email that landed in my inbox with a quick PSA on LinkedIn: Test your workflows and automate with intention.
I figured a subset of my LinkedIn sphere would nod in sympathy or chuckle.
Instead, the post struck a nerve. 20,233 impressions, 78 reactions, and 75 comments in the first 24 hours.
Raise your (virtual hand) if you’ve received a cold email in your inbox that made you go 🤦♀️.
I’m imagining every hand going up.
Why do I think this particular example generated such a reaction?
Because shots like this do nothing but erode trust and credibility, and there’s a new wave of slop slipping into everyone’s inbox (or DMs).
How do I know this?
Here’s a tiny snippet of how people replied:
“Oh my… 🥴 that’s gonna cause a real lack of trust.”
“{I’m not interested | No, not even remotely | Mark as spam}”
“Wow, that’s embarrassing, no attention to detail, and quite honestly, it’s incredibly lazy not to preview and test your messaging.”
“Oooof. Wrote a post today about doing exactly the opposite of thisssss.”
“This type of pseudo-personalization really destroys trust. It's better to send a generic email, than to send something that smells even remotely fake.”
“Between that and the generic ‘wanna hop on a call?’ DMs, I'm kinda over the bombardment of bad, what I'll call non-human communication. Connect with me as a person, as another human being, and then, maybe, we can start a conversation.”
Want to know how many chances you get to build that back, especially in today’s market?
Not many.
I know we’re all amped up on AI and automation. It’s appealing and necessary to explore new tech and to experiment with ways to make our businesses run better, faster and stronger.
But let’s not forget a few important things here:
Don’t let novelty cloud your judgment over the outcome you aim to achieve.
We still sell our products and services to other humans.
AI and automation shouldn’t be a crutch for laziness. Check your work and test your workflows.
AI and automation are powerful and valuable in the right use cases. When the technology works for you, not against you.
Next time you’re crafting a new workflow, intending to integrate AI and/or automation, a handful of quick tips to keep in mind:
Map it out first. Visualize each step, interaction and decision point.
Leave space for human intervention. Build checkpoints for review before go-live.
Test end-to-end. Don’t just test one step, use case or with one person.
Monitor performance in real-time. Observe KPIs, responses and bounce rates for early detection.
Periodically audit. Don’t “set it and forget it.” Re-test and update on a schedule.
This type of work isn’t always easy. It takes thought, discipline and iteration. If your team is losing time to repetitive work or you want a second set of eyes, Empower can help. From Empower Progress to Empower Complete and my Fractional COO offerings, we work with entrepreneurs to audit and implement new workflows with care.