Automation Case Study: Ctrl+C Ctrl+V copy-paste, enough already...
Many of you have probably experienced this.
You need to manage customers and create documents, but your time gets swallowed up by nothing but copying and pasting into Excel or Word documents all day long.
Especially with repetitive tasks, your fingers ache, your head hurts, and you find yourself thinking "I wish someone would just do this for me."
And this isn't just a one or two day thing. As these tasks pile up, time, money, and energy are all quietly draining away.
Hmm...
Not long ago, Company A reached out to us with exactly this kind of concern.
Their request was to automate the process of filling out bank account opening applications. When we heard the details, the situation was quite serious.
The account opening application consisted of 3 pages, and when you added administrator information, proof of ownership documents, and other supplementary paperwork, a total of 5 documents were needed. The problem was that these application forms had no standardized format — each field had to be typed in one by one to fit the blank spaces.
They had been manually copying over 90 pieces of information per customer and pasting them into the correct positions by hand.
Even just one or two cases a day was exhausting work, and the risk of entering information incorrectly was significant.
How Did We Automate It?
- Recreating the Application Form
First, we recreated the bank account opening application — which had only existed as images — in Google Docs, replicating it as closely as possible to the original.
- WordPress & Google Docs Integration
Next, we examined the WordPress form that collects customer information.
Here, we matched approximately 90 answers out of the 120+ responses entered into the application form with the corresponding fields on the application form template.
Example
Application form question: Please enter your business name (in English) -> Application template field: Business Name
Application form question: Purpose for opening a bank account -> Application template field: Purpose of Account
Using the MAKE platform, we developed a system that receives data submitted through WordPress via webhook and automatically populates the designated fields in Google Docs.
- Automatic Text Notification & Auto-Save of Applications
Finally, we set it up so that when a customer submits an application, a text notification is automatically sent to the person in charge, and the final application is automatically saved to Google Drive.
No More Copy-Pasting, For Real
- When a customer submits a bank account opening application through the WordPress form,
- The application is automatically generated & saved, and
- A text message is sent to both the person in charge and the customer confirming that the application has been submitted.
... pretty easy, right?
So How Much Value Does This Actually Provide?
Initially, it took about 3 hours to integrate WordPress with Google Docs.
Of course, it took a bit longer than simple copy-pasting at first because each data point had to be mapped to its exact location, but that was a one-time setup.
From then on, it's truly "no-touch." Previously, every time a customer applied, they had to repeat Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V hundreds of times (94 times, to be precise). Now that's completely unnecessary.
So just how efficient is this? Let's do the math.
Company A was receiving bank account opening applications at a rate of one every two days, spending over 3 hours per week (1 hour per person) on copy-paste work. Simple calculation: that's 156 hours per year.
Converting this to labor costs at minimum wage alone, approximately 1,564,680 KRW was being wasted every year. And this work, no matter how diligently done, is difficult to be recognized as a company "achievement" — it's literally repetitive busywork.
The actual cost of automation is the MAKE platform at $9/month. That's $108 per year, approximately 153,537 KRW at the exchange rate as of the writing date (4/14).
After setting up the automation, the only ongoing cost is the MAKE platform subscription.
The same work that previously consumed significant effort, time, and cost can now be done more accurately and faster at about 10% of the previous cost.
What we gained through automation goes far beyond simple time savings.
By breaking free from repetitive busywork, there's now room to focus on more important tasks, and work errors have been significantly reduced.
We should spend our time on things that only we can do.
While you're stuck doing repetitive tasks that anyone could do (and could be replaced), truly important opportunities may be passing you by.
Saving that time and channeling that energy into what we do best — isn't that the true value of automation?
Breaking free from Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.
That's not just "automation" —
it might be the starting point for enabling us to immerse ourselves in more important work.
IMPAKERS Blog | Another document automation case study right here! Check it out