Customer service automation is now accessible for big and small businesses to enhance the work of the support team. It helps customers to tackle their problems without involving support agents. It keeps companies from the endless number of calls, makes the customer support services go quicker, and allows workers to dedicate more time to solving complicated issues.
Though digital process automation tools are not flawless, as they are not able to deal with difficult situations nor can provide live human interaction, they can transform your work system. With the right balance of combining customer service automation tools and the work of your agents, you will improve customer experience, thus improving the relationships with your clients, and you will take advantage of newly acquired benefits for your business.
Taken from: https://freshdesk.com
What is Customer Service Automation?
Customer service automation is the process for customer support that minimizes human involvement in dealing with clients’ inquiries. Companies can implement automation with the help of various automation tools.
Here are some examples of automation tools that can boost customer service teamwork:
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Helpdesk Software
- Messaging CRMs
- Email Automation
- Chatbots
Every company starts out with a customer service team whose tasks are to answer the emails and help the customers via phone. As the company grows, previously manageable tasks for a group of people turn into a huge pile of work. In this case, a business should either hire new workers, which obviously leads to extra expenses for the corporation, or use automation customer services as a cost-reduction act.
How Automation Tools Help Improve Customer Service Teams Work?
Automation services have become immensely popular nowadays as they come together with a big number of advantages. Let’s get acquainted with the most crucial points for your business.
#1 Cuts Down Customer Service Price
The first thing the entrepreneurs consider is the price. Customer service automation turns out to be more profitable compared to hiring live workers. Based on the research by McKinsey, with the growing customer satisfaction from automated customer support, you can also witness cost reduction by up to 40%!
Companies don’t have a need to hire new workers, but the satisfied customers will still stay with your business and continue helping you to grow the revenue. Your agents will have no need anymore to spend time on answering some basic questions for customers but instead will have an opportunity to focus on more sophisticated individual issues.
#2 Improves Human Contact at Major Customer Touchpoints
There are many businesses, where customer service stands for advancing customer journey. For instance, a customer is going to buy their first car. They have many questions and hesitations before making this major purchase. It takes much time and effort for the agent to ensure a client buys the car and feels satisfied.
Predicting customer issues and solving a problem for a client before it even arises is a bright example of brilliant customer service. Your workers can center their attention on tackling difficult problems when a chatbot can cope with all the easy questions which customers can have on their minds.
#3 Provides Efficiency and Shorter Time for Response
Customers appreciate when the company values their time and will come back again to the business which gives immediate responses to their questions.
Other than setting a policy for your agents to reach a short call time, you can let them focus on the result. While a chatbot can collect the necessary information about the issue a client is facing, the live worker will only connect at the end of the process and assist with personal help for a client if this will be needed.
#4 Stimulates Support Teams Cooperation
Automated customer support services can help to set the collaboration between different departments of your company and get rid of the uncertainty about who is responsible for this or that question ticket.
Helpdesks can be handy in marking the emails with the status of a case, a worker, responsible for it, and if needed a flag to check on it later, whether the case is solved or needs any further assistance.
#5 Provides Help 24/7
People can work a certain number of hours a day including days off but a machine needs no break. Automated tools for customer support can work 24/7 for the convenience of all your clients.
Chatbots are a perfect solution for this task. They can send your customers instant messages and provide them with answers to their questions based on what buttons they click. More than that, chatbots collect information from people without any need of filling out any forms and saving your clients’ time.
#6 Keeps an Official Tone and Voice
Automation serves to integrate the professional tone of your company into a usual communication with customers. Your company can also set on-hold music for customers which they will listen to while waiting for the response and in the long run this music will always be associated for your clients with your brand.
#7 Reduces Human Error
We all are humans and tend to make mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes can be crucial for your company. In order to tackle this problem, automation tools come in handy and can help to fill out the important information and ease your life.
#8 Offers Feedback Campaign Templates
Automation tools gather feedback from your clients and you can find out why they like your brand and what can be improved to make it even better.
We all know about popular brand metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and you can go beyond and with its help learn about customer services which are liked the most by your audience.
Final Thoughts
You should consider applying automation tools to enhance customer experience and give your agents a chance to take up complicated challenges and tricky tasks. You may begin with a chatbot or help desk depending on what your company requires, and little by little make automation a key to success and growing revenues for your business.