How to automate your customer service – The complete guide

Customer service is the most important factor that can mean the difference between a business’s success and failure in today’s highly competitive and global market. In fact, 66% of customers believe that the most important thing a company can do for them is to value and help them save time.

If a call to your customer service department is not answered promptly, the customer will simply switch to a more responsive competitor. In fact, some people are perplexed by the IVR system that they must navigate when calling any company.

Nowadays, there are numerous businesses offering the same product or service as yours. What creates the real difference lies in how you value your customers because they expect you to make them feel special. Companies that provide excellent customer service generate more marketing and sales opportunities.

Previously known as word-of-mouth publicity, today you will find that satisfied customers post positive reviews about your company. This is the new word-of-mouth publicity, and you will notice it not only on your website but also on many independent websites and on social media.

How Automation Can Save You Time And Money?

It is common knowledge that acquiring new customers costs 6-7 times more than retaining existing ones. This is especially important for small businesses and start-ups because they simply cannot afford the extra expense. Most customers defect to a competitor because they are dissatisfied with the treatment they receive from these small businesses’ customer service departments.

The best part is that you can find opportunities to cross-sell and upsell to your existing customers, who can be your most profitable source of revenue. If you choose customer support automation, you will see more satisfied customers who receive answers to their questions via auto-generated emails, chatbots, and other customer support software.

Integrating customer support automation tools into your workflow is critical. You must remember that the customer you are dealing with has human thoughts and feelings and expects your company to provide the same human time efficiency experience. As a result, if you automate your customer service, you must ensure that the customer contacting you still believes they are speaking with a human being on the other end.

Because there is so much customer support software on the market, it is possible to do so using artificial intelligence. The best part about using artificial intelligence is that your tools will evolve over time due to their machine-learning capability.

Benefits of automation: Increased efficiency, decreased customer service costs

When completing time-consuming and repetitive but important tasks like contact data entry, automated customer service software can run 24×7. Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, for example, can take over the task of answering customer queries during your off hours.

This will not only save you time, but it will also save you money on hiring employees for late-night shifts and doing the previously mentioned redundant work. Customer support automation relieves a significant burden on the customer support department, allowing your CS employees to devote more time to relationship-building with your customers.

The best part is that there has been a lot of advancement in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning due to which customer support automation tools have become very efficient. This enhances the customers’ experience and invites them to interact more with your customer service department.

At the same time, artificial intelligence chatbots are able to evolve with time and usage. They are much less prone to make mistakes compared to human representatives and this enhances the efficiency of your customer service department.

The customers, get accurate answers to their queries and in case the query is a complicated one then the bot will automatically create a ticket for the right customer support representative to take it up. This process takes much less time to handle the simpler customer queries, and customers appreciate this a lot.

Here we can see that a lot of the repetitive and simple tasks can be done by automated customer support software and chatbots reduce the requirement for human resources. This, in turn, saves a lot of money, because apart from the employee salary there are other costs attached to hiring reps to do the tasks that can be done easily and with much speed, by the artificial intelligence-based chatbots.

Types of customer service automation: Email, chatbots, call centre automation, and more

We have already discussed the benefits of customer service automation including chatbots and email automation. The other type of automation that we come across in our daily lives is that of call centres of different companies. This type of automation can be easily experienced whenever we call the customer service department of a good company.

Most of the FAQ-type queries and information about new products and services are available through the use of IVR. Companies use this level of artificial intelligence to ensure that customers call them for simple information like their due bills, and last few interactions and others will get their answers by dialling the numbers mentioned by the interactive voice response.

This ensures that the customer service reps in their call centre get relieved from a major burden. And this also reduces their call time, so that the customer calling does not have to talk to a human rep in order to get the required information.

Even the callers are relieved because they don’t have to wait for a human rep to answer the phone call during rush hours. Hence, we can say that call centre automation saves the company a lot of hassles including the expense of hiring a large number of customer service reps.

How to automate customer service: A step-by-step guide

Step 1 – Identify what needs to be automated.

This is the most crucial decision in the automation of your customer support department. Of course, there will always be complicated queries that a human rep has to answer. However, as mentioned above, tedious and repetitive tasks like providing information about products and services etc. can be handled by the IVR.

It is also beneficial to equip your website with AI chatbots so that the customers can get the feeling of interacting with an intelligent being, even if they know that they are chatting with a machine. Here too the same principle applies where the simpler but important tasks are handled by the bot. The complicated queries are handled by the customer service reps as the bot either create a ticket for the relevant reps.

Step 2 – Create a process map

This is something that most successful companies do in order to implement technological or other changes in their systems. If you plan well, then you will be able to create an artificial intelligence-powered, customer support automation plan that will ensure that your systems work seamlessly.

During the planning process, it is important to decide which vendor you will choose for your customer service department automation. The decision of employing human reps along with the bots and IVR systems is also crucial. A good company providing such automation services will be able to assist you in making this important decision. Hence you should choose your vendor carefully.

Step 3 – Train your team

Training your team for this kind of change is important in order to create a seamless process for customers. Such a combination of artificial and human intelligence will give your business the winning edge that it requires. The best part about buying artificial intelligence-based automation systems is that they can be managed with the minimum human effort.

Most employees usually resist changes in the system, but if you explain the various benefits, they will welcome the automation process with more open-mindedness.

Step 4 – Implement and monitor the automation

This too is something that usually a human employee has to do, and if you are the owner of a start-up or small business, then it is advisable to see to the implementation and monitoring of this process yourself. This will keep you in the loop to understand any challenges that come up in your everyday business.

Challenges of automation: Possible resistance from customers and difficult implementation

It is also possible that customers who are used to talking to a human rep every time will resist the change just like your employees. But the responsibility of helping them adapt to the change also lies on your shoulders. While training your customer support team, you can also train them to deal with the resistance of customers. It is also advisable to offer your customers a human experience in spite of using artificial intelligence.

Sometimes, the implementation of CS automation also can present some challenges, and you may have to make significant changes in your current software. However, most of the CS automation tools available are usually compatible with the existing tools that most companies use for their Customer service department. Usually, the vendors offering automation products and services provide maintenance services, and you can partner with them at least in the initial stages of the process.

How BotSpice can help in customer service automation

Botspice is a company providing automation for different departments in your company, like sales and marketing, customer service, accounts and more. They have created the perfect combination of artificial intelligence-based software and tools that will revolutionise the way that you interact with your customers.

For your customer service department, they provide a combination of chatbots and workbots. These bots together perform the tasks of interacting with the customers to understand the nature of the query. At the same time, they also analyse the customer query and determine the need to pass it on to a human rep.

With BotSpice you can provide instant support to customer queries along with consistent responses and answers. They provide high-quality conversational support and are able to engage customers with 24×7 availability.

The other benefit of opting for the Botspice customer support automation tools is that they minimise the costs of CS and strengthen brand loyalty by providing an excellent experience to the customers. They don’t just save your resources, but also the customer’s time and this enhances their loyalty towards your brand.

With Botspice automation products you can also drive revenue through cross-selling and upselling. Botspice tools also gather customer behaviour patterns giving you insights on how to improve your services.

It has been noticed with earlier IVR systems, that they tended to frustrate customers rather than help them. However, with AI-powered technology, Botspice has eliminated this aspect of the customer experience. With this technology, you can provide your customers with a positive and human-like experience, which brings them back to you for more. Let us look at some other benefits that Botspice provides.

Omnichannel abilities

This ability allows you to transfer to other channels if needed and hence reduces costs and provides a seamless customer experience.

NLP engine and multilingual

NLP is an important part of artificial intelligence chatbots, especially in a business with global reach. This enables the customer to converse with the bot in their own language and also provides an option between text chat and voice chat.

Audit trail

The system saves all the audit logs of user activities on the chatbot and you can use this information to prevent suspicious activity and ensure compliance with standard regulations.

Role-based access control

You can decide which employees you wish to provide access to the chatbot to according to their department.

Customisable

This is one of the most important aspects based on the requirements of your business. The automation systems provided by Botspice are completely customisable, you can decide on a name and sound notifications along with other factors.

Contextual conversation

Cloud communication platforms enable proactive and intuitive conversations with customers.

Conclusion

The positive impact of artificial intelligence can be seen when you interact with the chatbots of other companies. In fact, if you wish then Botspice will also give you a demo of how they can substantiate the claims they make regarding their automation tools and software.

Along with saving your resources, an artificial intelligence-based automation system will enhance the experience of the customer. The callers don’t have to be greeted with groggy voices during the odd hours of the night, which usually happens with human CS reps. Chatbots and other tools are functional 24×7 and also provide you with information on customer responses and the patterns of their behaviour.

The automation tools provided by this company are one of the best available in the market and you can decide this for yourself, by booking a demo on their website. You can also check the performance of their tools like chatbots, by interacting with the website of one of their previous customers. Such detailed research will provide you with the necessary information for you to take a calculated decision regarding the choice of automation tools.

Frequently asked questions

How to decide on the best tools for automation?

The best method is to ask for a demo on the website of the automation-providing company. You can also ask for their portfolio and test their automation services on some of their previous clients.

How to choose a framework for AI?

The best thing about modern automation tools and software is that you don’t need to have the technical knowledge or learn how to write code in order to opt for the automation of any of your departments.

You also need to decide whether you want to use commercial or free-source tools. Here you should bear in mind that although the free tools appear lucrative, usually they are limited in their functioning. Hence, it is necessary to analyse your requirements before you opt for specific tools.

What is automation regression testing?

Technology evolves every day and this is true for artificial intelligence also. Hence you should ensure that the company providing you with the software also provides you with the latest updates in their technology. This will enable you to remain abreast of the latest applications and consistently enhance your customers’ experience.

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