The Benefits of Automating Customer Service: A Comprehensive Guide

Discover why automated customer service is worth considering when planning your customer service approach with this comprehensive guide.

The Benefits of Automating Customer Service: A Comprehensive Guide

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) AirBnB is a classic example of how service automation can revolutionize an industry. Automating the property discovery service in multiple locations, it customizes and reduces searches based on the user's history. Service automation, also known as “service orchestration”, involves coordinating multiple processes to produce a result. Let's explore how service automation optimizes processes to produce results.

Task automation accomplishes a specific action, while service automation streamlines a process with many variables and possible outcomes. For instance, motion-sensitive lights always turn on when activated; every maintenance request is different. Customize your service with a 360° view and more than 200 native integrations so you can support customers anywhere you sell. Automating customer service through customer service software can help your company save overheads by eliminating the need for customer service staff working around the clock around the world.

Instead, customer service automation technology, such as chatbots, can be implemented to help manage customer inquiries outside of business hours. Chatbots are tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) to respond to customer inquiries when there is no live agent available. They are designed to learn from interactions and can interpret the keywords in a customer's query to provide useful information. There's no denying that if you can automate redundant tasks and lighten the burden on your agents, your company will save money.

A recent report found that companies that implement technology in customer service can save up to 40% on customer service costs. The use of automation in customer service means that you can employ chatbots to answer customer inquiries at any time of the day or night. You can also use automation to set up automatic email responses to queries. These are just two examples of how automation can provide instant answers to customer inquiries, even if they are not resolved until a live agent can answer the query and resolve it within business hours. If you end up relying too much on technology, your company can fall into the trap of using artificial intelligence in too many customer interactions. When automation solutions, such as chatbots, are overused, the customer experience becomes less personal and your customers realize that they are simply interacting with the technology. Book a demo to learn more about how eDesk can help your e-commerce company automate customer service today.

Are you ready to start now? Try eDesk free for 14 days, no credit card needed. Automated customer service is anything that allows your customers to solve problems without interacting with another human being. At first glance, it might seem counterintuitive to take people out of the problem-solving equation. However, software has come a long way since the days when people were desperately trying to contact a human on the other side of an automatic voice recording. What began with assembly lines in the manufacturing sector has now turned into knowledge-based work that includes digitalization and data, such as marketing and customer service. In other words, think about all those small tasks that customer service agents perform, such as answering simple questions via email or chat, updating and prioritizing support tickets, and so on. It is also essential to understand that service automation is a process for supporting service personnel and managers.

Fortunately, there are a lot of powerful tools on the market today that can make it easier to incorporate automation into your customer service strategy. At the same time, it is important to remember that the service sector includes companies that can offer retail, food, health, financial, social services, etc., to your customers. In any case of service automation, “automation” enables the service by streamlining the request for that service. With a growing population of “digital natives”, automating customer service can help deliver the instant, fast, and digitally driven service that customers are looking for. Uber also saves costs by avoiding taxi rentals and rentals since it incentivizes its services by connecting customers with passengers. When you implement customer service software such as technical support software and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software it means that all your customer information will be in one place. The service automation framework is more complex for variable tasks as well as for those with more touchpoints. Therefore, service automation and its examples demonstrate that with automation there is a significant improvement in performance and service quality.66% of consumers say that the most important thing a company can do is to value their time during an interaction with customer service; employing automation in customer service does just that: it shows your customers that you care about their time and that you want to help them in the most efficient way possible. Read on to discover why automated customer service is worth considering when planning your customer service approach.