Why Is Customer Service Automation Necessary for Businesses in 2022?
Whether your business is entirely online, a mix of retail and online business, or exclusively retail, you can’t escape the importance of customer service. Good customer service reflects positively on your brand, helps you retain customers, and build long-term relationships with key consumers.
But there’s also no denying that customer service can seriously drain your resources. Today, let’s break down why customer service automation is necessary for businesses in 2022 and why this will likely be true in the years to come.
The Importance of Customer Service
No matter the year or industry, customer service is supremely important for your business. In many ways, your customer service affects:
- The longevity of your brand. A company with stellar customer service will be more likely to retain customers over the long term. As you may know, it’s often cheaper to keep customers already in your business’s pocket than to sign on new customers, especially in terms of marketing costs.
- Word-of-mouth marketing for your company. Happy customers who experience great customer service will be more likely to recommend your brand to friends and family.
- The impact of online reviews. This factor is even more important in this day and age since many people won’t shop at a new online brand unless the online reviews say that it’s worthwhile. Great customer service leads to positive reviews, which leads to an excellent testimonials page for your company.
All of these benefits highlight the need for top-tier customer service. If you want your business to thrive, not just survive, in the modern market, you’ll need to leverage automation tools such as chatbots, CS software, and more.
How Customer Service Automation Improves Customer Service
How can automation improve your business’s customer service offerings and results? Well, there are many ways in which it can bolster your business and its customer service ratings.
Reduced Costs
For starters, automation may significantly reduce the costs you have to pay to provide top-tier customer service to your customers. In a nutshell, automation:
- Reduces how many people you need to have working on customer service concerns
- Connects your customers with helpful resources, like FAQ pages or knowledge bases when necessary
- Helps ensure that customer complaints or service issues are resolved properly the first time, rather than requiring multiple attempts at a solution
Thanks to all of these factors, you may find that one or two people can handle a full load of CS work where you may normally have needed many more people working on the same problems.
Plus, automation improves your customer service response times, results, etc. All of that means less time tackling customer service problems from a few customers. This will allow you to focus more on dealing with other issues, attract new customers, and engage with other operations in your brand.
Bottom line: automation means spending less money on customer service, which means those dollars can go elsewhere, and your cash flow may improve.
Faster CS Responses
As discussed above, automation tools and resources may also lead to faster customer service responses across the board. Take chatbots as an easy example.
Chatbots speak to the customers using pop-up windows when someone arrives on your business website or when they visit a customer service or support page. The chatbots then use contextual clues and machine learning to determine where they should direct a customer who has an issue.
When properly trained and leveraged, chatbots can direct customers to FAQ pages, knowledge bases, tutorials, and other resources. That means customers don’t have to wait for someone to get on the phone with them to answer a very simple, basic question.
By the same token, chatbots can rapidly direct customers who have more technical or specialized questions to a CS representative. That, again, means that customers spend less time waiting on the phone or online and more time getting answers and results they appreciate.
Ultimately, faster CS response times mean happier customers and a stronger brand in the long run.
Reliable Service Levels
In many cases, automation tools can lead to more reliable customer service responses from your team. When you leverage customer service automation tools, you can be more responsive to your customers and give them dependable service levels 24/7.
For example, automation assistance can help your customer service team:
- Remember which CS issues they need to tackle first based on their importance or technical needs
- Locate helpful resources or solutions for customers
- Communicate with consumers while your team does research or performs work behind the scenes
Furthermore, automation tools can often imply to customers that customer support is always available, even when your business is technically closed. Even if a customer can’t talk to a CS representative, they may still feel more listened to and aided than otherwise.
This all ties back to improving the look of your customer service squad in the eyes of your customers. If you want your brand to have a great reputation for stellar customer service, automation tools are the way to go.
Reduced Staff Burdens
Earlier, we mentioned that AI and automation tools could lower the number of people you need to keep working on CS tasks. This provides another ancillary benefit: lower staff burdens for CS objectives.
For example, say that you run a small startup with only 10 people, including yourself. Because business is booming, you find yourself needing to dedicate four or five people to customer service tasks regularly. If you start using automation tools, you could cut that down to one or two people instead.
Talk about saved man-hours. Instead of wasting your crew’s time answering basic questions about your product or directing people to tutorials, your team members can get back to furthering their products’ viability, marketing, or something else entirely.
Regardless, a reduced staff burden for customer support tasks is always a good thing. Customer service, while necessary, is a net drain on your resources. That’s because you only bolster your brand directly by retaining customers who have questions or experience problems. You don’t necessarily get new customers through customer service (usually).
Fewer Errors
Like many other industries, AI and machine learning technology may result in fewer human errors over months and years. During a customer support online chat or phone call, for example, a single error could turn a customer off your brand and lead them into the arms of a competitor.
But if your team uses automation and AI tools, it can help eliminate mistakes, direct customers to the perfect resources the first time, and ultimately save your business some money. That’s invaluable when considering that many customers will not wait for you to give them a second attempt at customer service.
Happier Customers
Above all else, automation tools lead to happier customers in the long term. As your brand grows and you take on new customers, you’ll inevitably run into more problems. Your customer service requirements will only increase. After all, the odds are that you’ll have more customer service complaints when you have 10,000 customers compared to when you only had 100.
But with automation tools, you can keep those customers happy. This can help ensure that people don’t leave your brand in droves. Your customer support team will be more effective and efficient, and customers will feel heard and responded to promptly.
Overall, keeping happier customers is the entire point of customer service, so it’s a good idea to employ automation tools starting today.
Customer Service Automation
As you can see, there’s no reason not to consider automation tools and resources for your brand. Customer service automation will only become more important as time goes on and your competitors leverage these tools. Don’t wait – start working with chatbots, CS assistant software, and other automation tools to lighten the customer service workload today.
