Are you looking to automate customer service processes? If so, this blog post is for you. In this article, we’ll explain what customer service automation is and how it can benefit your business. Then, we’ll show you real-life examples of businesses winning with automated customer service and how to achieve the same results on respond.io.
What is Customer Service Automation?
Customer service automation is the integration between customer service agents and automation technologies like chatbots, workflow automation systems and more.
The main objective of this integration is to optimize and streamline support processes to improve customer satisfaction. That said, let’s look at the benefits your business can gain from implementing customer support automation.
Customer Service Automation: Advantages of Automated Customer Service
Managing high volumes of inquiries without automation presents numerous challenges for support teams to provide efficient support.
Support agents must handle repetitive manual tasks like replying to simple inquiries, performing contact data entry and transferring conversations to the right department or agent. Concurrently, they must manage critical issues requiring immediate attention.
This overwhelming workload often restricts agents from providing high-quality support and prompt responses to critical issues. As a result, customers may experience frustration and dissatisfaction when their expectations are not met and their concerns remain unresolved for extended periods.
Thankfully, automation offers a solution to these challenges while providing numerous benefits for both agents and customers.
As agents are frequently flooded with commonly asked questions from customers, businesses can set up an automated FAQ menu to answer these questions. This gives customers immediate answers and reduces the need for agents to respond to repetitive inquiries.
As a result, agents can prioritize important issues and focus on delivering efficient support to enhance the overall customer experience.
To increase operational efficiency, businesses can set up automation to guide customers through a predefined path from the time they send the first message until they are connected to an agent.
For instance, businesses can send automated pre-chat surveys to collect customers’ contact information and gather contextual details on their issues. Then use the information to automatically connect them with the best agent to resolve their problem.
Now that you know how automation can benefit you, let’s explore how businesses are succeeding with automated customer support.
Automated Customer Service Examples: Case Studies of Successful Businesses
While implementing automation for the first time may sound daunting, the best way to help your decision-making is to look at examples of businesses using automated customer service. Here, we’ll show how two businesses have transformed customer support.
Automated Customer Service Case Study: Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)
Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a research university in Hong Kong. The majority of applicants for CUHK’s full-time and part-time MBA programs come from Hong Kong, Mainland China, India and other ASEAN countries.
Considering that most applicants are situated in regions where instant messaging platforms are highly popular, the MBA Programs Office at CUHK recognized the need for three key solutions to enhance its processes.
Firstly, it wanted to shift inquiries from email to channels that prospects commonly use, such as Facebook Messenger. It also wanted to set up web chat on its website. Most importantly, it wanted to handle common inquiries automatically.
To achieve these objectives, the MBA Programs Office decided to use respond.io. Incorporating chat messaging over Facebook Messenger and web chat into its communication strategy made it easier for prospects to initiate contact with CUHK’s MBA Programs Office.
As a result, it saw a 50% increase in inquiries compared to email alone. Because 98% of prospects’ inquiries are now automatically handled by Dialogflow’s chatbot, the admin team was able to focus on important matters.
CUHK also saw a remarkable 99% improvement in first response times, with the average time reducing from 36 hours to a matter of minutes. Next, we’ll explore how Speedhome achieved success with customer support automation.
Customer Service Automation Case Study: Speedhome
Speedhome is a property rental platform in Malaysia that connects landlords and tenants. It offers a cost-free listing service for landlords and allows tenants to rent homes without upfront deposits, making the moving process more affordable.
Speedhome faced the challenge of measuring and improving the performance of its multiple teams of agents in handling inquiries and resolving conversations efficiently. So, it wanted a solution that could effectively track agent performance and accommodate a large number of agents.
In addition, it needed a platform that could support its diverse communication channels. This includes popular messaging app like WhatsApp or Telegram and even custom channels.
After experimenting with various software options, Speedhome decided on respond.io. Since adopting respond.io as its customer conversation management software, it experienced significant improvements in customer engagement and loyalty.
The number of monthly returning customers skyrocketed by 56% and the influx of new monthly customers surged by an impressive 122% compared to previous figures.
Furthermore, it conducted a CSAT survey, which resulted in a whopping 71% score of very satisfied customers. With respond.io, Speedhome was able to establish more effective connections with its customers and foster long-lasting relationships.
Now, let’s look at some of the ways these businesses have used respond.io to automate customer service.
Customer Service Automation to Simplify Processes: The respond.io Way
Respond.io has a variety of tools to help you streamline support processes with automation. Let’s explore some customer service automation examples below.
Send Greeting and Away Messages
Customers usually expect fast replies from businesses. However, this isn't easy to achieve, especially if your business is not operating 24/7. Therefore, it is important to manage their expectations when they contact you outside of business hours.
Respond.io allows businesses to send welcome and away messages to customers in such scenarios. These messages can inform customers about the estimated response time, letting them know when to expect a reply.
By proactively managing customer expectations, businesses can demonstrate their commitment to providing excellent service, even during off-hours.
Automate Customer Service: Set Up An FAQ Menu
One effective way to streamline customer support and provide quick solutions is by setting up an automated FAQ menu. Businesses can compile and organize answers to commonly asked questions and implement them in their Workflow.
By doing so, customers can easily access information and find answers to their queries without the need for agent intervention. If customers can’t find the solution they need, you can include the option for them to ask open-ended questions or provide an agent escalation pathway.
Send Pre-Chat Surveys to Gain Customer Information and Context
Collecting customer information is crucial for providing effective customer support as it enables agents to access important background details about the customer.
With respond.io, you can send pre-chat surveys to collect valuable contact information and gain context for an issue. These surveys can be designed to capture essential details like name, email address, phone number or any other relevant information.
With all essential information in hand, agents can accurately identify and address the specific needs and preferences of each customer. This enables them to offer personalized solutions, resolve issues efficiently and provide exceptional support.
Automatically Route and Assign Conversations
To ensure customers receive the assistance they need, it is crucial to connect them with the appropriate agent for their issues. Respond.io’s Workflow automation enables you to achieve this goal by routing customers to the right team and assigning them to the right agent.
You can customize your routing options to suit your specific needs, including language and shift-based routing, among others.
Additionally, you can automatically assign conversations based on your assignment logic, like round-robin, distributing conversations equally among support team members or assigning VIP customers to dedicated agents.
By leveraging the power of automation, businesses can ensure that customer inquiries are efficiently directed, eliminating the need for manual assignment by managers and ensuring agents do not pick conversations without proper supervision.
Execute Customer Support Tasks With A Click
Managers can build Workflows to automate complicated tasks like shift transfers and case escalation. Then enable agents to launch them at a click with the Shortcut Trigger button while chatting with customers.
For instance, if an agent’s shift is ending and they have several unresolved conversations, they can click on the Shortcut Trigger button, fill in a short form for context and let automation transfer the conversations to the next shift.
You can also use this feature to escalate cases to external platforms like Slack and exchange information between CRMs and respond.io to retrieve updated contact profiles or create deals and tickets.
This way, agents can seamlessly execute tasks based on specific times and customer requests without the hassle of switching between multiple platforms.
Send CSAT or Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Customer satisfaction plays a vital role in measuring the success and quality of your company’s customer support. With respond.io, you can effortlessly create and send customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys.
These surveys can be automatically triggered after closing a conversation with a customer or manually initiated through the Shortcut Trigger button.
To save the survey answers, use the Add Google Sheets Row Step to save the data in your Google Sheets or the HTTP Request Step to save the survey answers to your CRM or data warehouse.
Measure Agent Performance with Advanced Analytics
Respond.io’s Reports Module allows businesses to monitor agents’ performance through advanced analytics. Businesses can use it to track response times, resolution times and other key performance indicators.
Managers can use the Leaderboard tab in the Reports Module to view several leaderboards and use filters to get granular insights into the performance of teams and users.
By leveraging the Reports Module, supervisors can identify any gaps or inefficiencies in their processes. Then, use their findings to improve team performance and optimize business operations.
Are you ready to start automating your customer support? Sign up for a free trial and experience powerful automation like no other platform!
Further Reading
Want to learn how to use customer service automation for specific messaging channels? Here are some readings of popular messaging channels that might interest you.
