In these times, automation is everywhere around us—from reserving a place to stay while on vacation to ordering a late-night meal and booking a ride to go to work. Slowly but surely, automation has infiltrated nearly every single industry, and customer service is no exception.

In fact, the customer service industry stands to profit the most from AI-driven automation. Nowadays, countless companies utilize the power of customer service automation to boost their support agent productivity, help their clients live with fewer human interactions, shelter their business from high call volumes, speed up customer service operations and minimize human error.

Even though there are slight drawbacks to automated services, like the lack of human connection, this technology is the present and the future of error-free customer service operations. 

Read ahead to find out more about customer service automation and better understand how automation can help your business improve the customer service department.

Defining Customer Service Automation 

In a nutshell, customer service automation is a customer support process that lowers human participation in addressing customer inquiries of all types. Automated services refer to all kinds of customer services that use tools and software to automate customer support-related tasks or workflows

For instance, keyword chatbots and AI chatbots are a popular form of customer service automation that uses predefined rules and AI to assist customers in achieving tasks and resolving problems quickly and effectively, whether that’s changing an already placed order, locating store hours, or browsing through account information. As a matter of fact, automated tools like chatbots are set to represent 40% of all customer interactions as soon as 2022.

Tools like AI-influenced customer support systems have the power to tap into customers’ increasing preference for text-and-voice driven systems that businesses successfully deploy across their clients’ preferred communication channels, meeting their clients where they’re already spending their time.

Customer service automation also refers to incorporating processes and provisions that allow customers to redeem answers or information at a lightning-quick speed without requiring the intervention of a customer support representative or other contacts with the company’s support department.

The main reason why automated services work so well is because of how many steps the customer can effectively skip in search of the solution. With customer service automation, clients can quickly eliminate all context-setting interactions with support teams and go straight to finding a solution to their problem. 

Why Is Customer Service Automation So Important For Modern-Day Organizations?

Let's make one thing perfectly clear: service automation is not a replacement for human operatives. It simply creates a portal that deals with inquiries that would have taken longer to resolve with a human agent and would be a waste of time for both the client and the support team. 

The main objective is to develop a sound system that effectively substitutes specific repetitive assignments with an automated mechanism. With customer service automation, you're making tremendous progress to assist your customers in getting what they want in a matter of seconds.            

For these reasons, each modern organization should strive to reach customer support excellence. Of course, the exact interpretations of 'excellence' and 'quality' will vary from company to company but what doesn't change, though, is the undeniable fact that changes need to be implemented both at the lowest level, as well as on a large, company-wide scale. 

And while numerous factors contribute to developing a positive customer support experience, customer service automation remains the easiest and most efficient way to optimize and improve customer experience strategies at each company.

5 Ways Automation Can Help You Improve Your Customer Service Efforts 

As you can already tell, customer service automation comes with a host of benefits for organizations of all sizes and industries vital to success. Let’s dive in to learn five ways automation can help you upgrade your customer service efforts on a company-wide level and accelerate growth.

Automated Services Reduce Customer Service Costs 

Through AI-based customer support tools, service automation technology costs merely a fraction of its live representative counterpart to engage with customers successfully. As reported by McKinsey, organizations that utilize technology to revamp their customer experience processes can carve out significant differentiation and save up to 40% on service costs.

As they scale, companies that utilize automated services can significantly lower their needs for new hires in customer service departments. Moreover, the cost savings go beyond labor, as automated services can help you minimize your office footprint and increase your customer lifetime value at the same time. By assisting human employees in focusing on satisfying clients and not daily metrics, service automation also improves the workflow and frees up time for more complex, individual customer interactions.

Service Automation Accounts For Faster Response Times 

In an average 5-minute service call, nearly 80% of that time, human agents are doing manual research, and actual interaction is limited to only 20% throughout the call. This unnecessary delay can be entirely avoided if, instead of agents, AI and machine learning could be utilized to go through company servers, search for previous occurrences of the related problem, and develop a solution and a detailed guide. 

You see, the faster a problem is solved, the happier your customers will be. As a matter of fact, a study reveals that 39% of customers try to solve a problem on their own by visiting the FAQ page first, before turning for help to the company’s customer service department because clients feel satisfied with themselves if they can fix a problem without any eternal help. 

For that reason, if you employ a virtual assistant to handle customer service queries on the front end, you’ll be able to speed up your company’s customer service by over 90%. This way, you’ll be able to resolve the issues the first time they occur rather than bouncing clients around multiple representative agents. Implementing customer service automation means problem-solving in less time, happier clients and fewer complaints. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Allows For 24/7 Support 

Even though outsourcing customer service to call centers can make for customer services that are available 24/7, it’s still a challenge on public holidays and in times of national emergency.

Automated customer services are always available and will respond to your customer’s requests within seconds. This way, your customers won’t need to wait around for several hours or days for a quick response that will solve their problems with your product or service.

Most importantly, automated services are incredibly reliable. Chatbots and other AI-powered customer support software are not prone to afflictions, personal biases, or a lack of knowledge. Besides being available 24/7, these tools won’t ever argue with a customer, take matters into their own hands, or put clients on hold indefinitely.

Customer Service Automation Can Help Improve Agent Productivity 

Repetition has always been the biggest enemy of customer support teams. Monotonous, mundane tasks can prove to be a big letdown for agents in their mission to achieve job satisfaction. Just imagine having to pick up the phone 150 times a day, giving the exact same answer to every single customer.

This is where automated services come in. By automating your customer support strategy, you’re basically reducing ticket volume because the client won’t need to write it down as a ticket in your helpdesk. With those dull, repetitive questions no longer in the way of each agent’s everyday schedule, valuable time frees up for them.    

With more time available, support agents can focus on performing more creative tasks that add value to both the customer and the company and be more productive. 

Customer Service Automation Goes Hand In Hand With The Preferences Of Modern-Day Customers 

While the phone is still the most widely used customer service channel globally, rest assured that the automation trend is rapidly evolving, and things are about to change. See, younger generations embrace communication methods outside phone calls, and the same goes when they’re seeking customer support. 

As digital natives, Millennials and Gen-Z are progressively comfortable solving problems and issues by themselves because they are pretty familiar with online knowledge bases, virtual assistants, web chat, FAQs, and social media messaging. Therefore, if you miss out on the chance to offer automated customer support service, you’re limiting the level of service you can provide to tech-smart customers and restraining your business from future growth and success.

Are You Ready For Customer Service Automation? 

With the tools mentioned above and technologies widely available today, what excuse could be up there not to provide better customer support service to your customers? 

AI-powered service automation is a fantastic way to amplify your organization’s success. These customer support software can solve customer queries more efficiently than any other form of customer support known to this day.

And as time goes by and automation grows more advanced, it provides you multiple opportunities that you need to grasp—lower the number of repetitive tasks for your employees, teach them a whole new skill set, and prepare your company for success in the rapidly changing world.