Making a sale is only the beginning of a customer's journey. To retain clients in the long term, you need to have a solid customer service strategy, which can be boosted with the help of customer support automation.
Recent stats show that by retaining just 5% more of your existing clients, you can turn a 25% profit! (This is because repeat customers loyal to your brand tend to spend more.)
However, there are some barriers to providing consistent client support. Your human support team likely works limited hours. Still, your customers might be in different time zones and require around-the-clock availability.
In short, customer support automation is changing the customer service industry—and fast. Through timely responses and even AI chatbots, you can rest assured that your customers won't be ignored and that more complicated requests will be routed to your human teams.
Your customer support team can use some support
Some service requests can fall through the cracks if your business operates at scale. This can lead to lost business and negative word of mouth online (check out our Review Management & Responding Wrkflow to ensure customer concerns are addressed across various platforms.)
More than just the volume of service requests is the problem. Many customer issues are repetitive – for example, your client is having trouble logging in to your portal (run our Password Resetting Wrkflow to save time internally.)
You want your staff to avoid handling mundane requests that customer service automation can easily handle. Service automation can also automatically create tickets from completed customer forms and alert your human staff about them.
Practical advantages to adopting customer service automation
Like any business purchase, you need to consider all of the benefits of automation before implementing it in your customer service department.
However, you'll likely determine that the benefits of customer service automation outweigh the expenses, helping you retain business by building trust and attracting new customers.
Here are some of the real benefits for your customer support team (and IT teams), which translate to better responsiveness to your customers.
Automatically prioritizing tickets
Your support team may be swamped with service tickets. However, they're only some of the priorities. Customer support automation can help decide which issues to follow up on first based on the problem's complexity and time sensitivity.
Using our automated Ticket Routing & Escalation Wrkflow, customer service requests can be handled more effectively using predetermined classifications.
Dealing with fewer escalations
Customer support automation can reduce frustration for customers waiting for a response. Automation platforms – at the least, can acknowledge that the customer has sent a request and inform them that it will be dealt with in a timely manner. This alone can help customers keep their cool so they're not angry when they reach a support agent.
In many cases, automation can also direct clients to your FAQ section to find an answer to most issues, preventing your client support teams from dealing with repetitive, easier-to-solve requests.
More streamlined customer service (without building new systems)
This one is helpful for both your client support and IT teams. Third-party customer support automation can be easily implemented without needing to install software or upgrade legacy systems (that can be very expensive and time-consuming.)
Modernizing legacy systems can cost up to $150,000, not to mention any revenue lost from not meeting customer expectations.
Encouraging happier staff
Ultimately, you are not replacing customer service staff with automation but complementing them. Think of customer support automation as a hired assistant that can help your human teams stay organized while more effectively dealing with service requests at scale.
Happier staff is more productive—up to 20% more—leading to a better sense of being appreciated. This can lead to less staff turnover, which saves money on hiring and training new staff. (If you need to bring on new talent, our Recruitment Wrkflow can help find the right candidates.)
Identifying actionable changes
Automation can collect customer feedback more easily through forms, emails, and social media interactions. This can help your other teams implement changes to better serve your client base through improved products or allocating more resources.
Here's a recap of some customer support team pain points that automation can help alleviate:
- Dealing with a high volume of customer support requests
- Handling lower-level issues that can be resolved through customer support automation
- Being available 24/7 for markets outside your time zone
- Communicating in multiple languages
- Effectively routing service tickets to the appropriate person/department
- Addressing feedback from multiple platforms (website, Google, social media, etc.)
- Keeping your client support team updated in real-time
The future is bright for the customer service industry
The bottom line is that adopting customer service automation can take the pressure off your client support teams, which will reduce the chance of employee burnout. At the same time, your customers will be noticed thanks to automated workflows, meaning they're more likely to remain loyal customers!
Learn more from Wrk about how our automated solutions can improve your customer service while saving your support staff time to deal with more involved requests!
