Automated customer support doesn’t exactly have a good reputation among the general public. If you want to ask me about this, I’ll say that the bad reputation is justified to a certain extent because the automation technology wasn’t implemented by companies in the right way.
Companies who had actually implemented automation in their customer support campaigns in the past had sacrificed that human touch that most people crave for in customer support. Will you honestly like to come to a machine with a problem of yours?
Guess not! You will like to share your issues with a human communicator. Naturally, the idea of automation failed or backfired in most cases until now; until the rise of the chatbots.
Chatbots have helped to serve as the missing link between machines and humans that has definitely resulted in the establishment of an effective automated customer support system.
Anyway, let’s take a peek at some of the ways through which you can opt for complete customer support automation without losing your personal touch on the system.
- Personalize your automation to your audience so they feel more at home
This tactic is more or less dependent on the form of audience targeted by your business.
If you deal mainly in youth products that requires a bit of tech savviness for complete accessibility, your main target should be young adults who’re tech savvy enough to access such products. An online approach in these cases can suite your purpose effectively.
If you deal in senior insurance plans, you can easily say that your target customers will be more comfortable in talking to somebody in person.
Your automation has to take these things into consideration and provide necessary support options to the consumers such as:
- Live chat support
- Easy, quick and convenient chat options (email, phone and chat)
- A customer support app
Chatbots can aid you a lot in this purpose of yours.
- Easy touch tone phone options
Touch tone phones seldom offer great user experience. The annoying robo-voice accompanied with dozens of different options makes it a real source of annoyance from the customer’s point of view.
Hence, you have to make sure that they are easy enough and not frustrating enough for use. There’s a thumb rule for that. Just make sure that the robotic voice doesn’t go over 60 seconds at a stretch. If it does, you have a problem.
A few tips:
- Don’t cram in too many options for your customers. Remember they want a solution ASAP. 5 options are usually enough.
- Always include an option to talk to a live customer representative.
- Skip directory.
- Use automation as a form of a tool
Do not use automation as a form of substitute. I will still say nothing can act as a substitution to a live human agent.
You can use automation as a form of streamlining or reducing the flow of conversation but do not depend completely on it.
You must keep a balance between automated customer support and live human agents. You can implement chatbots in your customer service campaigns but you must remember to use them as your first line of support (for simple issues and queries).
Your second line of support must have live human agents for more complex issues.
- Automate processes, not relationships
Automated mails are pretty easy to ignore. In fact, most customers don’t even pay heed to them. So you have to put in a human touch in them to increase their importance.
Always remember that personalization is the key to any form of business success.
AI Chatbots can aid you in both. It helps to automate your business processes on one hand and maintain relationships on the other by keeping a human touch in their services.
- Always be open to feedbacks
No system can be perfect and especially when it comes to AI customer support, it needs constant improvements. There must be some problems somewhere that you are unaware of. Hence, it’s advisable to be open to feedbacks from customers.
Encourage your audience to drop in with feedbacks. That’s going to benefit you in general.
Hope these tips come in handy for you. I’ll sign off for the time being. Ciao!
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