What is customer service automation and how does it benefit your business?

The quality of customer service is one of the key indicators of a company’s ability to build and nurture lasting relationships with its customers. With recent technological advances and the explosion of AI-powered solutions, more and more businesses are embracing customer service automation to improve the overall customer experience.

Research from Salesforce predicts a 143% increase in AI-powered customer service teams—and for good reason. Here, we’re discussing how customer service automation can benefit your business.

3 Advantages of automated customer service

1. Customer service automation promotes meaningful interactions

Implementing automation across a range of customer service interactions serves to remove the need for manually completing repetitive tasks. Instead of focusing their attention and time on tedious manual processes, agents can shift their focus to creating meaningful interactions with customers.

The goal of automating customer service isn’t to completely replace human agents—after all, only 33% of customers were happy with having their issues sorted by automated chatbots and virtual assistants. Ideally, customer service automation should afford agents the opportunity to enhance customers’ journeys, whether it be through personalized product support or in-depth conversations about their feedback, both made possible once mundane and repetitive tasks are out of the way.

2. Customer service automation makes 24/7 support possible

As much as 90% of customers say that a fast response to their problem is critical to their satisfaction. If you can take their money at any time of the day, then it stands to reason you should be able to address their problems and offer assistance 24/7. For many businesses, however, that's unrealistic.

That’s where customer service automation comes in: Because you’re using AI and self-service, your customers can enjoy efficient, personalized resolutions to their problems at all hours of the day or night.

Automated customer service examples include:

  • Chatbots and virtual assistants
  • Self-service portals, knowledge bases and help desks
  • Preloaded email or ticket replies

Plus, providing 24/7 customer service offers your business a unique competitive advantage—if customers can expect some sort of assistance at lunchtime as well as after midnight, that’s enough of an incentive for them to choose your product or service over your competitors'.

3. Customer service automation improves resource processing

In addition to helping customers in their times of need, AI-powered customer service gives valuable insight into how your resources are being used and how they might be improved. Applications, such as 8x8’s CRM, can be used to predict the volume of customer inquiries over a set period of time, enabling your team to plan, delegate and manage staffing requirements.

Customer service automation also serves to track human agents’ performance and identify areas of improvement, especially when used alongside a customer experience analytics platform. For example, is any additional training required to ensure they can provide better customer service in the future?

Remember to strike the perfect balance

Customer service automation should enhance, not replace, the human element of your business. The goal is to create a stronger and more cohesive customer experience. Customer service should be timely and meaningful. This usually means relying on a combination of different tools and platforms to help you strike the perfect balance between humans and automated software.

Get started with customer service automation

Want to know how to automate customer service in your company? Check out 8x8’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM), a native application designed to improve agent productivity, enhance customer experience and consolidate your contact center tools.