6 Pitfalls To Avoid With Customer Service Automation

What exactly is customer service automation?

Customer service automation is the use of technology and software to manage customer interactions and other duties without requiring human intervention. It’s like having a virtual assistant who can swiftly answer basic queries, handle orders, resolve minor customer concerns, and do whatever else is necessary to make things easier and faster for both consumers and companies.

Customer service automation may involve automated responses, ticket triage, ticket labeling, and much more.

6 pitfalls to avoid with customer service automation

1. Losing the human touch

A customer care chatbot is the epitome of immediate satisfaction in today’s world. As practically every sci-fi film can warn us, the development of the robot has both advantages and disadvantages.

Chatbots are ideal for providing simple responses, arranging follow-up calls, or forwarding them to a FAQ page on your website. But when a client has a more difficult or high-level question, chatbots are sometimes unable to keep up. This may be frustrating, and a customer’s lost confidence is difficult to restore.

If you’re using customer service bots, keep the sequence brief. Give your customers a straightforward means to communicate that they need to talk with a real person. Don’t leave them without a way out.

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2. Inadequate monitoring and adjustment of automated systems

Lack of supervision and intervention of computerized programs is another problem that is likely to cause major drawbacks in customer service automation. When automated solutions are applied in industries and their functioning is not supervised further, companies can let machines decide on customer relations with the help of obsolete algorithms and lose customers.

For example, when a chatbot lacks new data or does not change with new consumer needs, it may generate unsuitable or inaccurate answers hence angering and disappointing the customers. Another great example here is a call center dialer, as incorrect monitoring and adjustment can lead to inefficiencies, such as excessive wait times or dropped calls, ultimately frustrating customers. Regularly reviewing and fine-tuning these systems is essential to ensure they meet customer needs and enhance the overall service experience.

Furthermore, there are no real-time analytics that will enable an organization to notice when there are problems or delays in the delivery of the services. This oversight can keep on repeating negative experiences and reduce the level of trust among customers.

Thus, companies should use the most efficient monitoring systems to detect the failures of performance indicators and customers’ expectations. This way, the automated systems are adjusted more frequently according to their data so that the latter remains efficient and contemporary. Focusing on ongoing improvement offers the prospects for the optimization of the customer experience and the overall impact of automation within organizations’ service plans.

3. Expanding the boundaries of customer privacy

Your target audience increasingly expects an omnichannel consumer experience. They want to interact with your brand directly, with a consistent service experience whether they contact your hotline, post on your social media platforms, or email your inbox. Sharing data across automations and channels should empower your team, but don’t overdo it.

Nobody wants to feel like a firm knows too much about them in an era when privacy is under threat. Avoid excessive customization or include too much personal data in your chatbots, customer support communications, or advertisements. Never surprise the consumer with the personal information you have about them. Link to your privacy options in the conversation to allow the client to modify their privacy preferences.

4. Overwhelming customers in correspondence

Here are some eye-opening market trends:

• 88% of consumers want you to respond to them within an hour.
• 33% of clients like to receive a response within 15 minutes.
• Most brands’ average response time to a customer service inquiry is somewhat more than 12 hours.

Knowing this, some firms have developed a lengthy email sequence, sending customers an excessive number of autoresponders, confirmations, and follow-up surveys. Keep doing that, and you’ll have a new form of consumer complaint. Remember that nobody likes spam.

Other firms make the error of rushing through their customer service queues rather than prioritizing the consumer’s demands. Perhaps you’ve gotten an email informing you that because they haven’t heard from you, your issue is now deemed addressed. When an email like this appears within a day or two after your original contact, it might create a terrible impression.

Do not automate emails just to create a complicated email sequence. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What do they need to know now? What information do they need to make a decision?

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5. Automate your social media outreach.

Can you automate your Instagram posting schedule? Sure. Automatically follow all Kardashians and their influencer friends? Maybe. Can you automatically reply to comments or send direct messages to new followers of your brand? You might as well delete your account.

Social media is all about humanizing the consumer interaction process. Your audience should have a true, emotional connection to your brand. Companies that send automated direct messages or have bots that automatically respond to comments on their postings are quickly obsolete and out of touch. Such remarks and messages rarely come off as natural or genuine, nor do they provide a positive customer service experience. Do not commit these beginner social media blunders.

6. Not prioritizing data security

If you live in the EU or the United Kingdom, you are probably already aware of the GDPR and the Schrems II decision. The implementation of these legal acts implies that your company must be more cautious than ever when it comes to acquiring, maintaining, and exploiting personal information.

To give you an example of the types of things you should think about, Schrems II made it unlawful to export personal data from the EU to the US for processing. Still, it does not have to be hard; one of the simplest ways to comply with Schrems II is to ensure that your preferred customer support software is housed in the EU.

When selecting customer service software, you should check for the following data security features:

• EU-hosted data;
• A complete list of sub-processors and standard contractual clauses (SCCs) will help you understand how your data is handled;
• Data security certification, for example, ISO27001;
• GDPR, governance, and data protection policies.

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The main benefits and dangers of automating customer service

Advantages of Automating Customer Service

Why invest in automation? The primary reason is to improve efficiency in customer service activities. But let’s go into some of the particular perks.

• Faster reactions

Automated customer service has a response time of 0 seconds; even the quickest agents could never answer so rapidly. While automation handles simple questions, your staff is free to focus on more complicated challenges.

While some organizations believe that automation degrades the customer experience, response and resolution times are among the most significant customer service KPIs for increasing customer satisfaction (CSAT).

• No human mistakes

A personal touch may go a long way when dealing with complicated or sensitive topics. However, for regular, monotonous encounters, the «human touch» might entail missing a step or conveying something incorrectly. When automation is configured correctly, it never creates an error.

• Low costs

McKinsey research indicated that organizations may save 20-40% on customer service expenses by effectively implementing automation technologies. While automation should not replace human agents, it may help firms grow without overworking their workers or falling behind on tickets.

• Allowing human agents to do more complicated jobs

Your agents have better things to do than copy and paste order statuses. As automation takes over more routine customer support duties, your staff can focus on offering the greatest possible experience to higher-value clients and more difficult situations.

• Accurate responses and consistent brand voice

People have diverse communication methods and personalities. They may also make blunders and cut costs. In an attempt to keep up, onboarding representatives may even offer an incorrect response.

Automation allows you to ensure that your responses are consistent and correct. This provides a uniform experience for clients while also preventing novice staff members from making unneeded mistakes.

• Support is available 24/7

Your company may not have the means to maintain a 24-hour support team, but by automating customer service – even the most basic activities – you may provide a layer of 24/7 help.

Potential hazards of automating customer service.

• Frustrated customers

When automation is applied incorrectly, it results in an irritating experience for customers. AI chatbots are an excellent example: while they can answer basic queries, they may also attempt to answer sophisticated topics yet provide incorrect results. If clients can’t simply contact a human, they’ll quit your website.

The best course of action is to employ automation to continuously enhance particular aspects of the customer experience. Avoid universal answers. Always provide a simple option for folks to contact a real person.

• Robotic responses

Automation, particularly generative AI, which creates messages from scratch, may be rigid. Rather than utilizing automation to create messages for customers, try using automation to trigger a pre-written message from people (adding customer data as needed).

This gives you the benefits of automation while still guaranteeing that the consumer receives an on-brand, accurate, and human-sounding message.

• Missed opportunity for upsells

If AI automation is in charge of handling too many customer contacts, it may fail to recognize or capitalize on obvious possibilities to upsell or cross-sell clients. For example, if a consumer complains that their gadget dies too soon, your chatbot may provide them with recommendations on how to extend the life of their battery. A human agent could accomplish that while also sending a link to an improved gadget with a longer lifespan.

Again, avoid leaning too heavily on automation. Choose automation that excels in automating specific jobs, allowing human agents to remain integrated in the process and profit from these unique scenarios.

• Technical glitches

Automation, like any other technology, is prone to occasional glitches or outages. While this should not deter you from adopting automation, it is a solid reason to avoid depending too much on automation to handle all of your customer support needs.

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Avoiding the automation abyss

Although software automation has the potential to improve many elements of customer service, some tasks still require the human touch. Attempting to automate the latter can have a wide range of negative repercussions, therefore customer service departments should proceed with extreme caution.