Step1. Assess your current process
Before you automate your customer care business process, you must work towards creating a deep understanding of the underlying business process itself.
Start by documenting all the steps involved in your current process. This includes everything from the way customers reach you, to how exactly their concerns are resolved. Things to document:
Channels of communication: Are your customers reaching out through email, phone call, social media, or via live chat on your website? Do you have a preferred channel, or are you juggling with multiple platforms?
Response time: How much time do customers have to typically wait before an agent responds? How much time should they wait (based on criticality of your product)? What are the bottlenecks causing delays?
Resolution process: How is a typical customer query handled and resolved? Are there recurring issues that could be addressed more efficiently? If you have a preferred channel, what is the exact automation process used at that channel? What automations were available at that channel and not used by your reps?
Customer feedback: What do your customers say about their service experience? Are there common complaints or compliments?
By undertaking a detailed analysis, you can usually identify the strengths and weaknesses of your customer support process. This will allow you to either pinpoint areas to automate OR decide whether you'd like to automate the whole customer service process via an AI frontdesk bot.
Step2. Decide tasks for automation
After you've completed the assessment of your existing customer service process and have found specific tasks for automation (even if to automate the entire process), below are some parts of a typical customer service process that are repetitive, time-consuming, and don't necessarily require a human touch.
Frequently asked questions: Are there frequent recurring questions from customers? These are perfect for automation. By creating an automated FAQ knowledgebase or using AI chatbots, you can automate the process to give instant responses to these queries.
Ticket sorting and routing: Are your customer service reps spending too much time in assigning them to the right departments or individuals? This process can easily be automated via Natural language processing.
Follow-ups and reminders: If your team is not consistent in sending reminders or follow-up messages, consider automating these tasks. It ensures no customer is forgotten, and helps with brand recall.
Identifying the exact things you want automated is very important in creating a step-by-step roadmap for your customer service automation journey. It helps give you a clear direction and sets the stage for the next step: selecting the right tools.
Features to expect in advanced AI-based Customer Service Automation
Step3. How to select automation software
When choosing the customer service automation software which matches your needs and your process, your focus should be on finding solutions that are completely customizable, and offer support options to adapt with any changes. Don't be swayed by shiny features that you or customers probably won't use.
Choosing a FAQ automation tool
For handling those frequently asked questions, consider a tool with a robust knowledge base feature. This tool should be easy to update as your product or service evolves and your customer's questions change.
Picking an intelligent ticket routing system
To automate ticket sorting and routing, you need a tool that can not only sort queries based on predefined criteria but also learn from past actions. Look for a system that uses artificial intelligence to make smart routing decisions.
Automating follow-ups and reminders
When it comes to automating follow-ups and reminders, your tool should allow you to set up triggers based on customer actions. For example, if a customer doesn't respond within a certain timespan, the tool should automatically send a follow-up message.
Complete Automation of Customer Service
Tools like AI Frontdesk can get you a 100% automation of your customer support business process - it can act as a chatbot on your website, and can intelligently route the customers to solutions and can also help them with acting on the solution as well. Additionally, it can be completely customized to match your exact support process, and comes as a lifetime subscription - a partnership model, so that you pay for it as per its performance. A great deal!
Step4. How to implement: stages
Roll out the automation in customer service, but don't just flip the switch and hope for the best - go for a phased approach.
Start small with pilot programs
Piloting each automation tool on a small scale before full implementation is a smart move. It helps you learn from any missteps without a company-wide impact. Simply start with a chatbot on your website and redirect some users there and see the impact.
Gradual roll-out to larger teams
Once you're confident with the results of the pilot chatbot, start a gradual roll-out. Make sure you give your teams enough training and time to learn the new tools.
Keep Up with AI
Customer service in the AI era is all about automation. We can help you stay updated with the latest trends and technologies.
Frequently asked Questions about AI and Automation in Customer Service field
Why is customer service automated so much?
If you refer to the video and the presentation above, you'll find it clearly mentioned that customer service is deemed a cost center for companies - not a revenue driver. So management is always looking to find ways to cut expenses in customer care (and traditionally customer service is either outsourced or manned with affordable young talent). Next, most of the tasks in customer care are such that they can be easily automated - of a fixed nature - and if something can be automated easily, it probably will be. Thirdly, as of 2024, AI just happened to come at the right time to power this trend - it is not just a buzzword that management may use to impress investors but a prime disruptor in business here to stay for the decades to come. Fourth, as of writing this in early 2024, the post-covid-stimulus business sentiment and environment has turned sour and most managements are taking a hard look at their expenses - banks are failing and consumers are pinching every penny. Fifth, there is demonstrable success making headlines about this currently - refer to the case study discussed in the video and the presentation, companies around the world are successfully using AI to do this, and then happily sharing their results on social media, prompting others in the business world to also follow in their footsteps. This is why you are hearing about customer service being automated so much as of 2024, and you can expect the trend to last for atleast the next 4-5 years.
What is customer service automation?
As shown in the above image, automation is just making a process automatic - trying to reduce manual effort. So Customer service automation refers to the use of tools like IVR, chatbots or knowledge desks, to reduce manual effort in handling customer inquiries and requests.
Prior to the advent of reliable AI 2023, companies relied on humans / manual efforts of customer service reps to handle issues. And the reps fended every query themselves - each enquiry came through digital channels like phone calls or email, and were managed through software called CRMs. But this is not a scalable solution - as a company grows, it needs more reps! So the costs grow proportionally as well.
But Customer service automation provides a much better alternative on various fronts: technologically superior (scalable - can handle hundreds of simultaneous clients, more accurate diagnosis), much more cheaper (no human costs, costs remain same even when handling hundreds of clients), operationally better (24x7, no lack of enthusiasm at the end of a long day, no discrepancies in expertise areas) - the amazing thing is that it is even preferred by customers due to zero-wait times and near-instant resolution times. Thus, it is a superior solution for businesses, and helps provide much better customer service.
