How to Automate Customer Support Without Losing Personalization

In today’s world, you might often encounter an automated service that’s hard to relate to, especially when it comes to customer support. Yet, sometimes, there will be so many requests that it takes a lot of human effort to answer all of them. You might be looking for an alternative to this level of human effort here. In any case, it is clear that customer support is one of those services that could make use of modern technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence to become more user-friendly and less resource-intensive.

Customer engagement is the first step towards customer retention, building trust, and winning their loyalty. A minor change in the dynamics of this relationship could lead to serious consequences unless your customer service automation enhances the customer’s experience. Since more and more customers are increasingly browsing using multiple devices, you need a good customer support system that helps you troubleshoot and react to customer problems. This needs to be done before they mutate into impossible-to-subdue customer pain points, irrespective of the device they are using.

For companies, this means that they have to be able to provide support on multiple platforms to ensure that their customers are satisfied.

Ensure Successful Support Automation

To make sure that you have everything in order, you need to determine what aspect of customer support you want to automate and which customer support software can do that: custom software or out-of-the-box-software.

Bespoke software is a custom software solution specifically designed to improve the customer support of a particular business. Essentially, it’s built to eliminate the multiple compromises that come with the ‘off the shelf’ software. You can learn more about the advantages of bespoke software in this article and see if it is the right solution for you.

Choose the Right Type of Software

A custom software helps improve your business operations. It can be programmed to include the specific features you want, perform its functions the way you want it to, and even offer tailored services which improve the user experience. As an added advantage, custom developers can factor in your employees’ needs while building the product to come up with a more inclusive software.  

In the meantime, out-of-the-box software is a plug and play software that doesn’t require your development team to conduct any special installations or configurations. While it lacks the customization aspect of the former, it is quick and easy to install and begin using.

You can exploit the below automation strengths to enhance customer experience without losing the personal touch.

Be Proactive in Communication

Communication is the key to any customer success strategy and every company should focus on proactively contacting customers. Your marketing team should be able to see what a particular customer is struggling with, whether it is a simple website error or navigation issue. These minor issues can trigger frustration, eventually leading the customer to jump ship.

Furthermore, these customers may express their dissatisfaction aloud, which may adversely affect your company’s reputation.

Unlike phone support or emails which requires the customer to start a conversation, chat is a great proactive support channel for a business to reach out to their customers. They instantaneously provide the much-needed customer support eliminating unnecessary back and forth between the customer support personnel and the customer. Simply put, live chat is always in the right place, at the right time. If properly used, they can make a difference when a customer is casually browsing through your website prompting them to cart your products.

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Document Front-end Issues and Communicate them in Advance

According to a Live Person’s online survey conducted in the UK, US, Italy, Australia, France, and Germany, approximately 83% of online buyers require some sort of support to navigate the online buying process.

The art of customer service dictates that you know your customer’s problems in advance and are ready to help them out. After all, there are many online businesses with products and services similar to yours. Once faced with a minor problem, a customer may not raise a hand, but instead, choose to move on to the next online shop.

As a starting point, churn through support tickets to pinpoint any particular problems your company  is facing and provide a solution. For instance, if customers have been reporting slow website speeds, make it known to them that you are aware of their problems. You should also mention what you are doing to solve the issue.

 With a customer support software, your sales and marketing staff can intervene at the right moment and turn a potentially barren situation into a win-win experience.

Be Honest About Your Use Of Automation

Never underestimate your customers and trick them into thinking that your company has an infantry of support representatives. Most customers can smell an automated chat or email miles away.

Instead, be forthright about your use of automation tools. In particular, if you are sending an automated email, indicate at the postscript section that these emails are a bridge to link the customers to a human support agent.

Automate Responses to Behavioral Data

With the increasing popularity of behavioral insights, you can take advantage of behavioral data to enhance customer support personalization. For instance, if a customer has visited a particular page on your website multiple times, they may be interested in something but not sure how to go about it. You can trigger an automated chat offering to help them or direct them to an FAQ page.

Don’t Automate Everything

Lastly, the massive benefits of automation may lure you into automating everything. However, there is a thin line between what you can automate and what you can’t. Anything that gravitates towards avoiding conversations with customers should be ignored. For example, many customers don’t appreciate automated customer support as the aspect of emotional connection with a machine is missing. This means they can’t have a friendly conversation with a machine as they would have with a customer service representative. Needless to say, it’s the personal touch that keeps your customers coming back.

If you have been looking for an answer as to how you can improve customer support, automation will come in handy. Irrespective of whether you want to deploy a mobile customer support or an email-based service, you need to first identify the support aspects that don’t require an actual human being. You need to then streamline these using the best automation option. It’s also important to research on these options to ensure you have the right software to suit your business. Don’t allow the convenience that comes with automation to kill the organic human experience.

After all, the whole point of automation is to complement the work of a customer support specialist as opposed to completely eliminating human-to-human interaction.

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