What is Customer Support Automation?
Customer support automation is the use of technology such as AI and bots to automate and streamline customer support operations. The process can include responding to inquiries, providing information, and resolving issues. Customer support automation is essential to modern companies as it allows them to perform routine service tasks without human involvement.
How Does Customer Support Automation Work?
Customer support automation can involve technologies such as AI, machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP), to automate customer service processes. It can also involve strategically producing and publishing resources to enable customers to resolve their own issues. Let’s examine some of the most common ways to implement customer service automation.
Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
Chatbots and virtual agents are some of the most common forms of customer support automation tools. These tools can address most or all customer support inquiries by providing automated answers to user questions. With NLP, chatbots and AI assistants can understand human language to ensure they accurately interpret questions. This also allows the tools to respond in a conversational manner, creating a natural user experience as a result.
Knowledge Bases and Help Centers
Self-service options like FAQs, knowledge bases, and help centers let customers find answers independently. These resources can include include troubleshooting guides, product information, and return and shipping policies. Creating these support systems helps automate the customer support process and reduces inquiries as customers can instantly find what they need without live human support.
Automated Ticket Routing
Automated ticket routing minimizes customer wait times and enhances resolution efficiency. It also helps support agents manage their workflows more effectively. When a customer submits a request through a support form, chatbot, or helpdesk software, the system identifies the subject and urgency level to determine the appropriate team to handle the request.
Ecommerce Automation
AI has evolved to allow merchants to automate common eCommerce operational tasks such as canceling orders and processing returns. This automation greatly improves the customer experience as customers no longer have to wait on human responses for time-sensitive support issues.
For example, Rep AI’s automated Support Skills enable customers to cancel orders or initiate a return directly in the site chat. They simply need to give the AI the required information and the AI agent handles all the work in the backend of your ecommerce platform. The Support Skills also provide updates on order statuses and the ability to change an order address. For merchants, letting AI handle these common support tasks results in considerable time savings and better operational efficiency.
