By Catherine Heath (Freelance Technical Writer and Marketing Advocate)
Catherine is a freelance writer based in Manchester. Blogs. Copy. Documentation. She believes in ditching the jargon – just give her plain writing.
In collaboration with Syed Abdul Qadir Gilani (a Python developer and data scientist),
Find Syed on LinkedIn.
It’s typical for businesses to provide a mix of automation and human customer support for their customers or risk losing customers. This mix is decided based on how much automation customers are likely to need in their support.
Businesses respond to customer enquiries more quickly and effectively; they are increasing the amount of technological automation in their customer service systems. Various upgrades are regularly made to the system including AI, automation, and self-service.
You can strike a balance between efficiency and empathy through automation and human customer support. Customers don’t want to be treated as a number and yet neither do they need an overly bouncy support rep taking them out to lunch.
We’ll look at this balance now, which ChatGPT providing the groundwork for most chatbots and self-service knowledge bases.
Benefits of Automation
There are lots of benefits when it comes to automating customer support.
1. Available at all times – you never have to wait for automation to get around to supporting your customers.
2. Quickly resolve issues – automation is immediate so you avoid long queues at the help desk.
2. Less time spent waiting – customers are helped more quickly and are therefore more satisfied.
4. More budget-friendly – automation can help more customers so therefore you can save money when it comes to automation.
5. Data analysis for better support – data analysis will tell you how well automation is performing when it comes to customer support.
Benefits of Having Human Support
And yet you don’t want to automate everything in your support team.
1. Empathy and emotional intelligence – humans still provide empathy and emotional intelligence which customers crave.
2. Solving complicated problems – some problems are simply beyond the intelligence of automation, and therefore you’ll need the support of humans to solve them.
3. Individualized solutions – only humans can provide the individualized support that customers need and desire, because automation has not yet reached that level of intelligence.
4. Trust and loyalty among customers – sometimes, customers need the trust and loyalty that only humans can provide.
5. The contact and ability of humans to reach out – angry or upset customers will only be calmed by human agents and will resent bots or knowledge bases getting in the way.
Balancing Automation and Human Support: 5 Easy Steps
1. Chatbots for Simple Questions:
“What is the status of my order?” is a common question customers may ask. Or “What is your return policy?” to AI-powered chatbots.
2. Human Help for Complex Issues:
If a customer’s problem is complicated, transfer them to a human representative who can provide personalized assistance.
3. Automation for Routine Tasks:
Use automation to handle repetitive tasks like sending order confirmations or password reset emails, freeing up human agents to focus on more important issues.
4. Flowing Changes:
Make sure customers can easily switch between chatbots and human support without having to repeat information.
5. Train human agents:
Keep human agents informed about new technologies and tools that can help them improve their skills in the workplace. Upskill workers so that they can integrate automation into their daily tasks.
Example:
Customer contact support:
Chatbot: “Hi! How can I help?”
Customer: “Where’s my order?”
Chatbot: “Order shipped yesterday. Tracking ID: XXXX. “
Customer: “But I didn’t receive it.”
Chatbot: “Let me transfer you to a human agent.”
Human-agent: “Hi! Sorry about the issue. Can you provide more details?”
Benefits of of having a balance
- Efficient customer support – combining a mixture of automation and human customer support leads to more efficiency and a better result for customers overall.
- Improved customer satisfaction – customers are more satisfied with your service when they have access to a range of options from your customer support team.
- Increased performance – performance of your team is better when humans are combined with automation because they don’t have to rely on doing everything themselves.
- Improvement of human agent skills – human skills are augmented with automation and improve their results.
Key Takeaways:
1. Automation makes things faster, but humans provide a personal touch.
2. Seek the right balance between automation and human assistance to ensure satisfied clients.
3. Keep checking and adjusting the balance as customer needs change.
Sources:
1. Forbes: The Future of Customer Experience: Striking the Right Balance Between Automation And Human Support
2. Harvard Business Review: Automating Customer Support in the Correct Way
https://hbr.org/2018/02/the-parts-of-customer-service-that-should-never-be-automated
3. McKinsey: Automation and the Future of Customer Service
