Customer Service Automation: Benefits and Best CRM Suppliers

Customer service automation is when businesses use technology to reduce human involvement in solving custom inquiries. This is done by using self-service resources, proactive messaging, or simulated chat conversations.

Automated support systems offer several advantages over human representatives – unlike humans, they’re available round-the-clock, every day of the year, ensuring uninterrupted assistance for customers. 

Automated customer service is also more cost-effective than managing a team of human customer support agents, because these systems effectively handle simple and repetitive tasks while routing tickets to the relevant departments. 

As a result, this lightens the burden on your customer support teams, allowing your employees to focus on customers who actually need assistance from a human employee.

This page will explain exactly how customer service automation works, highlighting its features and benefits. We’ll also show you the best systems for customer service automation to look out for.

What is Customer Service Automation?

Customer service automation is how businesses automate key manual tasks when it comes to customer support. Automation isn’t about replacing your human service agents – it’s about helping them to do their job. Customer service automation is both a process and a tool.

If you’ve ever used a chatbot to set up a direct line with a company – or accessed a business’s online knowledge base to solve an issue, rather than speak to an agent – then you’ve experienced customer service automation first-hand

Why is customer service automation important?

For customer service teams, automated customer service is important for three main reasons:

Quicker response times

Prompt responses are crucial in customer service, because slow response times can create a negative impression and drive customers to competitors. Research shows that 83% of consumers say they feel more loyal to brands that respond and resolve their complaints.

More convenient customer experiences

Customers expect to communicate through their preferred channels, whether that’s phone calls, social media, or email. They also want seamless transitions between channels without repeating information to different people. 

Automated customer support systems address these expectations by deploying across multiple channels and integrating with CRM platforms, giving your team a comprehensive view of customer interactions.

More autonomy for your customers

Many customers prefer self-service options over relying on others. Automated customer service empowers customers to independently resolve simple issues, eliminating middle-players and allowing them to address problems at their convenience. By allowing customers to solve solutions themselves, you can’t get a much quicker or easier customer experience.

What are the customer service automation technologies?

The most common examples of automated customer service solutions include:

• Automated workflows
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
• Email automation
• Chatbots
• Self-service portals
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Customer Service Automation: Features and Benefits

Let’s take a look at the features all top customer service CRM systems do well – and how these can help your business grow.

Issue Management Capabilities

When customer service issues arise – and no business is perfect, so rest assured they will – you’ve got to respond with speed and professionalism.

And, with customer service CRM, you can do just that. CRM software allows you to create ‘tickets’, with which you can record, organize, and track any issues that have been reported to your team. Using a simple drag-and-drop queue, you can keep tabs on the status of each issue, and easily spot links between different cases.

You can also prioritize issues, and assign team members to specific ones – thus increasing the accountability of your team, and ensuring that cases are resolved with greater efficiency.

Customer Interaction Tracking

As with CRM for sales and marketing – where tracking customer interactions helps you sell to them – CRM for customer service allows you to monitor how and where your client base is interacting with your brand.

Is that through social media? Do your customers prefer to get in touch via email, or would they rather pick up the phone and give you a call? 

Tracking your customers’ interactions with your brand helps you understand their preferences, and empowers you to tailor how – and when – you deliver your service going forward.

Customer Loyalty Tracking

Acquiring new customers is important… but the real business is in retaining them.

It’s cheaper, for one. Plus, statistics show that your probability of converting an existing customer is around 60% to 70% – with new customers, that figure is as low as 5%.

Given this, engendering customer loyalty to your brand and services becomes even more crucial – as does being able to accurately track it.

CRM allows you to gain invaluable insights into your brand and industry, courtesy of your customers themselves. From directly within the CRM, you can reach out to your client base with surveys and feedback requests – allowing you to better understand your business’s NPS (Net Promoter Score), and how it’s impacting on your bottom line.

Customer History

A key benefit of a customer service automation tool is being able to build up a rich, detailed history of each interaction you have with your customers.

Having a comprehensive record of what conversations you’ve had – and whether they took place via phone, email, or social media – allows you to better understand the customer, and where they are in their journey with your business.

Plus, when your team grows beyond a certain size, having a customer history database isn’t just a plus – it’s a necessity.

When one service agent picks up the phone, it won’t always be the same one that the caller dealt with last time – so it’s important that they have all the info they need to handle the new enquiry, right at their fingertips.

Customer Service Automation: The Challenges

Just like any business technology, there are some drawbacks to consider. For your business to provide optimal customer service, it’s important that you recognize these disadvantages and strike a balance between automation and human interaction.

Disadvantages of automated customer services include:

Lack of Human Touch

In complex or sensitive situations where understanding and emotional support are vital, automated customer services may fall short. The absence of human interaction can hinder effective resolution and empathy, which are crucial for certain customer needs.

Limited Problem-Solving Abilities

While automation excels in addressing routine and straightforward customer inquiries, it may struggle when faced with more intricate issues. Complex problems often require human judgment, critical thinking, and adaptability, which automated systems may lack. 

Let’s say a customer has searched your knowledge center for an answer, but can’t find due to the issue’s complexity – a less sophisticated chatbot or support system is likely to refer the customer back to the knowledge center because they’re unable to identify frustrated customers.

Data Privacy and Security Risks

Automated customer services involve the collection and processing of customer data. Insufficient security measures pose risks such as data breaches or unauthorized access to sensitive information. Customers may be concerned about their privacy and the potential misuse of their personal data, which can prove costly to your reputation and bottom line.

Future Trends in Customer Service Automation

We predict that customer service automation will be defined by these future trends:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advancements

AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants are already popular, and we predict they’ll become increasingly sophisticated, capable of understanding and responding to customer inquiries in a more human-like manner. 

Voice-Activated Customer Service Automation

Customers will be able to interact with automated systems using voice commands, making the experience more intuitive and hands-free, empowering customers to seek assistance, place orders, and resolve issues using natural language, enhancing convenience and accessibility.

Omni-Channel Automation Experiences

Omni-channel automation focuses on providing a seamless and consistent customer experience across multiple channels and touchpoints, such as social media, email and phone calls. This integration will ensure that customers can switch between channels without losing context, allowing your business to provide efficient and personalized support regardless of the communication channel.

CRM with Customer Service Automation: Top Suppliers for US Businesses

We've thoroughly tested seven of the best Helpdesk providers on the market, critically evaluating them in the key areas your business should be considering when looking to adopt a system. According to our testing, these providers offer customer automation builders, enabling you to automate manual processes, such as creating a new task each time a contact is added. Check out our table for a quick overview of the best systems…

The best CRM system for customer service automation is Zendesk, offering the best help and support and customization features of any platform we tested. For example, you can customize automations on all eight of its price plans, and you can create custom dashboards on the Suite Professional plan and upwards. Meanwhile, Zendesk provides a mix of free and paid courses to help your business hit the ground running when it comes to automated customer service.

However, Freshdesk is better value for for money than Zendesk because it offers a free plan (Zendesk plans start from $25 per month, per user) that also comes with custom automation builders. That's why Freshdesk still scored highly in testing, gaining 4.6/5 compared to Zendesk's 4.7/5.