Exceptional customer service is the bread and butter of any successful company.
Amazing customer service can improve client relations and increase leads. In comparison, less-than-desirable communications can disrupt company workflow and dissuade clients from continuing your services. In fact, companies in the United States lose approximately $62 billion annually due to poor customer service.
A profitable solution in the digital age is to automate customer service! Don’t know where to start? Check out these tools to automate customer service and improve your customer relations.
3 Tools to Automate Customer Service
Chatbot
Chatbots aren’t a new invention. Nonetheless, as more companies move to automation, chatbots are popping up across the internet. A chatbot is a computer program that conducts conversations with website visitors.
This automation is auspicious because customers can have their answers and concerns addressed immediately. For customers with a simple question or request, this is an easy avenue to take.
Nevertheless, chatbots do have their disadvantages. For example, many automations today are not advanced enough to handle nuanced service requests like a human agent can.
In addition, chatbots are an ingenious invention that makes serving customer needs uncomplicated. However, it is important to recognize that a bot is only good as their automation.
Clients are more likely to be unsatisfied with their interaction with the company if they suspect that they are communicating with a robot instead of a customer service representative. In fact, according to a recent survey, researchers found that clients prefer human agents to chatbots.
What does this mean for your automation? Tread lightly and automate your chatbot to redirect to a human agent after their needs are identified. In this case, a shared inbox that populates customer requests is the best course of action.
Resource Page
Resource pages are simple, yet highly effective customer service automation that companies of all sizes can use.
A resource page is a website page that lists an array of links and information. Often, resource pages can be found in the form of a Frequently Asked Question webpage.
Again, like chatbots, resource pages have their limitations. Web developers and content writers can anticipate a multitude of customer requests and questions. Regardless, customers with nuanced concerns may not receive the needed care.
In addition, resource pages are impersonal. It is difficult—if possible—to build rapport with prospective customers and clients through a resource page.
All in all, resource pages are effective customer service automation but do have limitations.
Shared Inbox
Frequently, your business will communicate with customers in a variety of mediums. For instance, a client may interact with a chatbot, and their request may be forwarded to agents. Or, a potential customer will submit a web form. In these scenarios, information is sent to a representative via email.
A shared inbox compiles all company relations so that customer service representatives can provide the best customer service.
There are many benefits to using a shared inbox. However, to best, explain the impact of shared inboxes, consider this scenario:
A client, Jane Doe, contacts your company through a chatbot. She is following up on a question that a colleague answered several weeks ago.
Your first course of action may be to hunt down the team member that communicated with Jane Doe last. In any case, you’ll be lucky if the person is the office and recalls the details of their conversation with Jane Doe.
An intelligent message hub like Threads can mitigate this process and compile information in one accessible file.
With Threads, store emails, and phone calls in one place to best serve customers. Locate the email correspondence that took place weeks ago between Jane Doe and your colleague. Recall minute details about the customer that make the client feel cared for—also building rapport.
Threads creates a central repository that new and old employees can use to search for information to expedite and improve customer service relations.
Interested in how Threads can automate customer service and improve your customer relations? Contact Threads to learn more.