We’ve seen in recent years a growing trend of businesses adopting automation technologies like chatbots and intelligent virtual assistants (IVA) to help with customer service. But what role do they play exactly? What are the benefits and challenges of their use? And what does the future hold?
How Automation Technologies Impact Customer Service
Automation technologies are increasingly important in improving customer service and offer a wide range of benefits — but they are not without challenges.
Benefits
Automation technologies reduce the need for human customer service agents, provide around-the-clock service, and ensure a high level of Payment Card Industry (PCI), Personal Identifiable Information (PII), and Protected Health Information (PHI) security.
Not only that, but they also enable agents to complete tasks with less effort by gathering data about customer preferences and behavior and automating routine tasks, freeing up human agents to deal with more complex inquiries. IVAs offer even more sophisticated levels of customer service, including proactively anticipating needs and making recommendations.
Other benefits include making customer service more efficient and effective by dealing with simple queries quickly to reduce wait times and delivering accurate information faster than human agents, improving FCR rates.
Challenges
Automation technologies lack the ability to handle more complex issues, requiring human intervention. Also, they may be unable to provide the same level of personalization as human agents.
Future Trends in Automation Technology Use for Customer Service
Digital transformation using automation will gain greater acceptance as they grow in their ability to tackle more complex interactions and offer more personalized customer service. Also, new types of Automation technology may emerge specifically designed for customer service applications.
Automation technologies are here to stay and set to revolutionize customer service as we know it. Businesses that embrace these technologies will be well-placed to succeed in the future. Those that don’t may not exist in a few years.
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