Online shopping has been breaking out each
year since 2010. The pandemic added fuel to the fire with an unprecedented
surge in eCommerce. The sudden boom in the eCommerce industry caught businesses
napping while customers’ expectations rose. With massive smartphone
penetration, the eCommerce sector witnessed souring business but an increase in
the disconnect between eCommerce businesses and customers’ demands.
We are exploring this dissatisfaction among
online shoppers toward eCommerce businesses. In this blog, we examine the risk
factors for eCommerce businesses and how customer service automation can
dramatically improve the situation, boosting customer satisfaction by enhancing
the customer journey. We are also investigating the role process
automation solutions providers, such as Sigma Solve, can play in shaping the
future of automation in the eCommerce industry.
The Customer
Satisfaction Crisis: Are You Keeping Up?
Had it been a matter of a few percentages, the
gap between what customers expect and the capabilities eCommerce businesses
possess could have been bridged. However, there is a disparity.
Zendesknoted in a study that 73% of customers
prefer eCommerce businesses that value their time, yet only 33% of them stay on
the website despite a 3-minute delay. Similarly, Microsoft noted that 61% of
customers prefer to switch eCommerce platforms due to poor or inadequate
services. The reality is far grimmer than these statistics.
This is no less of a crisis for eCommerce
businesses, which are not only incurring financial losses and losing customers
to competitors but also depleting their brand value and market reputation.
Customers naturally embrace eCommerce platforms that elevate customer experiences, offer personalized
services, and respond to customers’ queries immediately.
However, the situation is not turning into a
hopeless one. In fact, emerging technologies have made it possible for
eCommerce businesses to automate customer services, bridging this gap by
enhancing customer experiences and enriching customer journeys along the way.
Customer Service
Automation to the Rescue
First and foremost, automation does not mean
replacing humans with bots or robots. CX
transformation solutions leverage
automation to reduce human interventions, respond to queries immediately,
eliminate mistakes, and reduce operational costs.
Customer service automation is a confluence of
emerging technologies that automate repetitive tasks, personalize customer
engagement, and offer around-the-clock support to enrich customer journeys with
happy experiences. This results in better customer satisfaction and an improved
bottom line.
eCommerce businesses have gone miles ahead in
satisfying customers using AI and automation solutions. They have implemented
AI-powered chatbots, automated email responses, automated ticketing systems,
self-service portals and FAQs, virtual assistants, and interactive voice
response systems, among others. Consequently, businesses gain a competitive
edge, build trust among customers, and improve brand loyalty.
The impact of customer service automation on
eCommerce businesses is widespread. Process automation solutions streamline
business processes, optimize workflows, eliminate human errors, provide robust
security, manage voluminous data, prepare reports and analytics, predict
business outcomes, and resolve customer grievances quickly.
The Customer
Journey Revolution
In this rapidly digitizing world, businesses
can’t afford to stay behind their competitors. Therefore, innovation is their
last hope. Significantly, when customer demands are growing exponentially, only
innovative solutions such as customer service automation can help meet the
challenges. Here are some of the CS automation tools that are a must for eCommerce businesses to improve customer journeys.
AI-powered Chatbots: These are software
programs powered by AI that mimic human conversations. They automatically
address customer queries, resolve grievances, and provide 24/7 support to
relieve humans of the burden.
Self-Service Portals: These are the knowledge portals that empower
customers to get answers to their queries, resolve issues autonomously, and get
immediate solutions to troubles without even getting customer service staff
involved.
Automated Ticketing Systems: These are software that tracks, segregates,
categorizes, and routes customer complaints. An automated ticketing system
disciplines the workflows, ensuring that people address and resolve the issues.
Interactive Voice Response: The IVR system is one of the oldest automation
use cases. Today, AI and automation solutions have revolutionized it. It handles customer calls automatically and
directs them to the appropriate agent.
Automated Email Systems: An automated system that instantly
acknowledges customers’ mail and responds with accurate and adequate
information. It ensures timely communication and follow-up until the query is
resolved.
Social Media Monitoring
Tools: CX
transformation solutions use automation to track customer opinion about the
brand, respond quickly to their comments and messages, manage reputation
online, and engage across touch points.
CRM Integration: Customer
relationship management (CRM)
software allows for immediate and appropriate communication with customers, and
it includes customer histories for personalized engagements.
Analytics and Reporting
Tools: Automation
is used for demand forecasting. Consequently, it prepares reports, analytics,
and visualizations to understand trends and customer behavior and run targeted
marketing campaigns.
The Unexpected
Benefits of CSA
Business process automation undoubtedly
enhances efficiency and streamlines workflows, but most importantly, it
improves time management and brings about a cultural shift in the business. It
helps businesses sync employees more with the technology and reserves employees
for more critical work.
Customer Loyalty: Customers receive accurate and quick
resolutions to their queries and grievances, which results in higher customer
satisfaction and a more excellent retention ratio.
Accuracy: Automation eliminates erroneous manual tasks
from the system, eliminating mistakes and allowing businesses to offer reliable
and trustworthy services with fewer complaints.
Productivity: Automation frees employees to work on critical
and complex tasks, improving their self-worth and contributing to business
success, which results in more job satisfaction.
Personalization: CX transformation solutions analyze customer
data to communicate with customers with tailored messages and product
recommendations to elevate customer experience.
Consistency: Customer service automation disseminates
unified messages across touchpoints, building trust among customers with
high-quality information to improve engagements.
Availability: Automation ensures that customer services are
available 24/7 for customers with resolution and quality information instead of
businesses running customer service centers around the clock, which increases
costs.
Cost-efficiency: AI and
automation solutions take the
extensive customer service teams out of the equation, reducing the operational
cost of serving customers manually around the clock.
Scalability: Automating customer services ensures that
businesses are able to cope efficiently with increasing inquiries, queries, and
data volumes due to increasing business without compromising quality.
Crafting the
Perfect CSA Strategy: A Step-by-Step Guide
Generating brand value and building a loyal
customer base is not a cakewalk, especially in the age of digitization.
Customer service automation tools are definitely a big boon for businesses, but
their performance depends on an effective implementation strategy. Implementing
automation in customer service entails six steps. Following this step-by-step
guide ensures businesses bring their customer service to life, streamline
processes, and enhance customer journeys.
Identify Customer Pain
Points:
Evaluate customer feedback and comments across
channels to understand customer pain points, process bottlenecks, and service
workflows. Businesses should identify which areas of customer service need
automation the most and where they can improve efficiency.
Choose the Right Tools:
CSA tools should align with the processes and
budget. Moreover, scalability, integrability, capabilities, and user comfort
need to be prioritized before selecting the tools. Not all CSA tools generate
the same performance; therefore, selecting the right ones is vital.
Develop Engaging Content:
Whether you deploy AI and automation or
robotic process automation, customer service automation tools need data in the
form of content to provide quality information and critical problem resolution.
Creating engaging content is the backbone of CSA.
Prioritize Integrations:
If you want your customers to receive
personalized messaging across channels and ensure seamless multi-way dataflow,
it is crucial for you as a business to integrate customer service automation
solutions with existing systems, such as CMS, CRM, and EPR.
Gather Continuous Feedback:
Customer data is the most critical element for
businesses to make the right choices. Therefore, it is essential for businesses
to continuously collect customer feedback to ensure the automation strategy is
effectively implemented and enhanced over time.
Monitor and Optimize:
Tracking the performance of all vital automation
organs and gathering feedback from employees enables businesses to adjust their
automation strategy, refine their systems, and adapt to customer feedback,
which is essential for the success of automation in customer services.
Best Practices
for Implementing Customer Service Automation
Start with a Clear Strategy:
- Define and identify
business objectives for customer service automation.
- Underline the
processes that require automation to improve efficiency.
- Prepare a blueprint
to implement the strategy that fits your approach.
Focus on Customer Needs:
- Implement
automation based on customer pain points.
- Identify areas
where automation can improve customer experiences.
- Customer-centricity
raises satisfaction for customers and employees.
Balance automation with
human touch:
- Create an
opportunity for human interaction beyond automation
- Resolving complex
and emotional issues needs a human approach.
- Balancing the
human-machine approach creates brand value.
Ensure seamless channel
integration:
- Automation should
adopt a multichannel approach to connecting.
- Prepare and provide
unified information and experiences.
- Offer smooth
flexibility to transit from one channel to another.
Prioritize data security and
privacy:
- Install robust
security to protect customer data at all costs.
- Seek consent and
deliver transparency when dealing with data.
- Comply with all
data privacy-related regulations to build trust.
Use analytics to
continuously improve:
- Use automation data
to evaluate bottlenecks and trends.
- Leverage insights
to enhance customer experiences.
- Improve automation
strategies and operations using data.
Offer easy escalation to
human agents:
- Ensure that a path
to escalation is provided to higher authorities.
- Train an automated
system to recognize the escalating situation.
- Ensure an immediate
response and quick resolution.
Measuring the
Impact of CSA on Satisfaction
Now we know which tools businesses can deploy
to automate customer service. We also have the guidelines ready to implement
customer service automation tools. But the moot question is how to measure
automation to gauge success and improve. We have identified 10 KPIs to evaluate
the success rate of customer service automation software.
- First Response Time
(FRT): it records how soon
the customer is approached. The lower the rate, the faster the response,
which leads to greater customer satisfaction.
- Average Resolution Time
(ART): ART ensures that
management knows how long the automated system takes to resolve customers’
critical issues.
- Customer Satisfaction
Score (CSAT): Customer feedback
and responses to in-app or emailed surveys showcase overall satisfaction
rate and happiness with resolutions.
- Self-Service Adoption
Rate: This rate reflects
customers’ utilization of the self-service portal. Higher usage indicates
the success of implementing the right CSA strategy.
- Automation Success Rate:
It
measures how often an automated system performs flawlessly from response
to resolution without human intervention and resolves the issues.
- Cost per Contact:
This
explains the cost of managing each customer interaction through an
automated system. The quicker the resolution, the less expensive it is for
businesses.
- Net Promoter Score
(NPS): The NPS measures
customers’ trust in a brand and the probability of them recommending products.
It speaks for greater customer experiences.
- Agent Productivity:
It
evaluates the number of queries escalated to the human agent and how
quickly and adequately the agents communicate and resolve them.
- Customer Effort Score
(CES): This score assesses
the efforts and time involved in resolving customer queries through
automation and points to the system’s user-friendliness.
- Ticket Volume:
It
speaks for the effectiveness and capabilities of the system. It tracks the
number of queries generated by customers within a stipulated time.
Conclusion
Customer service automation denotes two
things: A) offering rich customer journeys and B) reducing operational costs.
Automation empowers employees to deliver superior customer services to ensure
customers understand the brand value, trust the brand, and become loyal
customers. On the other hand, automation helps businesses personalize their
shopping experiences, offering 24/7 support and resolving their queries as
quickly as possible to build robust customer relationships.
Companies like Sigma Solve help businesses
develop tailored CSA strategies, build necessary CSA tools, implement and
integrate them with the existing system, and maintain them to provide
consistent performance. Are you ready for your automation journey?
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-boost-customer-satisfaction-service-zvmmf/
