Automated customer service: is that a good or a bad thing?
After introducing the automation of vacation leave requests, billing management methods, as well as product manufacturing, the business process improvement market has seen a rise in the use of a particular new practice: automated customer service. This new way of doing things consists in replacing human resources by an automated management system that welcomes customers and book appointments in your stead.
Thanks to its highly sophisticated features, which include a voice recognition software, this system allows businesses to manage and redirect incoming calls from clients at the right place, as well as call them to follow up on appointments. These useful functionalities are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Advantages
Automated assistance systems are very popular among companies that provide services, since they offer many benefits, such as the optimization of their resources, as well as an increase in the efficiency of their organization.
Indeed, by releasing their employees from administrative duties like answering the phone and booking appointments, businesses can now work on best serving their customers by focusing on providing the services they are specialized in.
The limits of automation
For some companies, automated customer service reduces the risk of human error and makes things easier for clients by standardizing the customer service approach. In other words, it eliminates the human intervention, which still remains accessible, and allows time and money saving thanks to resource optimization.
But while there’s little doubt that this type of system can contribute to increase the efficiency and the performance of a business, automated assistance systems also have their limitations.
Depending on your scope of practice, the use of automation might not be the perfect business process improvement solution for your organization. For example, if your clients need answers to specific questions, automated assistance systems will be a lot less efficient than an actual human being. Also, several experts agree that using automation too often can contribute to dehumanize customer relationships, which may lead to dissatisfaction.
In the course of various studies on automation, it has been shown that in the particular cases where the company provides services which necessitate precise interventions from a employee, the client had a psychological need to speak with a human being, whereas with automated assistance, the consumer has to rely solely on a standardized approach.
After trying automated assistance, some companies realized that this was not the right business process improvement method for them and had to back away from it.
Experts have now determined that the automation of customer assistance services is not a bad thing if the companies using such a system make sure to maintain a good relationship with their clients, and keep a certain human dimension in the services they provide to ensure their survival.
Want to learn more about automated assistance systems? Contact us today to find out more about what method would best suit your needs.
