The Different Pros and Cons of Customer Support Automation

“Customer support automation”: That phrase is enough to make many people cringe. How many people do you think feel at ease when interacting with a machine? Well, I am yet to meet one who actually shows indifference between human and automation especially when customer support is concerned.

Most people feel more at ease while interacting with humans. Hence, it became mighty important to give automated customer support a boost in form of a human touch such that people won’t even realize whether they are interacting with a human or machine. Thus, came the chatbots.

With the implementation of chatbots, customer support automation has become easier and more acceptable all around the globe. But that doesn’t mean that it has become free of any cons. In here, I have discussed the different pros and cons of customer support automation in greater details. Let’s go through them without further ado.

Pros

1. Customer support automation eliminates human error

All humans are prone to making errors. Customer service agents are no different either. Support automation eliminates the presence of human error in business operations by almost close to 99.9%.

This can definitely yield positive results especially when customer management and support are concerned.

2. Cost-effective

Automated customer support is definitely cost-effective because it eliminates the need to hire human agents for support operations.

This is basically a no-brainer. Any sorts of business process automation are more than capable of bringing down the cost a notch or two and this is no different either.

3. Helps in decreasing customer load

Customer support automation doesn’t get affected by peak hours when the customer load is at its highest.

While human agents usually tackle high customer loads in form of a queue, automated support doesn’t handle it in that manner. Be it a 10 or 1000, every customer is bound to get a reply at the same time. They won’t be put on hold like human agents usually do during peak hours.

4. Faster checkouts for customers

This is a big advantage of this system. Automated support allows customers to checkout in a jiffy. This reduces the time and increases convenience from the customer’s point of view.

No more queues equal no more worries.

5. Reserving human workforce for more complex jobs

By implementing automated customer support in your customer support operations, you will be capable of reserving your human workforce for tackling more complex issues; issues that cannot be solved by machines in any way whatsoever.

Your chatbots can solve the simpler issues as your first line of support. Your human force can act as your second line of support. This is going to increase your customer support efficiency and speed at the same time.

6. Improved customer retention abilities

Automated customer support is not only proficient in improving your business revenue but it is also capable of getting your most coveted customers back again from time to time for further business.

Faster service results in improved customer satisfaction which in turns results in a huge boost in your customer retention policies.

Cons

1. Absence of any form of emotional connection

Machines don’t possess any emotion. Even though you try to make it look as humane and as empathetic as possible, some missing links are bound to be there in some form or the other.

Your automated customer support will still have this con even if it’s based on the most advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) of all.

2. It is incapable of solving complex problems

However complex your bot might be, it still isn’t 100% capable of solving complex customer issues. For complex issues, human agents are still your best bet.

Well at least, it can serve as your first line of support where it’ll be able to solve all those simple and known issues in the blink of an eye.

3. Some degree of tech-savviness is required

Say, for example, you have placed an automated support kiosk in your retail sort for answering any sort of customer related queries. Tech-savvy customers can handle that with ease. But what about those who aren’t comfortable with technology yet?

That’s a problem; isn’t it? So that still qualifies as an automated customer support con.

The chatbot revolution has given customer support automation a huge boost. But that hasn’t curbed the need of humans in customer support yet. A bit of balance between your human support agents and your chatbots, and you’ll probably be able to create one of the best customer oriented company of all. Good luck!