Top 10 Support Automation Tips & 33 Tools for Superior Customer Service

Discover the best practices and tools for superior customer service with our top 10 support automation tips and 33 recommended tools.

Aug 16, 2024

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Top 10 Support Automation Tips & 33 Tools for Superior Customer Service

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Picture this: You’ve got a thousand customer support tickets lined up and no one to help. What’s worse, your team is exhausted, and those waiting for help aren’t happy. Sounds stressful, right? If you’ve been there, support automation can help turn things around. This blog will show how AI can help optimize customer support operations and improve customer service KPIs and satisfaction without additional costs or complex workflows.

AI customer support is a valuable tool that can help you achieve your objectives. ChatBees.ai's support automation solution can ease your team's workload, helping you handle inquiries faster, boost customer satisfaction, and improve support operations.

What Is Support Automation?

Support automation, or customer support automation, is using automation to streamline your support-related workflows end-to-end. These automations can be geared towards improving the customer or employee experience.

Its definition involved software that could automate specific customer support tasks. Though there’s little question that this type of software can help support reps, our new definition fundamentally transforms how customer support and CS teams operate and benefit customers and employees.

Why Use Support Automation?

Customer support automation helps to streamline customer service processes, improve customer satisfaction, and increase customer loyalty. McKinsey reports that improving customer experiences can increase sales by 2 to 7% and profitability by 1 to 2%.

Support teams can quickly handle tasks and improve customer satisfaction by using support automation tools. Most questions and queries can be delegated to AI-powered chatbots, leaving human agents to deal with complex issues requiring more strategic thinking.

Meeting 21st-Century Expectations: The Role of Customer Support Automation in Retention

The 21st-century customer expects to get immediate support across various channels. One-third of consumers say they would consider switching companies after just one instance of subpar customer service.

Because of this staggering statistic, companies are turning to customer support automation to streamline business processes and increase customer retention.

Rising Customer Support Automation Trends

While support automation may have been optional in the past, it’s becoming an integral part of business operations today. The importance of providing timely support to both customers and employees is overwhelming. Here’s a look at a few upcoming trends in customer service automation technology:

Customers expect a quick reaction from support specialists. Lack of timely or quality support is the rationale behind switching brands.

With proactive customer support, staying ahead of the competition can be possible. Improving CX is a high priority for over 80% of business leaders this year.

Personalization is the driving force behind profitability. AI-powered support tools can offer a personalized approach to each customer without human assistance.

With support automation, employees can focus on complex activities without wasting time on manual tasks. AI-powered support tools can ensure customer satisfaction without the employees’ involvement.

12 Customer Service Tasks That Should Be Automated

1. Routine Inquiries

Chatbots and virtual assistants can easily manage FAQs without human intervention. Users receive instant and accurate answers to their queries, and customer support agents focus on more complex tasks. Bots can manage questions about product features, pricing, installment, etc.

2. Appointment Scheduling

Customer support automation enables you to make appointments on autopilot. Customers can contact you through:

Facebook Messenger

Make appointments and reservations

Through the chatbot. With the bot’s help, you can also schedule service calls online without the involvement of customer support agents.

3. Order Status Updates

By incorporating automated systems, you can ensure your customers will be updated on their:

Order Status

Shipping notifications

Delivery estimates

Setting up triggers will notify customers once the order's status changes.

4. Password Resets

Technology allows customers to reset their passwords without human help. Whether customers forget or want to change their password, they can do it freely through the chatbot or email.

The bot will guide them through the password reset process, so clients don’t need to wait for customer support agents to join the chat.

5. Payment Processing

You can set up your chatbot to receive payments. This will automate:

Common transactions

Billing inquiries

Payment reminders

When transactions are successful, customers will receive payment receipts.

6. Knowledge Base Access

The chatbot enables you to connect your knowledge base so that users can search for the necessary information themselves. The search feature will help them find all the materials they need to make positive customer decisions.

7. Feedback Collection

After interacting with users or after they perform purchases, send clients automated surveys or feedback forms. It will help you determine whether customers are happy with your product or service.

They can share their opinion about your customer support, product features, or delivery. As a result, you’ll be able to assess the quality of your service or product.

8. Email Responses

Email marketing platforms help you send automated emails after your company accepts payment, sends a product, or asks for feedback. This way, you acknowledge that the payment was received or the product was sent.

9. Issue Routing

You can use automated platforms to assign different inquiries to appropriate company departments on autopilot. The system will analyze the nature of the inquiry and route it to the agent responsible for this task.

10. Returns and Refunds

Chatbots can handle returns and refunds without your customer support agents’ involvement. It makes the process so much easier for your team and customers.

Clients can initiate returns online without long calls and unanswered emails. Once their inquiry is approved, they will receive automated updates on the status of their request.

With social media monitoring tools, your team can automatically react to customers’ feedback, reviews, and comments on your posts. Send automated responses to users’ comments to acknowledge that you hear what they say and value their feedback. Handle complaints on Facebook and Instagram with bots to provide instant responses and show that you care.

12. Analytics and Reporting

Automatically gather information about customer service (call center metrics, customer satisfaction scores, and performance analytics). This way, you’ll be able to identify gaps and find areas for improvement of your services.

Boosting Query Management Efficiency with ChatBees' Low-Code AI Integration

ChatBees optimizes RAG for internal operations like customer support, employee support, etc., with the most accurate response and easily integrates into their workflows in a low-code, no-code manner. ChatBees' agentic framework automatically chooses the best strategy to improve the quality of responses for these use cases. This improves predictability/accuracy, enabling these operations teams to handle more queries. No DevOps is required to deploy and maintain the service.

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

Ticket Resolution

Automated Ticketing System

Customer Service Knowledge Base

Slack for Customer Support

Ticket Triage

AI For IT Support

Ticket Handling Best Practices

Automated Email Response Customer Service

AI Ticketing System

5 Examples of Automated Customer Support in Action

1. Self-Service: Treat Your Knowledge Base Like the Frontlines (Because It Should Be)

When your customers have a question or problem they need solved, speed is the biggest factor at play here. They want answers now. Providing a self-serve online library reduces support volume and increases customer satisfaction. Why? Because people genuinely want you to help them help themselves.

Efficiently Building a Knowledge Base to Streamline Customer Support

Creating your knowledge base is relatively simple, as long as you have the right software behind it. Whenever we get the same question more than a few times, we turn the answer into a Knowledge Base article.

It’s saved us a ton of time. Steve Klien Co-founder of Statuspage At Groove, we’ve created a branded knowledge base to help our customers navigate through frequently asked questions in a 24/7 environment:

When building your own: consider it a frontline publishing platform by majoring in the following key features.

Obvious access across your site: This may sound aggressive, but never be afraid to show your customers and visitors that you have a knowledge base.

How else are they going to find it?: The more places you feature your knowledge base, the better.

Site-wide widgets: Follow customers page after page for e-commerce storefronts (like MantraBand).

Notice too: The widget is preloaded with a search bar, and MantraBand knows the topics that are its most common inquiries.

Customers can easily use the dropdowns: Especially on mobile, to self—select the issue they’re facing and either resolve it or seek help.

Enhancing User Support with Direct Access and Effective Call-to-Actions

For the live streaming service, PICARTO takes a similar approach via email. How? It places a clear call to action — I need help! — within the very first email new users receive.

Better still, the button takes visitors not to PICARTO’s generic knowledge base but directly to its article for anyone having problems with activation. Make search natural, on-site, and off. It’s Google’s world; we’re all just living in it.

Optimizing Your Knowledge Base for Effective Self-Service and Search Visibility

Your knowledge base is needed to enable self-service, search visibility offsite, and intuitive search functionality onsite. Externally, this means optimizing your FAQs just like you would any other piece of public content for search and social media.

Branded searches are widespread when customers seek help, which is why hosting your knowledge base on your domain also matters. The result isn’t only helpful to customers who can find what they’re looking for, but—in some cases—to leads and prospective customers.

Enhancing Onsite Search with Keyword Optimization and Autocomplete Features

Onsite, people bring those exact Google-esque expectations. Ensure your articles include keyword variants and that your search bar autocompletes for common terms.

Informational hierarchy Informational hierarchy is a fancy term for putting first things first. Businesses pour and sweat over what visitors see on their:

Homepages

Landing pages

Product pages

That same level of concern is rarely shown to existing customers. Statuspage frontloads its knowledge base with the most common questions new customers face, grouped into clearly defined categories. The individual articles also include:

Explainer videos

Images

Easy-to-read subheadings

This is precisely the user experience the internet has conditioned us for. It’s pages also include a bread-crumb navigational element to help users back-track when needed.

Using Data-Driven Insights and Accessible Support Options to Enhance Your Knowledge Base

Related articles are an additional touch to propel users forward. Just be sure you group articles intentionally, that is, through data and reporting.

Reporting and data

All of the above features hinge on data and reporting, helpful data and reporting. To identify what’s working in your knowledge base and where you can improve, track metrics like:

Article performance

Total Visitors

Search terms

Ratings

One-click to contact

While an effective knowledge base allows you to stay two steps ahead of your customers, it will sometimes not cut it. For these cases, I ensure you’ve got a contact support option available on every page so my customers don’t have to look for it once they realize they need personalized support.

2. Centralization: Behold, the Humble Inbox… Reborn!

The email was born for one-to-one communication. As your business grows, it gets harder to keep up with email and the multiplicity of communication channels in which your customers live and breathe.

Customers don’t want to use mystic software systems to open a ticket. They want to use what they know and like—be it:

Social

Chat

Phone

Balancing Customer Convenience with Efficient Multi-Channel Support Management

They also want your response mediated through whatever channel they initially submitted their request through. They want convenience. From the inside out, when you try to offer that level of convenience, overhead sprawls—your team spends their time monitoring multiple platforms, deciding how to divide the work, and so on.

To our customers, our support looks and feels just like email. They don’t know the difference. But for our customer support agents, Groove gives us all the features to give awesome customer support.

Streamlining Customer Support with Unified Automation and Integration

Allan Branch Allan Branch Founder of Less Accounting. The best way to cut that overhead is by leveraging automation to bring all your support channels into one location. To reduce your collection points down to a single, all-inclusive hub.

Integration: Less is More

No matter how you talk with your customers or what channels they use, the ability to unify all conversations into one command center is non-negotiable. This means (and I probably should have warned you sooner) that I will use Groove as my primary example.

But, the principles are universal. What really matters is selecting the right tool for your business. Generally, companies struggle to automate communication along two lines: channels and departments—this includes:

Multiple email addresses

Sales versus service

Onsite support requests and chat

Social media (public and private)

E-commerce help requests, bugs

Other technical issues

Integration with business tools, such as internal communication and phone calls. Merely connecting those separate platforms doesn’t unlock the power of automation; what does is organizing and collaborating naturally aided by technology.

Organization: From Humans to Bots and Back Again

The ability to organize help requests automatically comes down to knowing what already works best for you and marrying that to a system that puts what’s working on autopilot. Groove enables this through a combination of tags, rules, and folders (don’t let those unassuming names fool you).

Tags: This Is That Tags are the fastest

Most human-centric way to organize. Marking conversations with the terminology your team already uses adds clarity. As do easily customizable and identifiable colors. It’s also the first step in automating your communication.

Rules: When This, Then That

Regardless of the name they go by, rules are the real magic of automation. Because of that, we’ll cover a few of the most common—and time-saving—uses cases in their own section below. The big idea is that rules are when this, then that logic—conditions that trigger actions—set to govern (among other things) automatically.

Priority: Low, medium, high, or urgent.

Status: Open, follow up, closed, or spam.

Assign: Specific or available agents or groups.

Tags: You have your own naming and color-coding system. The conditions that trigger those actions are also varied: to and from emails, tags, status, and priority.

Channel: email, widget, social, or chat keywords in any or specific parts of the conversation.

Folders: This and That Go Here and There

Folders are last in the organization trifecta. Using the automating logic of rules, folders can be created to collect and display nearly everything automatically.

Personalized folders for agents or teams, priority folders based on the severity of the request, channel-based folders to house different submission sources, folders for starred conversations to keep a pulse on the ones you’ll want to pay close attention to, and a host of hours since settings to ensure every customer gets the timely attention they expect and deserve.

Collaborate: Mine Versus Ours

Centralization through automation isn’t limited to better outside service. It can also make your in-house environment a better (happier) place. The two are intertwined. To do that, collaboration tools should automatically identify who is responsible for each conversation and protect conversations from duplicate efforts and embarrassing crossfire.

Implementing Automation for Efficient Departmental Routing and Task Segmentation

As a small-scale example, at Groove, whenever someone offers to write a guest post for our blog, the request is immediately sent to the marketing department, which assigns the conversation to them. The same applies to other departments, submission types, and individual agents.

Your automation efforts should do likewise by segmenting the Source Separate mailboxes within a company-wide inbox governed by the address:

Support@yourdomain

Security@yourdomain

Sales@yourdomain

Jobs@yourdomain

Sender Folders and rules established by the from address to assign existing customers to an agent they’ve worked with before, to their account manager, or a group responsible for priority support.

Utilizing Keywords and Front-End Forms for Efficient Automation and Routing

Keywords Behind-the-scenes logic that routes conversations to the right person based on phrases commonly associated with their job and role—bill, return, bug, feature or product names, etc. The pages and forms you create can manage much of this on the front end.

Atlassian tackles automation through a general inquiries page that is immediately divided into four specific inquiry pages that drop down on each form. Each frontend element is then used to automate who inside the company receives the inquiry.

Ensuring Efficient Team Collaboration with Real-Time Collision Detection

As you know, the who often varies between individual agents and teams. When multiple people are involved, automation becomes even more critical. Why? (It’s pretty ironic.) The better your teams are at serving customers—the more proactive and time-sensitive they take their jobs—the easier it becomes for two or more people to begin addressing the same request simultaneously.

Eliminating these mistakes is easy as long as the help desk solution you choose includes real-time collision detection, which notifies you when someone replies to a conversation or even leaves a comment.

3. Canned Replies and (Gasp) Auto-Responders That Don’t Completely Suck

We’ve all seen it before: the cold and impersonal automated email that makes you instantly feel like you’re just another cog in the machine. You’re assigned a ticket number and get a generic, faceless request that has been received message.

Generic support request autoresponder, or worse, you take the time to fill out a request for help, provide a detailed description of the problem, and get messages like that, which is exactly why automation has a bad name. Why can I not stress the value of prioritizing canned replies instead of autoresponders? What’s the difference?

Balancing Automation with Personalization in Support Communications

Autoresponders are one-size-fits-all emails that work well for marketing and general announcements but fall apart in sensitive situations like service and support. Canned replies are pre-written, pre-populated messages to frequently asked questions or workflows to address common scenarios. That doesn’t mean that all automated messages are bad.

Autoresponders: Bots Serving Humans (Cautiously)

The difference comes from whether the recipient perceives the message as useful. The classic example is the message you get immediately after contacting a company that tells you when you can expect a reply. Bad (autoresponder) apples aside, customers expect to be notified that their request has been received. A recent study of:

1,000 small, medium, and large companies revealed

62% did not respond to customer service emails

90% did not acknowledge an email had been received

97% did not follow up with their customers

After the first email, it’s an opportunity to build a deeper relationship with your customer, which is even more crucial for situations where this is the very first time the customer has received a response from you.

Canned replies: Bots Serving Humans (Without Other Humans Even Knowing)

Canned replies are a phenomenal way to reply to customers:

More efficient

Faster

Easier

For everyone involved. They also keep the tone and language consistent between agents across conversations. Within Groove, you create canned replies by selecting an overarching group you or your team establish (Category), naming the individual reply (Template Name), and writing it out.

4. Live Chat and Chat Bots

It’s predicted that by 2020, 80% of enterprises will rely on chatbot technology to help them scale their customer service departments while keeping costs down. But the elephant in the room is a big one. How satisfied are customers with chatbots?

Customers are looking for fast, simple, and—above all—helpful service. But they still value customer service that’s personal and empathetic.

Overcoming the Impersonal Nature of Chatbots in Customer Service

The impersonal nature of chatbot technology will create challenges. This creates an opportunity for emerging and scaling businesses that want to use their customer experience to differentiate their brand and take the battle to their competitors.

These companies must figure out how to provide that level of customer service at scale. Humans can be impatient, but they’re not entirely to blame. It’s the way our society is now hardwired to instant gratification.

Harnessing Live Chat for Enhanced Customer Loyalty and Support Efficiency

We see a live chat widget on every website and page corner, and customers love it. It makes sense when you consider the benefits of live chat; ease of contact and lightning-fast resolution times mean drastically reduced customer effort, the single biggest driver of customer loyalty.

Live chat support is a huge opportunity for businesses to add a powerful, customer-loved channel to their customer service strategy. How to create a memorable live chat It’s about working smarter, not working harder.

Implementing Effective Live Chat Strategies for Proactive and Personalized Support

This means implementing workflows and automations to send questions to the right person at the right time. If you can anticipate customer concerns before they occur, you can provide proactive support to make the process easier.

For example, send tracking numbers and updates when the product ships or delays. When you’re having a real-time chat, keep these tips in mind:

Personability: Always introduce yourself and treat the conversation like a conversation, not a transaction; infuse a chat with the same tone your brand exudes.

Speed: 60% of customers don’t want to wait longer than 60 seconds for a response (in other words, live means live).

Expectations: if you can’t resolve the issue in your initial chat, let the customer know exactly when, how, where, and from whom they can expect a result

Advanced chat options: Olark and Groove We've partnered with Olark to offer a native, on-site chat experience. That means Groove and Olark customers can seamlessly use the functionality of both tools inside either platform.

Extensive customization: You can alter and brand your chat box size, shape, location, text, colors, welcome message, menus, and more.

Flexible staffing (with a fallback): When you’re not around, you can choose from multiple offline settings, including a customized away message, a contact form, or hide the chat box entirely.

File upload functionality: A picture can be worth a thousand words if you lack a better expression. Allow your customers to upload a file to help with their enquiry or question, or vice versa.

Centralized customer information: Real-time conversations demand real-time answers.

Optimizing Customer Response with Comprehensive Access to Relevant Information

We’ve addressed this challenge by ensuring you have quick access to anything you need to respond to a customer, including account details, purchase history, and past conversations.

What about chatbots? Artificially intelligent chatbots aren’t just for Fortune 500 companies.

Start-ups and growing businesses—even small businesses—can now employ AI technology to improve daily operations and connect with their customers. Technology adoption in this area still has a way to go, and it won’t be replacing human customer service agents any time soon (nor should it!).

Enhancing Chatbot Integration and Automation for Efficient Customer Interaction

When we talk about chatbots at Groove, we’re again talking about the opportunity to automate interactions so humans can focus on higher-value chats. This includes handy automation options such as greeting visitors with custom messages and choosing to selectively show or hide your chat box based on visitor behavior.

Your chat must be just as amazing as your other support. Customers expect speedy replies when you’re online. Even when they reach out to you during offline hours, they still expect a timely response. This is where assigning rules within your help desk software can pick up the pace.

5. Advanced Rules and Logic: Where Service Automation Comes to Life

The support workflow begins when a customer support ticket or inquiry enters the inbox. With it, a bunch of repetitive and inefficient manual tasks.

Applying rules within your help desk software is the key to powerful automation. It’s one of those things computers genuinely do better. I outlined the basic principles behind when this, then that above.

Leveraging Groove to Automate Help Desk Workflows and Prioritize Support Requests

With the help of Groove, you can automate these tasks and set your own help desk workflows:

Organize tickets

Increase productivity

Automate assignments

Remove clutter in your inbox

Identify the most serious support requests

Prioritize those customers

Who brings the highest value to your business If you’re using a tiered support system, you can use rules to send specific requests to higher tiers of support or to escalate them to different departments.

Integrating Premium Support with Help Desk Rules and Business Tools

Some companies offer premium support as part of higher-priced plans. One popular way to set this up to work on the back end is to move requests from specific customers (i.e., those on the higher plan) to the front of the queue.

Once you’ve set up rules to manage incoming enquiries, the next step is to examine how your help desk software communicates with the business tools and apps you use every day. Trigger actions with other tools.

Enhancing Customer Delight with Scalable Automation Using Tools like Zapier

Customer delight is often found in small gestures. Using tools like Zapier to deliver such gestures at scale is a great way to score extra points with your audience while helping you and your team.

If you’re not familiar with it, Zapier lets you connect two or more apps to automate repetitive tasks without coding or relying on developers. To continue setting up the workflow, you just need to choose the app you want Zapier to watch for new data and create a trigger event.

Optimizing Efficiency with Automated Trigger Events in Your CRM and Help Desk

There are plenty of options when it comes to trigger events. Start by identifying the most repetitive actions and seeing how you can use automated triggers to help you work more efficiently.

By integrating your CRM system with your help desk, you can send an automated message to let customers know their order has shipped or inform them when a feature they’ve previously asked about has been implemented.

Integrating Help Desk Tools with Communication Platforms

Slack is another great example of how to integrate a communication tool you use everyday with your help desk tool to stay on top of customer enquiries. If you want to send a Slack direct message to a channel every time your team receives an especially high-priority request, you can set up a trigger for that.

If you prefer, you can use these notifications to collaborate without even leaving your Slack channel. Businesses that can integrate help desk software with their existing business tools are able to offer the best customer service and support. We know integrations help your team get more done, which is why we continue to focus on building our repertoire of integrations.

AI Customer Service Software

Ticketing System Workflow

Help Desk Process

Hubspot Ticketing System

AI Customer Service Agent

Real-Time Agent Assistance

Ticket Management System

Digital Customer Service Tools

Slack Ticketing System

Service Desk Automation

Customer Service Automation Software

Help Desk Analysis

Automated Customer Support

Help Desk Automation

6 Benefits of Customer Support Automation

1. Lowered Cost to Serve

Automating customer support significantly reduces the cost to serve, which is how much it costs your business to provide service to a customer. This metric includes:

Labor

Technology

Infrastructure

Other expenses

Traditional support methods can be resource-intensive, requiring a large workforce and extensive manual handling of customer queries. Automated tools change the service by streamlining processes and minimizing the need for human intervention. Here’s how automating customer support reduces your company’s cost to serve:

It saves on labor costs since you mainly use automated tools without many human agents.

It minimizes error costs.

Benefits of Automated Tools in Customer Support

Automated tools provide fast and consistent responses to customers, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. They also prevent errors and mistakes due to human factors, which reduces costs related to resolving errors, including refunds, compensations, or reputational damage.

Automating customer support saves on resource costs. The tools use artificial intelligence and data analytics to provide personalized and proactive customer support, increasing customer value and revenue.

2. Service Customers on Their Terms

Automated support tools let customers choose the channel, time, and mode of communication to receive service on their terms. For example, they can get support through various channels, including:

Phone

Chat

Social media

Self-service portals

Your customers can also switch between channels seamlessly without losing context or information.

Advantages of 24/7 Automated Customer Support

Automated customer service tools also provide 24/7 support, meaning you can offer service anytime and anywhere, regardless of:

Working hours

Time zones

Holidays

The availability of human agents.

Customers get instant responses and resolutions without waiting in queues or on hold.

Automated support lets customers get service without relying on human agents, increasing their satisfaction. You can also offer personalized and proactive support based on customer data and behavior.

3. Lower Instances of Human Error

Automated customer support can also lower instances of human error, which negatively affect customer service quality and satisfaction. Human agents can make mistakes due to:

Fatigue

Bias

Miscommunication

Lack of knowledge

These mistakes lead to inaccurate or inconsistent responses, delayed or missed resolutions, or damaged customer relationships. Automated customer support tools bypass these errors using data and artificial intelligence to provide precise and uniform responses. They also follow up, escalate issues automatically, and learn from feedback and performance.

4. Always-on Customer Support

Automation allows you to serve your customers at any time and from any place. Your customers don't need to wait for your human agents to be available or to respond to their queries.

They get instant answers and solutions from your automated customer support tools, such as chatbots, virtual assistants, or self-service portals. Always-on customer support can improve your customer satisfaction and loyalty, as your customers feel valued and supported by your business.

5. Improved Customer Feedback Strategy

An improved customer feedback strategy means you use your tools to collect, analyze and act on customer feedback. Customer feedback is essential for understanding customer needs, expectations, and satisfaction, as well as improving your products, services, and customer experience. You can use automation to:

Collect feedback frequently: Use automated tools to solicit customer feedback at different touchpoints and stages of their journey. You can also create incentives like discounts or rewards to encourage feedback participation.

Analyze feedback more accurately and efficiently: Use artificial intelligence or data analytics to process and interpret large volumes of feedback data.

Use natural language processing: to understand your customers' emotions, opinions, and insights.

Act on feedback fast and effectively: Tools like workflows, notifications, or dashboards help you communicate and implement feedback actions.

You can also follow up with your customers and show them how you have used their feedback to improve your business.

6. Automated Service Drives Business Results

Automating customer support boosts business performance and growth. You will increase revenue and profit by upselling and cross-selling your products or services based on customer data and behavior.

Automation also reduces operational costs and increases productivity. When you provide swift and convenient service, you improve customer loyalty. Personalizing your customer service can also increase customer value and advocacy. Automating customer support helps enhance your brand reputation. You improve your brand image and trust when you provide consistent and high-quality service.

What Are Some Cons of Support Automation?

1. Relying on Technology as the Be All and End All

Customers often look for human connection and empathy when they need support. While automation can handle routine tasks efficiently, it cannot understand complex emotions, provide nuanced responses, or offer the same personalization as a human agent. This can frustrate customers who feel unheard or misunderstood.

No technology is flawless, and automated systems can encounter issues that hinder efficacy. In case of technical problems or glitches, customers may experience delays, errors, or even complete service disruptions. This can lead to dissatisfaction and erode trust in the company's ability to provide reliable support.

2. Some Problems Require More Than Self-service

Self-service can help with simple issues but not with complex or emotional ones. Suppose your customers face:

A product defect

A billing dispute

A complaint

They may not like an automated response or a canned script. They need a human agent who will:

Listen to them

Empathize with them

Offer a personalized solution

They may also need a human agent to handle urgent or high-stakes issues, such as a security breach or a medical emergency. These situations require immediate attention and action, which self-service may not provide. You should not rely on automation as the only solution for customer support. To improve customer satisfaction, you also want to offer human help for problems that self-service cannot handle well.

3. It's Crucial to Be Consistent Across the Entire Support Journey

Consistency means providing the same quality of service across all channels and touchpoints. Customers expect consistency from you and will be dissatisfied if you don't. For example, you can have a chatbot that answers questions fast and accurately but a human agent who is slow and rude.

The service will negatively impact your customers. They will feel:

Confused

Frustrated

Undervalued

Align your automation tools with your human agents and brand values. Train your agents to follow the same standards and scripts as your automation tools, and monitor and measure your service performance across all channels.

5 Ways to Automate Your Customer Support

Customer support is a tough job. There's a fine line between keeping your customers happy and burning out your customer support team. Whether it's turning forms your customers submit into tickets or routing tickets to the right platforms, these manual tasks can quickly pile up or slip through the cracks.

1. Self-Service Options

Tired of answering the same questions all the time? Give your customer service team a break and empower customers to find answers independently. Here are 2 easy ways to automate support:

1. Build a Solid Knowledge Base

A knowledge base is a central hub of info about your product or service. Think of articles, tutorials, FAQs, and videos that can help by providing everything customers need to solve their issues.

Benefits

Reduces support requests by giving customers self-service options

Boosts customer satisfaction when they can find answers on their own

Lowers support costs by reducing calls and emails

Tips for a User-Friendly Knowledge Base

Organize the content logically with clear headings and categories

Make it easy to search so customers can quickly find what they need

Keep everything up-to-date as things change

Offer content in different formats like text, video, and step-by-step guides to cater to different learning styles

Tools To Do the Job

Free: Google Sites – Easy-to-use website builder with collaborative editing and mobile responsiveness.

Freemium: Zoho Wiki—Create a structured knowledge base with searchable categories, version control, and access control features. There is also a free plan with limited features.

Paid: Confluence by Atlassian – Robust platform for knowledge management and collaboration. Offers powerful features like drag-and-drop editing, integrations with popular apps, and advanced analytics.

2. Automate Your FAQs

FAQs (frequently asked questions) are a classic self-service option, but you can automate them to take them to the next level. This means creating a list of common questions and answers and using software to display them prominently on your website or in your app.

How Automated FAQs Help Support

Customers can instantly find answers themselves

Frees up your agents to handle more complex customer issues

Reduces response times for those frequently asked questions

Best Practices for Effective FAQs

Identify the most common questions by looking at your support tickets and interactions

Write the answers in clear, simple language that avoids technical jargon

Organize the FAQs logically, with the most common questions at the top

Use AI tools to suggest relevant FAQ articles based on user queries

Tools To Do the Job

Free: Freshdesk Helpdesk – Offers a basic built-in FAQ section with search functionality.

Freemium: Help Scout offers lots of customization options and the ability to trigger relevant FAQs based on customer support tickets. The free plan has limited features.

Paid: Smartloop – AI platform that automatically generates FAQs from existing customer support data, including emails and tickets. Offers features like chatbot integration and automated content updates.

By implementing these self-service options, you can empower your customers and streamline your customer support process.

2. Chatbots and Virtual Assistants: Tag-Teaming for Support Success

Next up, let’s chat about chatbots and virtual assistants. Here’s how the dynamic duo can elevate your customer support:

1. Chatbots: Your Always-On Customer Support Teammates

Imagine having a tireless teammate who can answer questions 24/7—that’s a chatbot. These AI-powered programs can talk to customers through text or voice, giving them instant answers to common questions, order updates, and troubleshooting. Consider utilizing a text-to-speech online tool to further enhance your options by offering customers more customization.

Advantages of Chatbots

Reduced wait times – Customers get answers quickly, allowing human agents to handle more complex issues.

24/7 availability – Chatbots are always on duty, providing support around the clock

Improved customer satisfaction – Faster answers mean happier customers.

Reduced support costs – Chatbots can handle many basic inquiries, lowering overall support costs.

Tools To Do the Job

Free: Website builders and eCommerce platforms – (e.g., Wix, Shopify) Offer built-in chatbot functionality for basic FAQs and order tracking.

Freemium: Messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger and Telegram offer chatbot creation tools with drag-and-drop interfaces and integration options. (e.g., ManyChat, Flow XO)

Paid: Botsquad – Offers a user-friendly platform for building sophisticated chatbots with features like conversation branching, natural language processing (NLP) capabilities, and advanced analytics.

2. Virtual AI Assistants: Supercharged Customer Support

Think of virtual AI assistants (AI VAs) as super-powered chatbots. Their advanced capabilities let them do a lot more. AI VAs can understand complex questions, access customer data, and even provide personalized recommendations.

They can handle scheduling appointments, processing returns, and even solving moderately technical problems. Implementing an AI chatbot for banks can streamline customer service processes, enhance user experience, and provide robust support for various banking operations, offering specialized financial solutions and real-time assistance.

How VAs Handle Complexities

Natural Language Processing (NLP): AI VAs can understand the nuances of human language so they can grasp complex questions.

Context awareness: AI VAs can access customer data and past interactions so they can provide a more personalized and relevant support experience.

Machine learning: AI VAs keep learning and improving with each interaction, improving at handling complex issues over time.

Tools To Do the Job

Freemium: Ada by ServiceNow – Utilizes AI and machine learning to handle complex customer inquiries, even integrating with existing CRM systems (Free plan with limited features).

Paid: IBM Watson Assistant – Powerful AI platform for building virtual assistants that understand complex questions, analyze customer data, and personalize interactions.

Paid: Kore.ai – Provides a comprehensive platform for building and deploying virtual assistants with advanced features like sentiment analysis, omnichannel support, and multilingual capabilities.

When chatbots and virtual assistants work together, they can create a smooth and efficient customer support experience. This frees up your human team to focus on the high-touch situations that need that personal touch and builds strong relationships with your customers.

3. Workflow Wizards: Automation Tools Take Center Stage

Now, let’s dive into the world of automation tools. These handy software programs can streamline your customer support workflows in several ways:

1. Automated Ticket Creation and Routing

Imagine a world where customer inquiries automatically turn into tickets routed to the best agent to resolve them faster. That’s the magic of automation. Here’s how it works:

Customers submit inquiries through channels like email or your website.

Automation tools grab these inquiries and turn them into tickets, pre-filling in the relevant details like the customer’s name and the issue category.

The ticket is automatically sent to the most suitable agent or team (like a billing specialist or the tech support team) based on keywords, customer data, or pre-set rules.

Benefits of Automatic Routing

Faster resolutions – Tickets get to the right agent quickly so customers get their issues solved faster

Improved agent efficiency – Agents can focus on solving problems instead of creating and assigning tickets manually

Fewer errors – Manual routing can lead to misdirected tickets, but automation ensures everything goes to the right place

Tools To Do the Job

Freemium: Zendesk Support offers basic automation features for ticket creation and routing based on predefined rules. It also offers a free plan with limited features.

Paid: Freshservice – Provides advanced automation capabilities, including automatic ticket creation from various channels, intelligent routing based on AI and machine learning, and automatic assignment based on agent skills and workload.

Paid: Help Scout – Offers a user-friendly platform for setting up automated workflows, including ticket creation rules, routing based on tags and labels, and automatic agent notifications.

2. Canned Responses: Speedy and Consistent Support

Ever feel like you’re answering the same questions over and over? Canned responses can be a lifesaver. Pre-written templates can address common issues, letting agents respond quickly and keep things consistent. Here’s how canned responses streamline support:

Save time – Agents don’t have to retype the same answers, freeing them up to handle more complex inquiries.

Ensure consistency – All customers get the same accurate information, no matter which agent they talk to.

Personalize when possible – Canned responses can often be personalized with the customer’s name for a more personal touch.

Tools To Do the Job

Free: Many popular email clients (e.g., Gmail, Outlook) offer built-in features for creating and managing canned responses.

Freemium: Zendesk Support—This plan includes basic canned response functionality within the ticketing system. It is a free plan with limited features.

Paid: Tidio Live Chat – Allows creating and managing canned responses for live chat interactions, with features like response shortcuts and personalization options.

By using automation for ticket creation and routing, plus relying on canned responses, you can improve the efficiency and consistency of your customer support.

4. Simplify Support With ChatBees.ai

Talk about ChatBees:ChatBees optimizes RAG for internal operations like customer support, employee support, etc., with the most accurate response and easily integrates into their workflows in a low-code, no-code manner. ChatBees' agentic framework automatically chooses the best strategy to improve the quality of responses for these use cases. This improves predictability/accuracy, enabling these operations teams to handle more queries. No DevOps is required to deploy and maintain the service.

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

Quickly and Easily Build ChatBots on your Preferred Platforms - Focus on Your Business

Conversational AI chatbots understand and generate human-like responses with the full context

of your users' most important data. This allows Conversational AI to handle more complex interactions, have an unparalleled understanding of user questions, and learn from past conversations. Regular chatbots rely on predefined scripts and are limited to simpler, rule-based interactions.

Website ChatBot RAG Enhanced Chatbots That Don’t Hallucinate

Improve customer satisfaction and engagement effortlessly. Instantly respond to customer questions on your website, using the most relevant data for your users.

Lead Capture: Collect valuable feedback and customer emails for follow-up.

SlackBot: Empowers your employees with instant answers to their questions.

Use the/bees command to ask questions privately to the bot or publicly in the channel. This will enhance team productivity and streamline internal communication.

Auto Knowledge Base Update: This feature uses a no-code UI to ingest from PDFs/DOCs, Websites, Google Drive, Notion, and Confluence. Auto-periodic ingestion keeps the knowledge base up-to-date.

5. The Human Touch: Why Automation Isn’t a Replacement

Automation is a total game-changer for customer support, but it’s important to remember it’s a teammate, not a replacement for real human interaction. Here’s why:

Complexities need a personal touch: Human agents are irreplaceable for tricky issues that need in-depth troubleshooting or just a little empathy. Their ability to understand the nuances of a situation and adapt to offer personalized solutions is crucial.

Building rapport is key: Solid customer relationships are all about trust and mutual understanding.

Balancing Automation and Human Interaction for Exceptional Customer Service

Human interaction allows agents to connect with customers on a deeper level, which fosters loyalty and brand advocacy. Automation excels at streamlining repetitive tasks and giving instant answers. This frees up your agents to focus on the human side of customer support – handling complex situations, offering personalized solutions, and building strong relationships. It’s the perfect combination to provide exceptional service and to keep customers happy.

The Future of AI Customer Support

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

The Top 10 Must-Know Customer Support Automation Tips

1. Embrace AI-powered Chatbots

Chatbots transform how institutions and businesses deliver customer service by responding instantly to inquiries. These programs allow customers to resolve issues quickly without extended wait times; AI-powered chatbots learn from experience.

They identify the most common questions, analyze customer interactions, and ensure a smooth support process for all parties involved. Besides the benefit of providing immediate support and making it easier for employees to do their job, chatbots are available 24/7/365. This streamlines the customer experience, allowing them to enjoy a personal pace.

2. Determine the Most Tedious Tasks in Your Business

It is crucial to identify the tasks that are taking up your employees’ time and look into what can be automated. Automating customer support or data entry tasks will free up time for team members to focus on relationship-building activities.

Consider these questions when thinking about which tasks to automate:

What tasks take the most time to complete?

Which processes have the most roadblocks?

If the team was not spending time on _______, what could they be working on instead?

3. Analyze Workflows to Find Spots for Improvement

Automating different elements of a company’s processes can tremendously improve customer support. You can digitize your support process by giving all team members access to specific aspects of the workflow anywhere and anytime.

With well-designed workflows, you can answer various questions before they even arise. It allows customers to get support quickly since support teams are fully equipped to process queries.

4. Build Solutions With Integrations to Your Most Used Apps

Integrating customer service automation technology with existing applications can simplify and streamline processes. Integrations allow businesses to automate repetitive tasks, eliminate manual inputs, and reduce the time spent troubleshooting customer inquiries.

Companies should strive for an integrated model that links all their applications to ensure a seamless customer experience. This will help to ensure customer satisfaction by reducing errors and providing consistent service across all channels. Some of the most common app integrations include CRM systems.

Messenger channels such as:

Slack or Microsoft Teams

Proprietary software

Email and calendar systems

Productivity tools

LMS systems

5. Utilize Intelligent Helpdesk Tech

Intelligent helpdesk technology can improve customer service and reduce costs by automating manual tasks such as:

Ticketing

Routing

Resolving inquiries

Intelligent helpdesks use natural language processing (NLP) to detect customer emotions and tailor their responses, creating a more personalized experience.

Enhancing Customer Satisfaction with Advanced Help Desk Solutions

This technology can help businesses increase customer satisfaction by decreasing resolution times and providing accurate information within seconds. A modern helpdesk solution offers many advantages to businesses wanting to automate customer support. It will efficiently route inquiries to the right team or individual and provide instantaneous notifications that keep track of ticket progress and decrease overall ticket volumes.

6. Create a Robust Knowledge Base

Creating a knowledge base is essential for customer support automation. A robust knowledge base helps customers find the answers they need quickly and efficiently while reducing the number of customer inquiries that agents must handle manually with:

Well-designed knowledge base

Customer service teams can spend less time searching for information

More time engaging with customers

To create a thriving knowledge base, start by ensuring all your customer support information is centralized in one place. This can include FAQs and other helpful content, such as videos and tutorials. Spend some time updating the content so customers receive the most accurate information.

7. Find a Low-code Platform

Finding a low-code customer support automation platform is the perfect way to automate customer support quickly and effectively. Low-code platforms make it easy for businesses of any size to build custom applications without the need for programming skills.

These platforms come with drag-and-drop design tools that enable you to create powerful, automated customer experiences with minimal effort. They often integrate with third-party solutions to simplify the process further. With a low-code platform, you can customize your customer service automation solution to meet the specific needs of your business and provide customers with an outstanding support experience.

8. Train Team Members With the Proper Resources

Training employees on customer support automation is essential for creating a successful customer experience. Start by providing them with the necessary resources and knowledge to understand how automation works.

This includes documents explaining how to use automated systems, detailed tutorials, and recordings of webinars or demos showing each system’s capabilities. Involve team members in designing your customer service automation solution and allow them to contribute ideas and feedback. Doing so will ensure everyone is on board with the changes and that the automated system is tailored to their needs.

9. Monitor Customer Feedback and Take Action

Listening to customers’ opinions and suggestions helps companies identify areas for improvement and adjust their automated workflows accordingly. Businesses should actively collect customer feedback through:

Surveys

Questionnaires

Online reviews

Other methods

Once the feedback has been collected, companies should develop a plan of action. This could include updating information in the knowledge base, providing additional resources to customers, or improving customer support processes. Listening to customers and responding to their concerns can help businesses create an outstanding customer experience.

10. Have a Strategy For Scaling Up Customer Support

As businesses grow, customer service teams may need help manually managing the growing volume of inquiries. Companies should plan and create a strategy for scaling up their customer support operations through automation, ensuring success in the long run. This includes:

Setting clear goals

Establishing performance metrics

Investing in customer service automation tools and technology.

Automating specific processes, such as account management and order tracking, can help businesses keep up with their customers’ demands without sacrificing the quality of service. A plan will also ensure a seamless and successful transition to automated customer support.

33 Essential Customer Support Automation Tools and Software

1. ChatBees: The Future of AI Customer Support

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

2. HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot’s Service Hub is a service management software that enables you to conduct seamless onboarding, flexible customer support, and expand customer relationships. Service Hub delivers efficient and end-to-end service that delights customers at scale. This tool activates and automates your omnichannel support strategy. It also lets you to:

Offer self-service support (e.g., live chat, knowledge base, and customer portal).

Create customer service KPIs.

Get the customer service analytics and data to improve your strategy.

Obtain customer feedback (e.g., create and share surveys).

3. HubSpot Help Desk and Ticketing Software

HubSpot's free Help Desk and Ticketing Software tracks your customer requests to help reps stay organized, prioritize work, and efficiently identify the right solutions for each customer. With HubSpot, you can record, organize, and track customer communications and issues in a single dashboard so your team can access each interaction and ticket. You can also:

Track

View

Customer support metrics in your dashboard, including queue wait time and ticket volume.

4. Front

Front provides a strong, collaborative inbox that supports:

Chat

Social media

Other forms of communication with customers

This improves the customer experience by ensuring every service rep has access to the same information. You can automatically assign conversations to certain employees to avoid sending multiple customer responses or having incoming emails slip through unnoticed.

5. Freshdesk

Freshdesk's intuitive customer service software prides itself on features that organize your helpdesk, plan for future events, eliminate repetitive tasks, and manage new tickets. You can also streamline conversations across various channels and collaborate with the rest of your team on complex cases. While your team's responses are automated and will be sent out faster, quicker options are available for customers who need more immediate solutions.

6. NICE CXone

NICE is an AI-powered tool that helps businesses increase customer success. Its Omnichannel Routing feature helps employees streamline conversations across several support channels, and its analytics turns important customer insights into actionable results.

7. TeamSupport

This customer service software is ideal for B2B companies. It encourages more communication between team members by allowing multiple agents to collaborate on the same tickets, products, customers, or solutions.

TeamSupport helps customers take charge of their own service experience. The customizable, flexible interface lets customers chat with agents, search for answers and solutions, and check on the status of their open cases.

8. Creatio Service

Creatio is a CRM and low-code automation system with a service product that works as a full-cycle service management system — meaning this product allows for easy management of your omnichannel communications. Its interface helps your agents concentrate by only showing the data they need to complete the task.

9. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk helps your reps better prioritize their workload by automatically sorting tickets based on due dates, status, and need for attention. Reps can easily access previous customer conversations, so they don't have to waste time searching for information about the customer. Based on keywords in the ticket, the product automatically pulls up articles from the internal knowledge base so you can quickly copy and paste solutions.

10. DevRev

DevRev is a no-code customer support software that streamlines operations within customer service. This is possible because the software helps automate workflows such as ticket triaging and implement real-time issue resolution such as live AI chatbot.

Based on an AI foundation, DevRev uses machine learning algorithms to adapt and enhance its automation capabilities continuously. It excels at handling intricate tasks intelligently, providing customer support teams with the tools needed to improve operational efficiency and service quality.

11. Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud is automated customer service software that simplifies prospecting, deal closure, and customer engagement. By consolidating data from various sources, Salesforce’s Customer 360 suite unifies:

Sales

Service

Marketing

Commerce

IT teams

Providing a holistic view of customer information.

12. Zendesk

Zendesk is a customer service software that focuses on customer experience. Zendesk has built an AI to support automating customer service functions. It understands customer experience so that agents can facilitate personalized customer service.

13. Intercom

Intercom serves as a customer service automation tool, blending automation and human support to streamline customer requests and service processes. Intercom resolves most customer inquiries. Their approach enables service representatives to concentrate on higher-value conversations.

14. LiveAgent

Live Agent is a customer service software best suited for small businesses. Its user-friendly features and streamlined ticketing systems contribute to seamless support operations including customer request management and personalized customer messages.

15. Tidio

Tidio, an AI-driven customer service platform, empowers continuous customer support, handling inquiries around the clock. It helps consolidate all live communication channels into a single dashboard for prompt assistance. Lyro, conversational AI, proficient in 7 languages, engages with multiple customers concurrently, allowing your support team to prioritize high-value or unique requests.

16. PlivoCX

Plivo CX is an omnichannel customer support platform that allows you to reach out to customers on their preferred channels, whether it’s:

SMS/MMS messaging

Live chat

Voice calls

Plivo CX's intuitive drag-and-drop workflow builder empowers businesses to create custom customer journeys across all communication channels (SMS, chat, voice, email) for efficient issue resolution and tailored support. This cloud-based tool integrates home-grown systems and multiple popular tools, including:

Zendesk

Zoho

HubSpot

Shopify

Salesforce

It also excels in compatibility with home-grown systems, enabling personalized customer service without major changes to your existing tech stack.

17. HelpDocs

The knowledge-based software solution HelpDocs simplifies creating and managing

knowledge-based articles and FAQs.It is the solution of choice if you want to create self-serving content that customers can use to solve their queries quickly.

18. Olark

Olark allows for the personalization of chatbots with a few clicks. Plus, based on visitor behavior, you can send custom messages and boost the speed of your workflows. Like Plivo CX, Olark offers intelligent routing to direct chat-based queries to the right department. Moreover, Olark’s live chat analytics monitors customer satisfaction, chat volume, and agent performance.

19. Buffer

Buffer is a social media automation tool that automates social listening and communicating with customers on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. If many of your customer queries are coming through social media, Buffer is your customer service solution.

From a customer service perspective, Buffer compiles and highlights the most important unanswered comments on your posts in one place, helping you respond to customers quickly. It uses machine learning to identify whether a comment has negative sentiment or comments about a purchase, helping you prioritize the right conversations.

20. Hiver

Hiver converts your Gmail account into an omnichannel customer service dashboard that integrates voice, live chat, and WhatsApp. Start by installing Hiver on your team's common Gmail account to handle customer queries (such as support@yourcompany.com).

The tool then lets you:

Assign incoming emails to team members

Categorize them based on the query type

Resolution status and priority

Collaborate on them to resolve customer issues

21. ServiceNow

A leader in service automation, ServiceNow offers comprehensive solutions that streamline workflows and enhance customer engagement. Its robust platform leverages advanced customer service automation AI to proactively anticipate and resolve customer issues, setting a high standard for automated customer service.

22. Convin

Convin stands out as a contender in the customer service automation software arena. It is distinguished by its AI-driven approach to enhancing customer interactions. Its suite of tools empowers businesses to deliver superior automated customer support and experiences and offers:

Comprehensive analysis

Real-time assistance

Actionable insights

It is a pivotal choice for companies aiming to excel in customer service innovation and efficiency.

23. Kustomer

Kustomer offers a 360-degree view of the customer, enriching automated interactions with detailed customer insights. It's a standout for businesses looking to tailor their automated customer service to individual needs.

24. Help Scout

Help Scout blends simplicity and power, offering easy-to-use tools that enhance customer and agent experiences. Its automation capabilities ensure that customer support is both efficient and empathetic.

25. eDesk

eDesk is a customer service platform tailored for e-commerce businesses. It centralizes customer support messages from various sales channels into one inbox, making it easier for teams to manage and respond to inquiries.

eDesk also includes tools for automating repetitive tasks and improving productivity with AI-powered features. eDesk integrates with multiple e-commerce platforms, enabling businesses to provide efficient, high-quality customer support while streamlining their workflow.

26. Trengo

Trengo is a customer engagement platform designed to streamline communication by combining all customer interactions in one place. It supports multiple channels like email, social media, WhatsApp, and live chat, making it easy to manage and respond to inquiries efficiently. Trengo uses AI to offer a bot that functions as a digital teammate, handling repetitive conversations and driving sales.

27. Gladly

Gladly is a customer service platform that focuses on providing personalized support. It unifies all communication channels, such as voice, email, SMS, and live chat, into a single conversation view. This approach helps create frictionless and efficient customer interactions. Gladly combines human interaction with AI to improve customer service for leading consumer brands.

28. Ada

Ada is a customer service automation platform that leverages AI to streamline customer interactions. Ada ensures instant and efficient support by offering an AI agent that automatically resolves inquiries. The platform integrates with multiple digital and voice channels, improving the overall support experience. Ada helps speed up resolution times, improve response accuracy, and reduce manual intervention.

29. ProProfs Chat

ProProfs Chat is an easy-to-use live chat tool that has revolutionized our customer service by proactively helping us answer real-time customer questions.

The user-friendly interface allows us to set up bots that handle common inquiries and capture leads 24/7.

It’s also easily customizable, allowing us to tailor conversations to suit our customer interactions better and integrate seamlessly with our knowledge base.

The tool offers canned responses that work well for repetitive questions.

You get detailed reports to track chat data, response time, and operator performance.

30. Tenfold

Tenfold is a dynamic customer service solution that enhances our ability to deliver personalized support tailored to each customer. Its flexibility allows seamless integration with our existing CRM and telephony systems, aligning perfectly with our workflows without causing disruptions.

The platform excels in automating repetitive tasks and syncing data across systems to ensure customer information is always current and accessible, making our interactions more efficient and personalized.

31. Kayako

Kayako has been a game-changer for our customer service efforts.

The ease of managing customer interactions through its unified platform was apparent when we implemented it.

The ticketing system, in particular, is a standout. It effortlessly assigns and routes tickets to ensure that every customer issue is addressed promptly and by the most suitable team member.

Users can access a complete history of the customer’s past interactions, enabling teams to address customer concerns effectively from the start.

32. Yellow.ai

Yellow.ai’s customer service automation platform tackles the limitations of manual processes and inadequate automation tools. Leveraging its robust AI engine, it automates a staggering 90% of queries across 35+ channels, seamlessly integrating with your existing tech stack or operating independently.

This translates to a 60% reduction in operational costs, empowering businesses to achieve superior efficiency and cost savings.

33. Gorgias

Gorgias’ customer service software has several features, including:

A help desk and a shared inbox system allow support staff to address consumer inquiries.

It conquers e-commerce customer service with laser focus.

This omnichannel powerhouse integrates seamlessly with leading platforms like Shopify, giving agents instant access to customer data, order details, and history.

It automates repetitive tasks, from identifying ticket intent to crafting pre-written responses.

Empower efficiency with customizable workflows for automated ticket routing, tagging, and closure.

Prioritize high-value customers with VIP flags, ensuring every inquiry receives the attention it deserves.

How to Choose the Right Customer Support Automation Tools for Your Business

1. Understand the Requirements and Goals of Your Team

You must determine your team's needs before looking at customer support automation tools. Any software you pick will only play a supporting role, with your support team's leading role. Thus, it is crucial to ask them what they require of a customer support automation tool. If your team has been using another help desk solution thus far, ask them what they like or dislike about it.

The Challenges of Traditional Support Tools

For instance, teams that use Gmail for customer support often complain of a cluttered inbox, difficulty discussing customer requests, and difficulty keeping track of customer interactions.

The Need for a Simplified Solution

On the other hand, teams that use feature-heavy multi-channel tools for managing support have to deal with complex interfaces, advanced features, and additional training. Support reps want software with a simple interface:

One that helps them assign requests easily

One with a simple learning curve

Once you’ve identified the needs of your team, it’s time to talk shop.

2. Make Sure the Software Is Easy to Use

Customer service agents face numerous challenges, including software bugs, multiple service channels to monitor, and constant customer requests. They must also make client interactions feel personable rather than informal and rote. They often have to deal with irate customers, discounts and feature requests they cannot fulfill, and queries they don’t have an answer to. Customer reps have a lot to do. It would make sense to first figure out what they need.

Prioritize Simplicity and Ease of Use

Complex software will be a headache for your team. Remember, you’re investing in customer service automation software to simplify support for your agents, not complicate it. Your chosen software should be easy to set up, and navigate, and increase your agents' productivity. While evaluating software, pay attention to the following details:

Are the main menus easily accessible?

Did you notice any complex terminologies?

Did you have to browse endlessly to find features?

The Importance of Intuitive Design

If you had difficulty navigating the software, your team will likely, too. Another aspect you want to pay attention to is the design of the software. Your support agents will likely spend much of their day using your customer service automation tool, so you want to ensure it is intuitive. The design does not merely refer to fancy images or over-the-top colors but rather the overall synergy of elements such as:

Fonts

Colors

Buttons

Other visual elements

Software with a clean and welcoming interface will be more straightforward for agents. If you use Gmail, something that works on top of it and blends in neatly would be great.

3. Ensure the Software Is Easy to Set Up

Customer service software should have a simple learning curve and a simple interface. This is where user onboarding comes in. User onboarding is equipping customers with enough information to find value in a product and know how to use it. The more intuitive and easy the customer service management app, the less training new team members will require. This saves your business both time and money.

4. Keep the Software’s Scalability in Mind

Your business will grow in a few years, and you want your customer service software to grow. As your business scales and goes from being a small business to an enterprise, so will the number of customer requests and service agents. Okay, here’s the tricky part: how do you ensure that your help desk software is geared for scalability? Well, we think you should watch out for a few indicators:

Check out a few case studies on the website – to see if large teams use the software.

Whether teams across the organization use the software (finance, accounts, operations, or anybody else).

Explore the Pricing page to see if there is a full-fledged plan for large teams. Look out for an Enterprise plan.

Watch out for no limits on the number of team members, or “no cap” on the number of times you can perform a task.

Also, look out for add-ons, APIs, and integration with other communication channels like phone calls, WhatsApp, SMS services, live chat software, customization, etc.

These may impact the final price that you have to pay. See if the automation feature supports various actions (you’ll need them more when your team grows). You must look for canned replies as well. If the above checks yield favorable results, you can be confident that the customer service solution will scale up as your team grows.

5. Consider Its Ability to Drive Seamless Remote Work

Remote work has been around for a while, but many companies now know its benefits. According to CNBC, some companies plan to allow their employees to work remotely, even after the threat of the virus abates. In short, remote work is here to stay. Planning to reap the benefits of remote work? You need customer support software that equips you to do so.

As a remote team, it is impossible to walk over to a coworker’s desk to discuss a customer request. Nor is it possible to get coworkers to jump in on customer calls. To succeed as a remote customer support team, it’s key to use a tool that facilitates:

communication

Collaboration

Task management

You need a customer service automation software that helps you:

Assign customer requests to the right agents/team members with ease

Check the status of requests (pending, unresolved, and unassigned) in real-time

Discuss customer requests privately with your team

Does it have a mobile app that lets your team members access their helpdesk on the go?

Look for these specific features when browsing software websites, and then pick your favorites.

6. Find Out How Well the Software Helps Ease Team Collaboration

Collaboration is one of the mainstays of stellar customer support, not just remote work. Hence, it’s worth reiterating that your customer support software must facilitate smooth collaboration. All team members should be able to monitor each other’s responsibilities, pending tickets, and the status of responses to requests. This way, the team avoids duplicate effort and is more productive.

Along with helping the customer service team stay informed, the tool should also help them collaborate with other departments in the organization. Customer service issues are often interlinked with other departments, such as:

Engineering

Billing

Operations

Marketing

Streamlined Collaboration

They shouldn’t rely on third-party collaboration tools/messaging tools like Slack, to avoid switching screens and losing context. Instead of pushing emails from one inbox to another, agents should be able to rope in other team members with a simple “@mention” or a similar effortless option.

This will ensure customer queries are solved promptly. The functionality to share notes on customer requests privately is key to effective collaboration too. Your agents should not have to juggle multiple apps simply to ask whether your promotional offers are still on, or how long your website will be down.

7. Evaluate Its Reporting and Analytics Capabilities

You’ve probably heard the adage, What gets measured, gets managed, often attributed to Peter Drucker. To put it simply, there are two types of metrics you want to keep an eye on:

Quantitative metrics

Qualitative metrics

Quantitative will show you the performance of your team in absolute numbers.

Average handle time

Time to first response

Interactions per resolution

The volume of requests

Common trends in customer issues

Unsolved requests

Qualitative, as the name implies, measures the quality of service offered to customers via your contact center.

Customer satisfaction score

Net promoter score

Customer retention rate

Performance Tracking and Analysis

Apart from these, you also want to be able to measure individual employee performance so you can nudge them in the right direction. You must also ensure that the software helps you measure trends and correlations over some time. The ups and downs in your team’s performance will ultimately lead to strong customer relationships.

The Importance of Data-Driven Insights

Another feature that helps you track and report changes around customer requests is the ability to add tags. With the help of tags, you can measure the growth or decline of queries around a specific feature or request type over time. Tracking and reporting customer service metrics in customer service tools is essential if you want your team to reach their full potential.

8. Verify the Software’s Ability to Automate Routine Customer Service Tasks

Customer service teams that move fast often have a secret weapon: automation. Here’s what to look for:

Automatically Assigning Requests

Believe it or not, with some tinkering, all your customer requests fall into the hands of the right agent, and none of your tickets get lost in the routing process. Imagine the number of hours, effort, and resources saved if you implement this in your team. To make this work, your software should allow you to set up a few simple “if this, then that” workflow rules around customer communication. Based on keywords such as:

Billing

Bugs

Deactivate

Autoresponders

Autoresponders in customer support get a bad name and are often criticized for making support feel robotic and impersonal. Of course, it can feel robotic if your autoresponders start with Please don’t type above this line or your emails are sent from a customer service representative. The fact is that it’s virtually impossible to be present 24/7 to answer customer queries as soon as they roll in, even if you have a globally distributed call center team.

The key is to make your auto-responder sound as human as possible. Here’s an example to get you started:

Hey Paul,

Thanks so much for reaching out. We received your request. While this is an automated email, I assure you someone from my team will be in touch with you in the next 24 hours. For your reference, our business hours are __ to __ PST. Until then, thanks for your patience. Have an awesome day!

Cheers,

Sabrina

Saved Replies

These are replies agents often find themselves typing in response to common queries. Instead of typing the same response repeatedly, it’s best to look for software that allows agents to save their best replies and use them later.

9. Take a Look at Review Sites

Reviews by bloggers, tech websites, and app marketplaces often paint a different picture than the software's website or feature pages. Websites such as Capterra, G2, and CNET will help you learn about the general pain points, common bugs – and even the quality of customer support the product delivers.

You don’t just want to dig for the dirt, though. Note down positive themes that appear frequently while reviewing user reviews. The key here is to go through as many reviews as you can. This sounds obvious – but most people tend to form an opinion quickly. We’d say read up (or even skim through) 50 reviews or so. That’s when you start noticing a pattern.

10. Speak with Power Users

While review sites provide you with a deep overview of the software in use, power users of the product can give you the real scoop – the stories people don’t tell on review sites. The key is asking the right questions. The most important bit you want to ask them:

What happens when things go wrong?

How do they safeguard their customer data?

There will always be downtimes or when things don’t work the way they’re supposed to. How a company handles such situations will tell you how much they care for their customers – whether they’ll help when you need them. And getting in touch with power users is not all that difficult. LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit: pretty sure they’ll be around in one of them. After this last bit of research, you may want to pare down your list even more and only keep 2-3 software options for first-hand testing.

11. Test the Software/Request for a Demo

All said and done, only personal experience with a ticketing system helps you understand how easy and intuitive it is to use. In the present day, pretty much every software offers free trials – be sure to take advantage of those. The good thing is that most of them will offer full-featured trials. When testing software, be sure to keep all your important criteria in mind. Make notes on features you like and dislike, so it helps you compare how each software fares.

You can also request product demonstrations, come in handy as you can ask questions – and discover the features they’re proud of. Be sure to include a few people who’ll be using the software. You also want to find out first-hand if the software offers good customer service. Use their self-help tools, send an email inquiry, or contact their live chat or phone support teams. Only a company that offers great customer service and cares about its customers can empower others to do so.

12. Review Your Test Results

Once you’ve tested your shortlisted software, it’s time to review the results with your team. Look at your notes and those of your team, and do a quick analysis of what works and what does not. At this stage, it’s important to keep your future requirements in mind. Take a moment and think up what you might need a year/two down the road.

Again, it sounds obvious but it’s easy to fall for something that fits into the present – but might not scale very well. By this point, you’ll likely have a winner that everyone in your team agrees with.

Helpdesk Integrations

Support Ticket Response Examples

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