3 Ways to Automate Customer Service with Human Connections

One of the big challenges for brands using social media for customer service—and also making an effort to proactively reach out to customers with live chat and chatbots on their website—is striking a balance between customer service automation and real human connections.

If you’ve ever taken a science class, you’ve probably heard of the triple-beam balance. It’s one of the most useful lab tools for measuring weight with extreme precision. Let’s perform a thought experiment by putting some ideas about social customer service onto the balance.

One of the big challenges for brands using social media for customer service—and also making an effort to proactively reach out to customers with live chat and chatbots on their website—is striking a balance between customer service automation and real human connections. We know that emotions impact decisions and experiences impact emotions, but how can companies with tens of thousands of inbound customer requests find the right balance between efficiency and empathy? It’s all about smart automation.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why companies want to use automation: like all computer programs, a chatbot for business has the potential for extreme speed and efficiency. And with Facebook’s recent introduction of chatbots, it’s clear there is a trend for increasing automation. Which is great, to a point.

But there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that customers increasingly crave human connections. A 2016 study by Accenture found that 83% of U.S. consumers prefer human beings over digital channels to resolve customer service issues and 77% prefer to get advice directly from a person. Furthermore, if the service experience isn’t right and the customer leaves, 68% will never return.

In many (but not all) cases, a human connection is more important than an instant response with no depth, no resolution, no empathy. So in the end a complete approach is key. Brands should constantly strive to improve and innovate their customer service and experience, and take advantage of everything technology is good for, which creates more time for agents to spend with customers who need more than just a simple answer. How do the advantages of agents stack up against those of automation?

The advantages of agents and automation

Agents and automation have great things going for them, so why not take advantage of both? Using chatbots to contact customers proactively and to resolve their simple queries is something that your customers will appreciate. But there are times when a quick fix isn’t possible and only an conversation will do, even if it’s via social media.

The reasons for balancing the advantages of automation and human agents is easy to see, but the problem of achieving that balance remains. Let’s look a little more closely at our triple-beam balance, as each beam represents one way of balancing customer service automation with human connections.

The Triple-beam Balance of Automation and Human Connections

1) Know as much as you can about the customer (integrated customer profiles)

The more you know about your customers, the easier it will be to serve them. Agents who are informed about customers’ habits and personalities are more able to predict the subject matter and style of service required on incoming queries. Social customer service software with integrated customer profiles puts all the necessary information at the agent’s fingertips, so they can focus on providing the personalized service that only comes from humans.

2) Make sure customer service and marketing communicate (scale service with tech)

For a long time social media was the domain of marketing, though that has changed in a big way. Since customer service and marketing share the space of social media, it makes sense for those departments to have clear lines of communication between them. Forming teams among agents dedicated to specific promotions, or even hashtags marketing is using, allows contact centers to specialize its service in a timely, efficient way.

3) Connect customers with the best agent (intelligent routing)

There are numerous reasons why a particular agent might be the best match for a specific customer. Routing customers based on agents who speak certain languages, have knowledge of a particular area, or a skill set on one digital channel is another important way to make customer service more individual and personalized. Again, it’s vital to have the right social customer service software to give you these capabilities.

All three parts of our model come down to personalizing customer service as much as possible. That’s the advantage of using both automation and a human touch: it enables brands to provide social customer service that is fast and efficient on the front-line, and personalized and empathetic for customers who need to communicate directly with agents. Who wouldn’t want to strike that balance?