How do you feel if you have to restate answers to the same question once and once again to deal with customers’ issues? It is definitely not a delightful experience, and it’s so troublesome. As a small business owner, your time should never be spent on busy work like that.
However, it still occurs to customer service teams of even large enterprises, as not every member of the team can be professional enough. For small businesses, the situation can be worse. Because all the team members are those who wear a lot of hats at the same time, and customer service is only a small part of their job duties.
Modern internet technology gives a way to solve the problem. In recent years, an increasing number of businesses choose to use customer service automation. As a result, it is proved that customer service automation can sharply cut the time both business staff and customers must spend on the interaction, which has improved their growth and the final comments on the service.
What is Customer Service Automation?
Automated customer support is a purpose-built program that aids the customers to deal with their questions by themselves by using AI-driven modes of communications such as chatbots, speech recognition, self-service help centers, and other technologies. It works best when customers need instant answers to recurring straightforward questions, status updates, or help to find a specific resource.
A customer service automation system won’t work as scheduled unless it’s been programmed by business staff based on their own needs. They need to input scripts of repeated questions and answers to the program and set automated answers to some keywords so that when customers need to get an answer about one keyword, the answer will be popped up automatically.
Why Automated Customer Service is Especially Important for Small Businesses?
There are no differences between small and big businesses except the scale or size. Everything that big businesses should have should be also equipped by small businesses.
Small businesses don’t mean it could lack any links in business, but mean that it should invest in what is more cost-effective. Every year there are many companies faced with bankruptcy because of losing the trust of the customers, which depends mostly on the quality of customer service. This makes automated customer service more important because small businesses are probably to meet difficulties like:
Limited Resources
Resources are the foundation of a business. Small business runners are likely to be concerned about where every penny goes and how much it could bring back. The investment in automated customer service is undoubtedly much cheaper than that of hiring a group of support staff and could give quicker and even more accurate responses to the simple questions of the customers. It allows small business owners to have a good start due to all the ease brought by it.
Limited Energy
For small business runners, there are a lot of things to concern, such as financial problems, product quality, transmission, and market expansion. It is hard to carry on 24-hour customer service with limited staff whose energy is limited too. But automated customer service needs no rest at all. It can help you to make sure that every single customer is served at any time.
Benefits of Customer Service Automation for Small Businesses
What benefits can customer service automation bring about to small businesses? Let’s dive into the benefits list.
Meet the needs of people with a modern living style
In the 21st century, more and more people tend to search for information and answers on their smartphones, and more people like to text than call. While communicating with real, living men could cause unnecessary interpersonal stress, asking questions to an AI would be a kind of more casual and effective way as customers have no need to even greet anyone.
Reduce labor costs
We don’t deny that customer service automation has its limitations, such as that it can’t comfort an angry customer or give advice to some complex questions. But for small business runners, you are able to reduce the cost on a number of support staff for answering basic questions as well as on the rental of a large office, which is more worth using because of their limited budget. Only a few staff are needed to make up for the defects of the auto service.
Collect feedback instantly
With customer service automation, you are able to collect feedback along the entire customer journey. Go beyond whether a customer endorses your brand and discover why they love your company.
Less room for human error
As the answers on automated customer service are set in advance, small business runners could make fewer mistakes as they have enough time and energy to get fully prepared, ensuring there’s no confusion over who handles what or which questions have already been answered.
Create brand recognition with a uniform tone and voice
Never miss any opportunity to improve brand recognition, which is a bonus provided by customer service automation, especially for small businesses. Your team can set up on-hold music and messages in your business phone system to align with your brand.
Automated Customer Service Features Small Businesses Can Get from EasyLine
EasyLine is designed specifically for small businesses and there are many features to provide you with automated customer service:
Auto-Reply to Calls and Texts
When an important call comes in, but you are out of the office or on another line, the EasyLine auto-reply feature can automatically send a text to the caller or the text you miss and help your customers stay in touch. This feature allows small business owners to show their customers that they’re involved in the case and will reply as soon as possible so they won’t turn to competitors for help.
Auto-Attendant
The auto-attendant feature lets people call your company and navigate a menu system to speak to the appropriate OPERATORS (Destination Numbers), or voicemail inbox. It is similar to IVR (Interactive Voice Response) which helps clients to get answers for basic and simple questions without staff service.
Voicemail
A voicemail is designed for the moments when you decline or miss phone calls. It is made to let your caller know you’re still there for them and how they can best get in contact with your business. Through a voicemail within 30 seconds, the callers may find your company name, an invitation to leave a short message, the time frame in which the caller can expect a return call or even the answers to their questions.
Bottom Line
- Customer service automation is especially important for small businesses.
- There are a lot of benefits that automated customer service can bring to small businesses.
- EasyLine with automated features like autoreply, auto-attendant, and voicemail is a good helper for small business runners.