Lately, many people are being requested to do extra with much less, it doesn’t matter what kind of enterprise we work in. For instance, in case you work in ecommerce, shoppers are shopping for on-line in better volumes than ever earlier than. Gross sales are up, which is nice for the enterprise, but it surely additionally places extraordinary stress on these groups who’re supporting extra orders and extra prospects with the identical (and even fewer) sources.
That’s the place assist desk automation can turn out to be useful. When finished nicely, automation can provide prospects a greater expertise and scale back the stress in your staff. You possibly can automate absolutely anything, from inside monitoring and group to sending computerized replies or notifications, giving your staff extra time to focus on what’s necessary: caring for your prospects.
On this submit, we’ll take a deeper take a look at assist desk automation, exploring what it’s and the way it can profit you and your prospects. We’ll additionally present some automation examples and present how you need to use Assist Scout to automate your assist processes.
What’s assist desk automation?
Assist desk automation is a technique of streamlining customer support work by way of the usage of workflows or AI-powered instruments.
Most (if not all) assist desks on the market have a solution to automate duties that don’t want human intervention. As an example, when an e-mail arrives in your queue, automation can scan by way of issues like the e-mail tackle of the sender, the topic line, or key phrases within the physique to robotically take an motion. As a substitute of the human doing the duty, automation handles it.
The advantages of assist desk automation
Lots of the messages assist groups obtain are necessary and/or pressing. However in a crowded assist desk queue, your staff can simply get tied up coping with much less pressing questions whereas these necessary emails slip additional down in your inbox. It’s additionally widespread for folk to get slowed down by administrative duties like dialog tagging or routing duties to the proper staff, chopping into the time they’ve obtainable for working by way of the queue.
Automating sure components of your assist course of can forestall a majority of these bottlenecks, giving your staff time to work on extra complicated points or conversations that would profit from their experience.
Listed here are just a few ways in which assist desk automation may profit your staff:
Sooner response instances — When administrative work is automated, staff members are capable of prioritize buyer interactions, serving to scale back response time and enhance satisfaction.
Diminished errors — Automation ensures that each one duties get accomplished and no dialog falls by way of the cracks.
Improved morale — Automating busy work can relieve the stress in your assist staff, lowering cognitive load over time.
Elevated productiveness — Eradicating emails from the queue with automation helps your staff give attention to solely the duties that require human contact.
Diminished assist prices — The bigger your queue grows, the extra persons are wanted to handle it. Automation can virtually act as one other member of your staff, managing simpler duties with out including to your backside line.
Automating your customer support flows with Assist Scout
In Assist Scout we name automations “workflows,” and so they can be utilized in an virtually infinite variety of methods that will help you save time and free your staff as much as do extra productive issues as a substitute of doing what quantities to simply a number of busy work.
Workflows in Assist Scout are just like Gmail filters or guidelines in different e-mail shoppers. They’re composed of:
Consider them as if/then statements. If this factor occurs in Assist Scout, then these actions will robotically happen with no human having to intervene.
Workflows work nice at the side of different Assist Scout options like tags and customized fields, as you need to use the automation so as to add tags and set customized fields with out your staff having to recollect to take action. This might help you might have essentially the most correct image in the case of reporting, and it takes that cognitive load off of your staff in order that they solely have to fret concerning the reply to the shopper, which is a very powerful factor.
Be taught extra about Assist Scout:
8 assist desk automation concepts to enhance productiveness and repair
Figuring out the place to start out with workflows and automations can really feel like a frightening activity. One solution to get began is to think about the stuff you and your staff spend essentially the most time doing — the busy work that you just want you didn’t have to take action that you might work on extra impactful duties:
Are there emails in your queue that you just all the time find yourself simply closing out?
Do you want sure emails might be tagged as quickly as they hit your inbox for higher visibility?
Wouldn’t it be useful in case you might comply with up with prospects with out having to truly keep in mind to test in?
If there’s a repetitive activity that has been consuming away at your staff’s time, likelihood is there’s a solution to automate it! Listed here are just a few automation concepts that will make it easier to spark a few of your personal.
1. Keep on high of growing older conversations
One actually good way to make use of a workflow is to maintain observe of growing older conversations within the queue. An automation that allows you to know that an e-mail is languishing can actually assist your staff dwell as much as your buyer assist targets and get assist to prospects as shortly as doable.
2. Strive a workflow automation for e-mail routing
One other nice solution to automate your inbox is to maneuver emails from one mailbox to a different when higher fitted to a distinct staff. For instance, if an e-mail is distributed to the gross sales staff however has “want assist” within the topic line, you might robotically route that over to your assist mailbox with none human intervention.
3. Get organized
One other easy solution to automate your e-mail queue relies on key phrases within the topic line or physique of a message. For instance, if the topic of an e-mail incorporates phrases like “return” or “trade,” you possibly can set an automation to tag it and add it to a folder for simpler group.
4. Arrange autoreplies
Equally, you might take a look at these physique or topic key phrases and mimic an autoreply that sends an e-mail to prospects who match the standards you might have arrange. Pissed off prospects have a tendency to make use of comparable phrases and phrases to precise their emotions about a problem with a purchase order, and getting a reply to them instantly not solely helps your staff prioritize different issues, but it surely leaves a fantastic impression on the shopper as nicely.
5. Enhance the suggestions loop
Should you work with software program or one other kind of on-line enterprise, you could use a mechanism like CSAT or NPS to get suggestions out of your prospects on how nicely your staff is performing. Wish to robotically reply to somebody who offers you a foul score to ask for extra suggestions? It’s straightforward for follow-ups to fall by way of the cracks, so automating that course of will be tremendous helpful. It additionally permits the shopper to really feel heard and helps enhance the shopper relationship.
6. Use automation for higher buyer administration
If in case you have account or buyer success managers who’re answerable for particular firms inside their guide of enterprise, an automation might simply route emails coming from a particular area proper to the right individual. This protects further e-mail touches by your staff, and it will get the shopper to the proper individual as shortly as doable.
7. Create a workflow to assist with aggressive analysis
Wish to know the way usually your prospects (or potential prospects) are referring to your opponents in emails they ship? Robotically tagging or categorizing these emails might help you construct stories and simply discover that kind of information whenever you want it.
8. Automate buyer follow-ups
Many people might must comply with up with somebody in the event that they haven’t responded to us in a sure period of time for issues like appointment reminders, bug fixes, or return and trade data. Since a majority of these interactions actually don’t want human intervention, automating these reminders can save your staff a number of time.
Utilizing AI as a part of your assist desk automation resolution
One other manner you possibly can automate in Assist Scout is thru our AI instruments. We’ve got three AI options that make it a bit of simpler to your staff to do their finest work whereas within the queue:
AI Summarize can sum up an extended e-mail thread into just a few bullet factors, which will be useful when a supervisor or one other staff member must stand up to hurry on a case.
AI Help is nice for making small tweaks to your replies earlier than hitting ship. The AI can do issues like alter size or tone or translate the copy into one other language.
AI Drafts makes use of a language studying mannequin to learn by way of earlier e-mail conversations and information base articles out of your Docs web site and robotically draft responses to incoming emails in your queue. As a substitute of somebody in your staff having to put in writing a reply from scratch, they’ll shortly overview the draft that has been generated by AI and ship it instantly.
These few further minutes that is perhaps spent composing that e-mail reply from scratch or sifting by way of lengthy e-mail threads add up over time, and very like workflow automations, letting AI do a number of the heavy lifting might help your staff work extra effectively.
Work smarter with Assist Scout
Regardless of the way you go about it, benefiting from assist desk automation is a brilliant transfer for your online business. Automation lets a pc deal with all the repetitive duties within the background in order that your staff can give attention to what you employed them for — offering superb assist.
If you would like to offer automation a strive for your self, contemplate signing up for a free trial of Assist Scout immediately!
