How Does Contact Center Automation Help Humanize the Customer Experience?

Some people believe that as technology becomes more prevalent, it will become less human-centered. We’ve come to equate robots and technology as villains to humanity thanks to futuristic movies and films.

People are still scratching their heads at contact centers that use machine learning and AI, but automation has shown that there is a happy medium. Although technology will never completely replace agents, it will undoubtedly improve customer interactions through smarter and automated processes.

What is the concept of contact center automation?

Contact center automation consists of processes and systems that help in the improvement of contact center operations by removing certain manual activities. Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are used in automation to see and understand patterns of repetitive tasks, allowing machines to complete them with little to no human assistance.

If you think this is all new to you, know that automation in contact centers began long before we recognized it. Via the use of interactive voice responders (IVRs), contact centers began automating customer responders, giving rise to automated speech recognition (ASR). It has proved its effectiveness in routing phone calls to the appropriate agents or offices, taking this job off the hands of the receptionist.

Automation has become useful in creating improved customer interactions as communication technology progresses. Chatbots have made messaging network interaction quicker and more accessible around the clock.

Businesses are provided less expensive ways to handle more clients, obviating the need for other agent duties. This means agents will have more time to engage with high-value leads, close more deals, and respond to customer inquiries without being distracted by other tasks piling up on their desks.

How can automation make the consumer experience more human?

Many people may find this ironic, but automation has the ability to humanize customer experiences and therefore increase customer loyalty.

1 – Recognize the customer’s buying process

The ‘awareness’ or ‘prospecting’ process for sales is at the top of your sales funnel, where potential buyers are exploring your brand for the first time. Automation can assist at this point by monitoring customer actions. Agents will research trends and habits and see how to handle customers using ready-made data and analytics. This would help them sell more efficiently.
calls and texts that have been recorded, like any other data, can be used to determine the efficacy of a business model. Management can see how consumers are reacting to their actions and see it through the eyes of their agents by listening to recorded conversations. Understanding your customers is important for attracting new ones and retaining them for the long haul.

2 – Improving important links

Automation also enables companies to respond to changing consumer demands. There’s a local presence that senses a customer’s location and shows the appropriate area code. Customers regard a number with their area code as more trustworthy, which can boost your link rates.

Via automatic dialers, automation plays a critical role in dialing numbers. Dialers were created to increase the value of calls and are still commonly used in contact centers. The power dialer, for example, has been upgraded to be smarter and more sophisticated while still allowing agents full control. A power dialer can even auto-skip voicemails and bad numbers, ensuring that agents are linked to actual customers.

3 – Increasing the amount of time customers spend talking to you

The more job agents have, the less time they would have to speak to customers. If talking to customers is just a “part of the work,” rather than the entire job, you might be putting your CX or sales team through needless hardships. Since building consumer relationships is such an important part of the sales process, agents should devote all of their time to it.

Tasks are expected to multiply as a company grows. However, don’t expect your agents to absorb anything. You’re offering your agents the ability to better handle their time with automation. Allow them to set up automation triggers for scheduled text blasts and voicemail follow-ups instead of manually following up through calls, emails, or texts as they usually do. Agents can also work together more effectively if call dispositions and contact details are automatically registered in your system.

4 – Call Queue Management

No matter how skilled the CX team is, if there are too many callers to manage, the process and the entire company will suffer. You can also use automation to let the program handle call queues and wait times.

You can, for example, send callback text messages to any customer in the queue. During peak hours, automatically sending a text message to a customer requesting a callback will help minimize irate calls. During the call routing method, you can also rely on automation. Based on agent expertise or availability, you can route calls to the appropriate destination.

5 – Making the most of all available platforms

Customers were introduced to a new environment through digital communication. This necessitates companies keeping up with current trends. Although this increased the number of ways to meet consumers, it also made it more difficult for the agents to manage customers across channels.

Automation was able to help with this. Agents can also manage phone calls, messages, conversations, and emails from a single location. Turnkey omnichannel contact centers make it easier for teams to react to customers more quickly. You will optimize the use of various networks in reaching out to consumers because everything is planned for you. It won’t be over with one missed call or email. You’ll be able to set up automatic follow-ups and connect with consumers via their preferred platforms.

SimpSocial’s internal automation

SimpSocial is no stranger to customer loyalty. It is, in our opinion, a necessary move for companies to take in order to keep up with a rapidly changing environment. That’s why we’ve created tools and features to assist the contact center in adapting to automation and working with it. Here, you can fully appreciate the benefits of automation.

Discover our most intelligent and quickest Power Dialer, which is designed to help sales teams triple their sales targets. Our process automation tools help you find more efficient ways to handle interactions while keeping customers engaged. Our user-friendly platform also adapts to major CRMs, allowing you to integrate, handle, and use them as a single entity.

At SimpSocial, automation is our lifeline. We’re here to assist you in embracing it and using it to humanize your business. You can schedule a demo with one of our friendly, former BDC Managers/ BDC Director members to learn more about SimpSocial.