Automated Customer Service System
Why use an automated customer service system?
For most businesses, aspects of the customer support process can be partly or mostly automated. Automated customer service doesn’t need to feel robotic or impersonal. If done correctly, with the right tools, automation can actually improve customer satisfaction. In addition, it can reduce agent workload and reduce support costs. The right automated customer service system should strike a balance between automating tasks and allowing your business to still provide a human touch to your support.
A few benefits of automating customer support
Automate repetitive work
Spend less time managing your tickets, tasks, and replies.
Streamline agent workflows
Automatically triage, prioritize, and organize your work.
Empower customers
Let customers stay updated and informed on their own terms with self-service tools.
Reduce response time
Streamline response time with canned responses and automatic replies.
Improve customer satisfaction
Keep customers happy with improved customer service.
OneDesk’s automated customer service system
OneDesk combines help desk and project management into one application. OneDesk offers many ways to automate your customer support, from automatic replies to versatile workflow automations. Keep reading to learn more about OneDesk’s automated customer service system.
Automated customer responses and updates
For the initial replies, a support agent does not even have to be involved. The OneDesk automated service system can respond to tickets using email templates that you set up. Different tickets can send responses based on ticket-type, customer, priority, or any other criteria you may wish to use. For example, a bot can respond automatically to let customers know their ticket was received.
OneDesk can also perform automated ticket resolution by updating the ticket status if the customer does not reply after a specified delay, or re-opening closed tickets if a new reply is received. Other workflow status updates can also be automated based upon the rules you set.
Customer self-service knowledgebase
Often customers will reach out with common questions about your services or your business. It is also true that often customers like to look for answers on their own. Help your customers serve themselves with a knowledgebase application. The customer knowledgebase system can reduce the number of commonly asked questions you receive. Easily embed or link the knowledge base on your website. Once embedded write knowledge base articles directly in OneDesk.
Help desk automation tools
Help desk automation refers to the streamlining of your customer support workflow inside your helpdesk software. The increase in efficiency enables team members to focus on more important tasks. Through service desk automation, an organization can increase its productivity, saving project time and costs.
OneDesk’s customer service automation features allow you to set up your ticket queues and workflows to suit the way your company works. For example, OneDesk automatically captures new tickets and customer records then transparently routes replies so that customers receive them in their preferred channel. The agent always works in one centralized interface. Therefore, you can increase agent productivity by not needing to switch apps to reply to tickets, live chat, and collaborate with other agents.
An automated workflow can improve your support team’s efficiency by automating the following:
Automated ticket triage
Automated ticket triage or automated ticket grooming can be a full-time job for at least one team member. When new tickets arrive in the system, they need to be evaluated to determine if the information they have is sufficient, valid, and clear. If a ticket passes all those criteria, it then needs to be routed to the correct department, team, queue, or individual.
OneDesk’s automated support system can triage tickets in intelligent ways. First, by allowing you to perform validation checks on your ticket forms (if you decide to use them). Second, by automating the routing of the incoming tickets. Tickets can be automatically assigned, replied-to, moved to projects, prioritized, attributed to an SLA, and more. You can create your own triage rules based upon keywords, forms, customer, or any other criteria.
Automatic agent time tracking
Time tracking for your support team will save you a lot of lost productive hours. A support ticket system with time tracking allows your support team to easily record time spent with just a couple of clicks. This can have two significant benefits:
- If you are an organization that bills for your support time, this provides you with an auditable and invoiceable record to ensure you get paid for time spent.
- If you are an organization where providing customer support is a cost center, this will reduce time wasted on the low-value activity of documenting time spent. An agent can simply click “done” and move on to the next ticket in the queue.
Centralized ticket workflow automation
So much customer service is done by email. For most companies, it is the primary communication channel they have with their customers. Composing emails can be laborious and repetitive work that is best suited for helpdesk software. This is known as ‘Email Workflow Automation‘.
OneDesk provides a centralized environment for your agents to respond to customer emails and tickets. All they need to do is answer the inquiry – no need to take time to select a subject line, or enter an email address or add a signature.
Since the automated customer-service email inboxes are centralized, all agents are always on the same page, seeing the entirety of the customer conversation before replying.
Ticket management is always centralized in OneDesk. Use live chat, ticket forms, email, a customer portal, or integrate with external tools. Regardless, tickets are automatically routed to your OneDesk app so inquires are never missed.
Saved replies and canned responses
For repeat inquiries, agents can use macros to save time spent on typing responses. Saved replies can have dynamic properties to automatically embed information to the responses. Once a saved reply is created, with just a click you can answer common inquiries, and still modify it if necessary before sending it.
Frequently asked questions about automated customer service systems
What is an automated customer service system?
An automated customer service system refers to any software that provides tools to assist in solving customer problems or inquiries with little to no human effort. For instance, many systems provide workflow automation tools which perform duties such as assigning, prioritizing, or routing tickets automatically based on set conditions.
What are the advantages of automated customer service?
There are many benefits to automating aspects of your customer support:
- Cuts down on repetitive, time consuming tasks such as assigning or prioritizing tickets.
- Keep customers updated routinely with automatic responses.
- Spend less time typing answers by using saved replies
- Cut down on common questions with a knowledgebase application
- Free up agents to work on higher priority or complex tasks
- Save money by saving agent time
What are examples of automated customer service?
Here are a few examples of automated customer service tools:
- Automatic emails, notifications, or replies
- Workflow automations, which perform versatile actions based on set conditions.
- Customer self-service applications such as a knowledgebase or customer portal
- Canned responses, which with a click of a button, create replies with automatically generated dynamic properties.
- Timers and timesheets to track time automatically
Ready to automate your customer support?
OneDesk is an automated customer service software with many advanced features to help your support team increase efficiency. Evaluate it for yourself with a 14-day trial. No credit card required. Or, book a live demo to see OneDesk in action.