Customer Service Automation: Setting Up for Seamless Solutions

Why consider customer service automation? Learn how to leverage this technology to optimize operations and improve customer satisfaction.

Published on June 1, 2023
Last Updated on September 10, 2024

Staying on the line for hours and queuing to be served is always a frustrating experience for customers. People expect to be served immediately, get their answers instantly, and be cared for exceedingly.

Customer service automation is crucial in today’s fast-paced, customer-centric environment. By utilizing technology to automate simple tasks like answering client queries and scheduling appointments, businesses can provide better customer support and deliver better, proactive customer service.

Customer service automation is transforming how brands engage with their consumers. Technological advancements like artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, and chatbots have helped establish automation as a valuable tool to improve operations.

Companies now leverage these technologies to streamline customer service processes, reduce overhead expenses, and improve overall digital customer experience.

What is Customer Service Automation?

Customer service automation uses technology to automate tasks related to customer service, such as answering customer questions. This can involve self-service facilities, AI-powered chatbots, and other tools that enable customers to get the help they need without interacting with a human agent.

Organizations automate customer service to lessen the amount of effort, time, and resources they spend on human-to-human interactions, enabling them to save on costs, increase efficiency, and scale their operations.

What are some examples of Customer Service Automation?

Let’s take a look at specific examples of automating customer service and how businesses can leverage them.


Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants are a popular example of customer service automation, as it uses AI technology to address customer inquiries, handle simple tasks such as order placements, and guide users through the troubleshooting process.

Self-Service Portals
Not all customers want to converse with a service representative or even with a chatbot to get what they need. Self-service portals empower them to find solutions to their concerns on their own. These platforms are user-friendly and provide customers with a wealth of information such as FAQs, tutorials, guides and other helpful information, enabling users to solve their problems how they want it, when they want it.

Social Media Listening
Customer service automation tools allow a business to monitor its social media channels, tracking brand mentions and conversations about its products and services. The system can identify the tone and emotions behind such discussions or mentions through sentiment analysis. This real-time monitoring enables organizations to address negative reactions and customer concerns, avoiding escalation immediately. Social media listening tools ensure that no customer issue goes unresolved or unaddressed.

What are the benefits of Customer Service Automation?

Technology has developed a lot over the years, providing multiple benefits to those who invest in it. Let’s break down some of the pros of automating customer service.


Better Efficiency and Less Cost
Automation tools can process common inquiries, FAQs, and basic transactions, allowing your actual workforce to focus on more complex and high-value customer cases. This makes your customer support team more efficient, productive, and, at the same time, satisfied. Furthermore, automation reduces operational costs by minimizing the need for large customer service teams, allowing companies to save significantly on overhead costs.

Personalized Customer Experiences
Customer service automation can be customized to provide personalized experiences. Machine learning and advanced AI algorithms allow automation systems to learn and adapt from previous customer interactions. This allows them to personalize recommendations, customize responses, and solve problems proactively. By combining data analytics with strategies to increase customer satisfaction, organizations can provide a more “human” and personal customer experience through automation, resulting in customer loyalty.

Instant, Round-the-clock Support
Today, 24/7 customer support availability is non-negotiable. Organizations can provide round-the-clock assistance through customer service automation, ensuring customers get what they need anytime, anywhere. Virtual assistants and chatbots address inquiries and provide immediate support, delivering real-time solutions without delay or human error. Consistently providing timely and effective customer service can position your business as reliable and customer-centric.

Omnichannel Experience
Providing omnichannel support will be seamless and much easier with customer service automation. Call centers can integrate automation technologies with various communication channels like email, chat, voice, and social media, delivering personalized and consistent interactions across touchpoints. Customers can seamlessly transition from one channel to the next, experiencing a smooth and cohesive customer journey. Providing this kind of customer experience gives companies a competitive edge in today’s customer-centric landscape.
automate customer service

How TaskUs Approaches Customer Service Automation

Automating customer service is the definition of “working smart.” It drives efficiency, improves quality, and reduces costs within an organization when equipped with the right tools, technology, and training to implement an effective automation system. By partnering with an expert in digital innovation and CX, you can customize and tailor-fit automation solutions for your company, allowing you to meet—and surpass—your business’ goals.

Digital Innovation for a Global Cosmetics Retailer

CASE STUDY

Digital Innovation for Global Cosmetics Retailer

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    Digital Innovation for Global Cosmetics Retailer

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    For example, with the help of TaskUs, a multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products created a Google Chrome extension to automate keyword or keyphrase tagging to be more productive and efficient. This would directly be integrated into the browser as a scalable and updatable extension.

    Initially, the company had to scan or read a text to find specific keywords, text, or phrases to assess the nature/purpose of the text. Due to the manual work, they faced the following challenges:

    • Time-consuming (scan and analyze)
    • Mundane work (causes an individual to lose focus over time)
    • Efficiency rate varied greatly across the team. An average person can read about 250 words per minute (WPM), while expert readers can read up to 1000+ WPM.
    • The browser’s inherent ‘Find’ function (Ctrl+F) did not easily support looking up a list of words and phrases, especially with hundreds of identifiers.

    The created Chrome extension automatically scans HTML and checks all text elements in the active page (sentences, quotes, etc.) against a non-obtrusive text matching utility that enables users keyword library. Matching text elements are highlighted with specific colors as configured by the system administrator.

    Through this tool, TaskUs was able to:

    • Improve survey response accuracy by 48%
    • Boost efficiency and effectiveness by 60% by enabling a feature that allows the user to see matched texts categorized and highlighted by color
    • Increase efficiency in search dictionaries and make them curated and updateable

    Optimizing a Health Insurance Company Through Automation

    CASE STUDY

    Case Study for a Health Insurance Company

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      Case Study for a Health Insurance Company

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      Through a partnership TaskUs, a health insurance company was able to create a BOT that was able to reduce customer handling time, improve efficiency, and provide perfect data accuracy.

      The organization had a tedious, manual process of dealing with tickets. To solve this problem, TaskUs built a BOT that works on a Teammate’s desktop to:

      • Locate tickets
      • Scrape provider information
      • Safely store data in a Google Sheet
      • Retrieve provider information
      • Fill out forms

      With the BOT in place, teammates were relieved of manual repetitive tasks and focused on performing outbound calls and providing exceptional customer service. Overall, TaskUs was able to achieve:

      • Estimated client savings of $12,285 or 6 full-time employees (FTEs) project plus recruitment cost
      • 66% Estimated increase in efficiency
      • 58% Increase in tickets per hour
      • 100% Data Accuracy
      • Reduced average handling time (AHT):
        • From almost 3 minutes to 1 minute (pre-call)
        • From 2 minutes to 30 seconds (post-call)
      customer service automation solutions

      Automate and Innovate With Us

      Whether you’re looking to implement customer service automation into your workflow or improve customer experience strategy, count on Us. We deliver human-led, generative AI in customer service that rapidly and effectively incorporate operational innovations, generating unrivaled value for our clients.

      Leveraging on our in-house and innovative technologies through our own Digital Innovation Solutions, TaskUs can provide agility and flexibility and, in the process, match our clients’ expectations—the industry disruptors who, like us, are changing the way the world works.

      Recognized by the Everest Group as the World's Fastest Business Process (Outsourcing) Service Provider in 2022 and glowing reviews in Gartner Peer Insights Review, TaskUs continues supporting companies in providing world-class digital innovation solutions and delivering excellent results.

      Learn more of our Automative Solutions.

      References

      Glenn Chua
      Editorial Director
      Glenn is the Editorial Director of the Integrated Marketing team who is in charge of all the client-, internal-, and external-facing content of the company with the goal of generating sales and growth for the company, as well as attracting new talent to join its global growth. Creative, passionate, yet soft-spoken in person, he has extensive knowledge of fast-growing companies, industries, service lines, and emerging technologies.