When you start a business you are in a dilemma as to how to automate it. So, are you the one who is trying to find the ways in which you can upgrade the sales and marketing teams? You want to know how you can enhance your conversion rate and bring more value to your business? How process automation can support small businesses?
Well, this post will answer all your questions. Before going into the technicality of the topic let’s understand the basics.
What is Automation?
It is basically a technology by which a process or procedure is carried out with littlest human assistance. It increased the throughput or productivity of the work. One of the examples of automation is autonomous vehicles or self-driving cars.
Types of Automation
Business Process Automation (BPA)
It is the technology-enabled automation of complex business processes, for example emails sent via email automation.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
It is a type of BPA technology based on figurative software robots or on artificial intelligence.
Example of RPA with AI is a ChatBot.
What is Automated Customer service?
Automated customer service is a process that makes use of an automated system such as chatbot or other artificial intelligence, help centre, ticketing management system, self-serve etc to provide uninterrupted service to the customers. The automated customer service reduces the human efforts and is cost-efficient.
How to automate customer service?
There are a number of automation tools that can be added to your efficient CRM Software to automate your customer service. Some of the automation tools and technologies are:
Chatbot
It is a software application prepared with the help of Machine Learning to lay out a conversation in the natural language via text or text-to-speech between the humans and the machines to give automated answers. It is an omnichannel that means you can communicate with your customers through various channels such as Whatsapp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram and many more.
Self-Service
Set up a self-help section that lets customers specify their problem and place a service request thus providing your customers the option to find quick solutions for issues and your customers need not wait for too long for an answer.
Ticket Management System
A unique omnichannel dashboard that receives tickets from multiple channels and solves the problem of enterprises having to manage a large number of support tickets.
Mobile CRM
It is a system that performs some functions similar to its desktop counterpart but provides many additional benefits for the field workforce.
Statistic of CRM-Customer service software market
Current CRM market size is $120 billion. (Source: FinancesOnline)
CRM software is expected to outstretch more than $80 billion in revenues by 2025. (Source: SuperOffice)
81% of users are now accessing CRM software from multiple devices. (Source: SuperOffice)
CRM systems overtook the database management systems (DBMSs) by revenue in late 2017 (Source: Gartner)
54% of B2B marketers say they feel “empowered to collaborate” with their sales teams (Source: Hubspot)
32% of CRM users belong to the service industry, followed by IT at 13% and manufacturing companies also at 13% (Source: SelectHub)
How customer service automation can help your business?
Uninterrupted Customer Support Service
Have you thought about what happens when you are not in the office and you might be receiving queries from the customers? And you will be able to reply to customers only when you go back to the office the next day. Well, with automated business crm this will not be the issue.
Automatically allocate chat queries to available executives so that every customer is attended to in a timely manner.
The chatbots or the virtual assistance will be working in place of you and win customers confidence by replying in time.
Get notified instantly
Get notified instantaneously via email notifications whenever a chat request is made to you.
Make your conversation smoother with the customer by attaching images, videos, or files when needed.
Know your customer well
Chatbot technology helps you understand the customer’s needs even without talking on the call with them.
It will allow you to not to miss any chance of helping the customer.
Respond Quickly
When the customers ask certain questions about the service offered from your business then quick responses are reached to the customers as the responses are automated.
You can also schedule automated calls and meetings.
Boost Agent Performance
Keep a watch on the executive’s activity from log-in time until log-out.
Elevate the live chat dashboard to get a snapshot of chats being handled by on-duty executives.
Executives can also maintain productivity by tracking break durations during shifts.
Enhance Team Productivity
When most of your time is spent in replying to the repetitive queries of the customers then it surely decreases the productivity of the team.
Chatbots handle such queries and you can time to deal with some other important concerns then.
Amplify the Customer Retention and Acquisition
The higher the customer retention the higher is the satisfaction of helping the customers promptly.
Customer retention implies that the customer will continue his interest in your services.
And the customer acquisition will be achieved by defining personas or sample customers who can be the potential customers using the analytics from Machine Learning.
Automated Lead Generation
You can have a close watch on your sales funnel by leveraging your CRM with Machine Learning that is the chatbot.
Automated forms would help you know if that is your potential customer.
Chat Analytics & Reports
Transform your live chat support by keeping a track on relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Generate detailed reports to assess chat traffic, missed chats, first response time, average turnaround time, customer ratings, and more. Measuring performance using data can give you a better understanding of customers.
Cost-Effective
Empowering your business with chatbot technology is going to benefit you when it comes to the employee headcount.
You do not have to hire extra employees when your work is automated.
Closing Remarks
There are a number of CRMs available in the market to assist the customers. But the best CRM for small business is the one that provides customer’s satisfaction. The different technologies mentioned above are the best way to take advantage of business automation.
