Article | 6.4.2021
How automation enhances customer experience
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Not being able to provide good customer experience can be very costly for organizations when it results in loss of customers or business. Both large and small organizations have understood the importance of delivering good customer experience. Many organizations are now are heading toward solutions that improve customer experience through automation.
Customer experience (CX) is an increasingly vital factor for organizations’ success. Research from the CXrefresh site shows that customers abandon a company often due to four main factors: (1) Not getting service fast enough; (2) Cannot contact a person who can provide the answer they are looking for; (3) Poor or inaccurate service; (4) The issue was not resolved immediately and was delayed.
In contrast, 86% of surveyed customers said that if they have had good customer experience, they will want to continue keep using the company’s services or products. Companies with outstanding customer experience generate 5.7 times more revenue than their competitors.
Customers demand faster and more correct customer service
Companies are facing increasing customer demands, and customer experience is key to staying competitive. According to experts from Sisua Digital, a Robot Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions provider, customer experience is based on many aspects: for example when customers come into contact with the organization’s products or services, communications or employees. Meanwhile, the expansion of digitalization is changing customer experience every day, causing customers to demand faster, more diversified and flexible service from companies.
Social distancing due to the Covid-19 epidemic has also increased the digital surge and need for digitalization and the pandemic has created high pressure on some organizations’ operations and administrative duties. For example, many traditional retail businesses have encountered difficulties. Vietnam Report for businesses in the retail industry revealed that nearly 42% of organizations were seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Customers have changed their consumer behavior completely as they don’t go to the stores browse products.
Now most of customer experience is based on digital interaction. But many traditional retailers struggle for not having an effective way of communicating with customers in a digital environment. As customers mostly only use or buy services or products online instead of going directly to the store, organizations’ digital channels are overloaded. Companies who haven’t invested in digitalization, might now suffer great losses due to not being able to operate in a more digitalized environment and meet their customers’ needs.
Automation optimizes customer experience
Many vietnamese fashion retailers have used chatbots on Facebook instead of employees to answer customers’ questions about their products. The rate of users opening Messenger (Facebook) with chatbot is 3.5 times higher than email, and chatbot will only take a few seconds for each question as it is connected directly to the company’s warehouse management system. And since customers’ messages will be replied instantly, it’s more likely for them to make a purchase. Not only are the robots faster than humans, their service is error-free and they can serve a of multitude customers simultaneously and tirelessly 24/7.
According to Sisua Digital, a lot of customer communication can now be automated. For example, the company is able to develop robots that automatically send emails to customers about campaigns or reminders. Robots are also able to communicate with customers via chat or SMS. Software robots support the customer service team in adding new customers, checking or updating customer information or processing service request changes.
Y-Foundation, the fourth largest rental organization in Finland, is a successful case example of using robots to optimize the customer experience. The organization owns more than 17,300 apartments in more than 50 cities across Finland, and it employs more than 150 workers. Sending text messages manually to their customers would have been too laborious for the employees, so the customer service team uses an automatic text message sent by a robot from Sisua Digital to remind customers about the upcoming due date to pay the rent. This solution reduced the time spent on SMS payment reminders to 30 minutes instead of 10 hours. The cost of sending payment reminders by mail was also greatly reduced due to the decreased need resulting from the SMS reminders.
“Residents get quick and easy information about their own debt situation on a monthly basis. Our customers have been happy to be able to avoid the reminder cost and more and more customers have been spared of the cost. Customers have also found it important to inform us about their own situation, and therefore we have been able to agree on possible payment schedules with them”, emphasized Noora Hirvelä, Y-Foundation’s Application Expert.
Large organizations can significantly improve their customer experience with automation
According to experts of Sisua Digital, large enterprises can particularly benefit from software robots as they can handle and sort customer service requests so efficiently. Automating business processes create many other benefits among improving customer experience, such as enhancing productivity and operating efficiency, employee experience and risk management. Likewise, organizations that serve other businesses are also facing increasing customer demands just like organizations with consumer customers. Whatever their need is, they will also expect a similar customer experience to a retail store. Customers of any type of business want the same things. They want an experience that at the very least meets their expectations, or exceeds them.
Covid 19 did not solely affect the retail industry, but many industries where employees are required to work with customers, were also forced to speed up their digitalization in order to improve customer experience. However, many organizations are not willing to invest in large numbers of human resources to cope with the operative overload on digital service channels. One solution many vietnamese and international organizations have chosen is to apply robots to work alongside with employees in processes with repetitive tasks. For example in Vietnam Sisua Digital implemented a project that helps a local bank reduce the time it takes to look up customer credit history to only 10 minutes. Now customers receive the results of accepting a loan request or opening a card much faster than before.
Customers today always want services provided to them as quickly and accurately as possible. Therefore, the automation solutions are meeting 2 goals: increasing the speed of handling customer needs and reducing the amount of errors in customer service. Customer experience always has a strong influence on the company’s image and success. Organizations that create positive experiences will have more returning customers and are more likely to be recommended to potential new customers.