Unlocking efficiency with a CX automation platform

In today's fast-paced business environment, delivering exceptional customer experiences is more critical than ever. In fact, our Customer Service Trends Report for 2023 revealed that 83% of support teams have seen an increase in the expectations customers have of them.¹

To achieve this, companies are turning to CX automation platforms to streamline their operations and enhance their customers' experiences. These systems enable businesses to automate routine tasks, personalize interactions, and provide seamless support across multiple channels.

With a CX automation platform, companies can focus on building meaningful relationships with their customers and delivering the right message at the opportune moment.

In this post, we’ll explore the definition and most common uses of a CX automation platform. We’ll also cover its key features and explain how it can give your business a competitive advantage.

What is CX automation?

Customer Experience Automation (CXA) entails the automation of repetitive tasks that occur at various points in the customer journey. The primary objective of CXA is to reduce the time spent on manual tasks, enhance employee productivity, and enable seamless, personalized interactions between businesses and their customers.

What is a CX automation platform?

A CX automation platform is a tool designed to perform routine activities and processes throughout the customer experience. By using technology to reduce the workload of support reps, these platforms help businesses provide quick and effective assistance to their customers, while also keeping costs low.

Examples of what a CX automation platform can do

According to our report, State of AI in Customer Service 2023 67% of support leaders believe they are already seeing value from their automation efforts.²

In addition to optimizing companies' workflows, CX automation features like chatbots and automatic routing can drive impressive results.

Let’s take a closer look at what automated CX platforms can do for your business.

1. Directly route customers to the relevant support team

When businesses deploy a CX automation platform, customers can quickly and easily connect with the team that has the expertise to solve their specific issue – without having to wait for extended periods of time.

By streamlining the process in this way, companies are able to provide a more efficient and personalized customer experience, which can ultimately lead to greater satisfaction and loyalty.

Behind the scenes, the automated workflow looks something like this:

2. Follow up with inactive customers

Staying in touch with inactive customers can be quite a challenge, taking up a lot of time and resources. Fortunately, with a CX automation platform, it's possible to streamline this process.

By using a pre-designed template, the platform can send out reminders to inactive customers, letting them know that you're still available to help them with any issues they may have. This makes it easier to manage your backlog and ensures that you don't miss out on any potential customer interactions.

3. Prioritize conversations waiting for a reply

Ensuring that no conversation goes unattended is crucial for any business, and a CX automation platform can serve as a valuable asset for this goal. By implementing a prioritization workflow, customers who have been waiting for a response will automatically receive a message notifying them that your team is occupied.

Additionally, the conversation will be marked as a priority, allowing your support reps to address it as soon as possible. This feature guarantees that urgent matters are handled promptly, and customers always feel valued and heard.

4. Organize conversations by tagging queries that contain specific keywords

Organizing conversations can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with a large volume of queries. However, a CX automation platform can help simplify this process by using tags to categorize conversations based on specific keywords.

This enables teams to monitor and report on queries related to a particular issue, prioritize conversations based on the type of customer or problem, and improve overall efficiency.

With this approach, businesses can gain valuable insights into their customer interactions, identify areas for improvement, and ultimately enhance customer satisfaction. A CX automation platform is also a useful tool to speed up first response time and increase resolution rate.

5. Answer common support queries

A CX automation platform with an AI chatbot can answer common customer queries and save support reps a lot of time.

By leveraging natural language processing (NLP), large language models (LLMs), and other technologies, the platform can understand customer questions and provide accurate responses in real time.

It all adds up to a win-win situation. While reps free themselves from the mental burden of answering the same questions over and over, customers get the help they need quickly and efficiently.

6. Streamline the triage process

A CX automation platform is an effective tool for businesses to streamline their triage process for complex problems. When plugged into an AI chatbot, for example, the tool can quickly and accurately identify the problem at hand. As a result, customers can partake in a seamless and hassle-free experience.

In addition, if the AI bot is unable to find a solution within the support content that feeds the CX automation platform, it can still effectively triage the query before forwarding it to the human support team. This allows companies to efficiently manage a large volume of customer inquiries while still providing high-quality, personalized support.

7. Collect customers’ feedback

A CX automation platform provides an efficient way for businesses to collect feedback from their customers.

Once a company designs a survey, it can be triggered automatically based on rules set up by the company. For instance, if a business tracks the event "Checkout completed," they can activate a survey asking customers to share their transactional experience.

The platform also allows businesses to specify where to send the survey based on a page URL and/or time on a page by adding a rule and selecting the relevant filter. By triggering questionnaires at the right time, businesses can gather valuable feedback and improve their customer experience.

If you want to make effective decisions based on your customers’ opinion, read this article: Moving fast and building smart: The value of quick customer feedback.

8. It notifies customers with in-context automated messages

A CX automation tool can provide in-context help for customers, notifying them with automated messages that address their needs before they are aware of them.

Our platform, for instance, is designed to point out features and provide support where customers might get stuck, giving them the necessary assistance to navigate the platform successfully.

By using automated messages that are contextual and timely, businesses can reduce support inquiries and ensure that customers have a smooth experience.

What should a CX automation platform offer?

1. Intuitive automation builder

An intuitive builder is an essential feature that every CX automation platform should offer. It enables businesses to create automation sequences without any technical expertise.

With an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, intuitive builders help users design automated workflows that facilitate customer interactions and reduce operational costs. This feature allows businesses to focus on customer experience and engagement rather than on managing intricate technical processes.

2. AI-powered chatbot

Having a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence should be a non-negotiable feature for any business looking for a top CX automation platform. These bots are capable of managing a high volume of inquiries from customers, allowing support reps to focus on more complex issues.

Not only can chatbots learn and adapt, but they can also provide precise and customized responses to customers, ultimately enhancing their overall experience. Moreover, these chatbots operate 24/7, ensuring that customers receive support at all times.

Do you need help finding the right AI chatbot for your support needs? Check out our AI bot buyer’s guide.

3. AI-enhanced features

A modern CX automation platform can also leverage artificial intelligence to enrich the fundamental features that support representatives rely on daily. These enhancements not only streamline workflows but also elevate the quality of interactions with customers. Let's explore some of these AI-enhanced features.

4. Summarize conversations

In customer support, there is often a lot of important context scattered throughout conversations, and support reps may need to write summaries before passing them on to their colleagues.

Fortunately, with AI-powered summarization, this process becomes much easier. Large language models are incredibly skilled at reformatting and condensing text, allowing support reps to simply click the “Summarize” button and generate a detailed recap of an entire customer conversation (at least that's what happens for users on our platform).

This valuable feature saves time and guarantees that context is never lost in the handover process. Trust us, having this tool at your disposal will revolutionize the way you approach customer support.

5. Expand replies

One of the must-have features of a CX automation platform is Expand, which allows users to elaborate on short notes or bullet points and turn them into comprehensive responses.

6. Rephrase answers and tone adjustment

Customer support teams often underestimate the amount of effort required to craft the perfect response to a query. With the sheer volume of inquiries that come in, it can be challenging to find the right words under the constant time constraints that reps must work within. 

However, with a rephrase feature, reps can quickly adjust the tone and phrasing of their response to ensure that it accurately conveys their intended message. This feature may not sound groundbreaking, but it makes a real difference to customers who appreciate receiving a well-crafted response.

CX automation platform benefits

1. Reduce time to resolution

By implementing a CX automation platform, companies can significantly reduce the time it takes to resolve customer inquiries. This is achieved through the automation of repetitive tasks, such as responding to common questions or routing tickets to the appropriate representative.

2. Improve first response time

Implementing a CX automation platform can greatly improve first response time for customer inquiries. With automated chatbots and AI-powered assistants, customers can receive quick and personalized responses to their questions or concerns.

Let's say a customer contacts a bank's support center with a question about a recent transaction on their account. With a CX automation platform in place, the customer can receive an immediate response from an AI-powered assistant, providing them with the information they need without having to wait for a human representative to become available.

This not only improves the customer's experience but also allows the support team to focus on more complex inquiries, improving the overall efficiency of the support center.

3. Reduce ticket volume

One of the key benefits of a CX automation system is that it can reduce the amount of incoming tickets. For instance, imagine a support representative working for an e-commerce company. During the holiday season, they may receive a high volume of tickets from customers asking for updates on their orders.

By implementing a CX automation platform with real-time order tracking and automated updates, customers can easily get the information they need without having to contact support. This leads to a decrease in ticket volume and allows support representatives to focus on issues that require human knowledge and expertise. 

4. Improve CSAT

CSAT is a metric that measures how satisfied customers are with a product, service or experience. Increasing your score and keeping it high is vitally important to every business, regardless of the sector or industry.

How can technology help you boost your CSAT? Imagine that a support rep receives multiple inquiries about a specific issue, resulting in delayed response times and frustration for customers.

With a CX automation platform, the rep can set up automated responses and workflows to quickly address the issue and improve CSAT scores by providing more timely, effective support than they could have provided on their own.

Why can a CX automation platform offer you a competitive advantage?

Incorporating a CX automation platform can give your business a valuable edge. 

According to the previously mentioned report, “The State of AI in Customer Service,” 71% of support leaders predict that AI and automation will have a positive impact on the customer experience within five years. 

Those who have already adopted AI and automation have seen the technology’s benefits firsthand: 61% of users are reporting a better customer experience in the past year and 58% are seeing improvements in their CSAT scores.

Furthermore, 66% of businesses that use this technology are meeting their KPIs and SLAs. By investing in a CX automation platform, you can keep your business ahead of the competition and deliver an outstanding customer experience.

Automate repetitive tasks at scale with Intercom

If you are ready to take your customer experience to the next level, look no further than our AI-powered automation platform. With powerful features like automated messaging, chatbots, and personalized campaigns, you can improve customer satisfaction and drive revenue growth.

Using the most sophisticated AI language models, Fin (our breakthrough AI bot) can automatically solve customer issues with safe, accurate, conversational answers based solely on your support content.

Don't just take our word for it, though – start a free trial today and see for yourself how we can revolutionize your customers’ experience.

Sources

¹ Intercom. "Customer Service Trends Report 2023." We surveyed 1,700 global support leaders and decision makers.

² Intercom. “State of AI in Customer Service Report 2023.” We surveyed a random sample of 1,013 global customer service leaders and practitioners.