Customer service teams often directly shape the overall perception of your brand through every interaction. A single negative experience, such as long wait times, unhelpful responses, or a lack of resolution, can quickly erode customer trust and loyalty, leading to lasting damage.

In a PWC survey, a single bad customer experience drives away one in three customers, or 32% leave after a bad experience. 

Next-generation businesses are increasingly turning to customer service automation to boost their support team's productivity. By utilizing technologies such as intelligent chatbots and voicebots, companies can handle more inquiries, offer 24/7 support, and quickly resolve customer issues. 

However, to discover whether it is a worthwhile investment or not, let’s go through all the pros and cons of customer service automation. 

Pros of Customer Service Automation

Here’s how the adoption of customer service automation adds a layer of efficiency to your customer service workflows:

1. Cost-effectiveness

Customer service automation reduces labor costs without causing any adverse impacts on your CX. There are a lot of queries that can be solved with minimal human intervention. 

As a 2023 Gartner survey indicates, 79% of businesses consider automation to be essential in their customer experience strategy. Also, AI-powered automation can reduce customer service costs by up to 30%. 

To give an example, intelligent chatbots driven by generative AI can handle most of the simpler, first-contact queries, reducing the burden on your customer service agents. This reduces operational costs and the pressure to hire more support staff as you scale. 

Furthermore, a unified agent desktop enhances customer experience and agent productivity. By enabling customers to use their preferred channels and giving agents a holistic view of each issue, regardless of the channel, this omnichannel approach ensures faster resolutions and boosts overall efficiency.

Besides chatbots, deploying solutions like automated and customizable workflows and IVR can help minimize labor costs. 

2. Round-the-clock support 

Customer service automation provides a competitive edge by offering always-on support, which is crucial for businesses serving diverse geographies and overcoming time zone challenges.

For instance, if your US-based business has a target market in Asia, there is a 12-hour gap between time zones. Providing real-time support can be difficult in such a scenario. That’s where OpenAI-powered self-service chatbots assist customers with basic questions and queries, even after your customer service agents clock out. 

As per a 2024 Zendesk report, 64% of CX leaders are increasing investments in chatbots.  

Also, auto attendants provide 24/7 customer support by greeting and guiding inbound callers after hours, enhancing customer experience and building trust in your brand's commitment to providing timely solutions.

3. Simplified scalability

Legacy customer support solutions often become quickly saturated by an increasing volume of queries. During peak holiday seasons like Black Friday, your inbound queries will likely skyrocket, leading to long waiting times. This can negatively impact your customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores. 

With customer service automation comes the added advantage of seamless scalability. When you deploy a customer service automation solution, any spike in your inbound queries becomes manageable. 

Instead of hiring more support staff, an AI-powered chatbot can handle the increased influx of queries, assisting multiple customers simultaneously, even during high-demand hours. 

4. Optimized support performance

Modern customer service automation software tools are built with advanced tracking and reporting features that offer all the insights you need to help agents perform at their peak. 

Live dashboards let you see how your agents are performing and live customer queues, helping you make real-time adjustments for smoother customer service operations.

Additionally, features like call barge and whisper allow customer support team leaders and managers to course-correct when it matters the most—on the spot, during live calls. Such swift adjustments can be huge life savers in sensitive customer interactions and convert disgruntled customers into loyal customers. 

Plus, access to historical insights allows customer service managers and leaders to make sense of past performance and identify areas of improvement. 

5. Improved first contact resolution (FCR)

Your first-contact resolution rate (FCR) significantly impacts customer satisfaction. It measures the percentage of customer issues solved in the first contact. 

Customer service automation solutions like chatbots and IVR systems serve as the first line of contact, enabling customers to get instant answers and solutions to their queries without connecting with a human agent. 

For instance, chatbots can quickly help customers track orders and take suitable actions to resolve their queries. Meanwhile, an automated call distributor system can route customers to the right agent and help deliver a speedy resolution for even the most complex customer queries. 

6. Increased customer satisfaction 

In a hyper-competitive business space, modern customer support teams need to be on top of their game regarding customer experience. Automated customer service software helps teams become more proactive in their approach. 

Reactive customer support means agents respond to customers only when they need help. Proactive customer service, on the other hand, focuses on anticipating customers’ needs.

It involves sending automated customer feedback surveys after every interaction to capture their experience and any additional suggestions or comments. 

Another way to use customer service automation is by sending automated SMS/Email alerts for reminders, important product/feature updates, and promotions. 

7. Establish a uniform tone and voice 

Automated customer service ensures that every interaction is on-brand and consistent, whether SMS, emails, or voicemail greetings. 

Chatbots and voicemail greetings can also be programmed to deploy specific phrases and use a specific tone that best aligns with your brand. The idea is to consider the customer’s journey across various touchpoints and ensure that customers have a smooth and hassle-free experience. 

Let’s say a customer wants to return an item. The automated response should clearly outline the steps to take while keeping the message consistent across each channel.

8. Maximize agent time for high-value interactions 

Consider a scenario where agents are supposed to answer every inbound query, no matter how minor. Your agents would be overwhelmed with the queries, and there would be limited time and energy to focus on more complex matters and critical queries. 

One of the main advantages of customer service automation is that it reduces the burden on human agents and takes over basic customer queries and frequently asked questions. 

Meanwhile, human agents can divert their energy and time to more important tasks, such as addressing personalized service requests or handling customer complaints. 

Drawbacks of Automated Customer Service

Despite its many benefits, customer service automation, if not implemented thoughtfully, can lead to adverse outcomes. Here are some limitations you must know: 

1. Cost of poorly implemented automation

Poorly configured customer service automation is an absolute red flag—it drives away customers and does the opposite of its purpose. If your chatbots respond with generic answers to every question, this leaves the customers with more confusion and adds a layer of complexity. 

2. Financial and operational hurdles 

Customer service automation, like AI chatbots, can be a significant investment and, like any SaaS solution, requires regular upgrades and maintenance. 

Therefore, customer service teams need to be careful with incorporating automation into their support workflows—you don’t need to automate every step in the customer journey, only those that need it the most. 

Additionally, it takes some time for internal teams and customers to get acquainted with the changes associated with customer service automation. Without testing out these automated processes, you can frustrate your customers with complexities and turn them away. 

3. Inability to solve complex issues

Chatbots can address simple queries like basic troubleshooting and order tracking. However, when it comes to nuanced customer interactions, they may lack the context and sophistication to recognize the complete issue at hand and the customer's underlying frustrations. 

Tackling such complex issues calls for the creative problem-solving of well-trained human agents and the ability to grasp real situations. 

This is because many AI-powered chatbots are rooted in machine learning, which may not give customers a satisfactory response to their queries, where a human agent can fill in the gap. 

4. Lack of human touch

AI-driven conversations may seem robotic and lack the much-needed empathy that customer interactions demand. 

Imagine the frustration of a customer experiencing repeated technical issues when they have to encounter the same generic technical responses. Chatbots may fail to acknowledge the frustrations that the customer is facing and further aggravate the customer’s discontentment.

In such situations, human agents can swoop in, identify emotional cues and deliver the much-needed reassurance that helps calm the customer and nudge them to an effective solution. 

5. Potential downtime

Customer service automation systems are regularly maintained and updated. This can hamper business continuity, as customers are unable to access automated customer support for their queries. 

Take the case of an AI-based chatbot system set for an update during peak demand. The last thing you want is for customers to leave your website without having their queries resolved.

Undoubtedly, customer service automation can greatly help your support operations. However, without proper backup plans and maintenance schedules to ensure uninterrupted service, the advantages of automated customer service may appear ineffective. 

6. Limited compatibility with legacy systems

Modern AI-based chatbots and other customer support automation technologies may face compatibility issues with traditional and legacy systems. These systems often do not have the interfaces to integrate with the latest automation tools. 

Connecting customer service automation with your legacy tech stack or homegrown systems would demand extensive customization to make it more compatible. On top of that, the customization and ongoing maintenance involved will drive up operational costs. 

Besides, if your customer service team is used to working with legacy systems, they will need extensive training to operate customer service automation efficiently. 

Even if you manage to build a workaround and integrate customer automation into traditional systems, it will only have limited functionality, which hardly solves the purpose for you. 

7. Risks of end-to-end automated customer support 

In the long run and without intervention, fully automated customer service may generate more problems than benefits. AI chatbots deploy natural language processing (NLP), in which text processing can be hampered by slang and colloquialisms. 

This can lead customers to dead ends when they are trying to get a solution to their query, resulting in poor CSAT customer satisfaction scores. 

How to make the most of automated customer service

A robust customer support system needs the right combination of human intervention and automated customer service technology. To achieve this balanced compatibility,  you need to identify the scope of automation within your customer service operations. Get clarity on where you can deploy chatbots, which workflows you can automate and when human agents should take over the conversation.

Remember, automation should complement agent-customer interactions and not hamper them with a robust support system that can handle all kinds of customer queries and conversations.

Consistently track and monitor your workflows to create a seamless customer service experience.

Leverage a reliable omnichannel customer service automation tool like Plivo CX to seamlessly integrate automated customer service workflows into your existing systems (ERP, CRM, helpdesk, etc.), including homegrown ones. 

Besides that, here are some key features that can make your drive to customer automation a breeze: 

• Unified Agent Desktop: Provide seamless omnichannel customer service across email, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat
• OpenAI-powered Self-Service Chatbots: Offer 24/7 support for complex customer queries
• Drag-and-Drop Workflow Builder: Create automated customer journeys across all communication channels
• Metrics and Reporting: Analyze interactions and collect real-time feedback for tailored responses
• Agent Coaching Tools: Utilize call recording, barge, and whisper for effective agent coaching

Customer service automation pros and cons: The final verdict 

Customer service automation, when combined with human support, can enhance customer experience. While it offers benefits like 24/7 service and efficiency, you must strategically use it for routine tasks and rely on human agents for complex issues to ensure a personalized touch and promote customer loyalty.

Plivo CX and its drag-and-drop workflow builder lets you incorporate automation to elevate support and match evolving expectations. Easily create automated processes for handling customer interactions. Connect different components like chatbots, human agents, and other actions to build a seamless customer journey. 

Ready to level up your customer service?

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