The State of Customer Service Automation 2019
Customer service platforms today are largely built for the benefit of the brand — to streamline their support operations. Unfortunately, this has resulted in disconnected channel experiences and long wait times for customers. Considering that customer service is one of the most important
touch points between a brand and a consumer, customer service leaders need to turn this around.
In the midst of growing consumer demands for fast, personalized customer service, brands and consumers alike are realizing the value of automated technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. In fact, automation can deliver care that is far more efficient and personalized than what conventional wisdom suggests — largely because of its ability to augment agents.
We analyzed 75 million customer service tickets and 71 million bot-sent messages for this report. Of note is that this dramatic volume occurred in just six months. In fact, as we saw a rise in messages sent by bots, we saw a decrease in the number of messages sent by agents — even as they handled more issues in aggregate. Plus, our study found that brands can scale massively using bots while keeping customer satisfaction (CSAT) and agent count fairly flat.