Just because customer service interactions are important and happen every day, that doesn’t mean you or someone else in your team has to physically do it. If you were to analyse those interactions, you would realise that most of those can be automated, from the simple business auto-reply message to payments and appointment scheduling.

Why small businesses should automate customer service interactions

Saves you time: By freeing you from these routine chores, it will give you time to focus on larger tasks that will help your business to grow.

No need for a large team: You don’t have to needlessly hire people for jobs that can be automated.

Optimises customer interactions: No matter how great your customer service is, there will always be demanding customers who remain dissatisfied. When this happens, they can go online and complain about your business. Automation helps to remove the usual mistakes in customer interactions.

Gives actionable data: All these apps will not only perform the tasks but also give you analysis that will help you deliver better customer experiences.

Higher revenue: As interactions become optimised, customers will be loyal to your business and spend more, which will increase your revenue.

5 customer interactions that small businesses can automate

Appointment scheduling

Why spend countless hours on the phone or writing emails back and forth when you can use scheduling apps to fix meetings and appointments? They will save you time with administration surrounding meetings and will sync with your digital calendar.

They will also send you and your team reminders and even help coordinate routes. Calendar, SimplyBook and Calendly are some of the most popular appointment-scheduling apps.

Appointment reminders

Beyond scheduling, there is automation software that will remind your customers or clients about their appointments. These will reduce the number of no-shows and free your staff from having to repeatedly call them. These apps send reminders via email, automated phone calls or texts.

They can also be easily synced with the calendars that you and your teams use. Some of the most recommended appointment reminder apps are Acuity Scheduling, Doodle and You Can Book Me.

Webchat FAQs

Why do you need a live customer service representative to answer online queries when you can automate it through chatbots? This AI-enabled software can accurately answer all frequently asked questions and give specific information based on customer information like order numbers.

According to research, almost 85 per cent of all customer queries can be handled by these chatbots. This translates to significant savings for a small business while increasing customer satisfaction through faster and better responses. MobileMonkey, Botsify and Pandorabots are some apps that small businesses can consider.

Payments

With increasing digitisation, you simply can’t rely on the old methods of payment now. Customers might want to pay online and you might have to send digital invoices to your clients. What can automate the process is payment apps. They can monitor, process and accept payments from a variety of sources.

They also enable you to accept payments from abroad. From QuickBooks’ GoPayment to Square and Veem, these are now a standard feature of most savvy businesses.

In short

Whether you want to send an automated business auto-reply message or use AI to engage with customers, this software uses advanced technologies to automate customer service interactions. Choosing the best among them will help you save money and free up your time.