Customer Experience (CX) automation is a very effective solution for making any customer concerned less effective but it has its challenges and risks during its implementation. Although automation can help businesses drives innovations, increases ability to personalize and improves the output of work, there are concerns that must be addressed to promote positive advancement in the customer’s journey.
Here are some of the principal limitations or risks to the effective implementation of CX automation and how they can be resolved:
Lack of Human Contact
One of the primary scepticisms concerning the idea of CX automation is removing the face-to-face consultation. This is an area in which customers prefer dealing with a person who does understand their frustrations, especially when services or products are involved that require some explanation. If the customers are not allowed to interact with customer representatives or if the representatives rely entirely on automatons to respond to customer queries, the customers may not be satisfied.
Mitigation: Strike a compromise between the human touch and technology. Use technology to manage the interaction while handling easy and repeatable processes such as frequently asked questions, orders, and appointments. Provide Human Agents for Complex Queries. Give the customers an easy way out by allowing them to talk to a live agent during their journey if they feel the need to do so.
Errors in Interpretation or Miscommunication
Automated systems, most notably chatbots and virtual assistants, sometimes do not appreciate the nuances in customer questions, and as a result, misunderstand information or provide irrelevant information. This might disappoint clients and adversely affect their interaction with your brand.
Mitigation: Deploy advanced AI technologies with Natural Language Processing (NLP) that can analyze and interpret customer queries more accurately. Finding out what works and what does not by soliciting and analyzing customer feedback is also important in improving your automation systems. In case your chatbot gets stuck in understanding an issue, there should be a straightforward process to raise the problem to a human operator.
Problems Related to Technical Integration
Maximizing CTX automation requires integrating CTX automation resources with various existing resources, such as CRM systems, ticketing systems, e-commerce systems, and so on, which can sometimes be complicated. Poor integration cannot lead to holding customer information in separate systems, inaccuracies in customer information, and inconsistency in the customer journey.
Mitigation: Before introducing automation, ensure the relevant tools work with your current systems. Work with your IT department or the vendor on how to effectively facilitate the integration of existing and new systems. Some automation solutions come with useful integration possibilities, and it will be important to perform system checks to eliminate any risks associated with technology prior to activation.
Customer Resistance to Automation
Some customers may stubbornly refuse to use unlocked devices for communication and will be more than willing to engage in a conversation provided that there is another human on the other end. This happens mostly in older generation customers or customers who are technology challenged. The consequences of doing so could be that such customers may become frustrated and take their business elsewhere.
Mitigation: Ensure that the customers have a variety of communication methods to choose from, which can either be automated or through a human support. Facilitate engagement with the Communication Means of the customers’ convenience, whether it be an Auto Bot, a human on live chat or a telephone number. Educate the customers on the merits of the automated communication system such as speed in response and 24 customer availability so that they can be willing to use it.
Security and Privacy Concerns
The automation of customer service functions will involve the collection and processing of private information from the audience, for instance, details of payment, contact and preferences among others. Scott (2019) explains that user experience (CX) automation if not properly managed can heighten the risks of privacy and data violation, abuse and consequently, rise in service quality complaints.
Mitigation: Make checks that every automated system is made in compliance with any data protection laws such as the GDPR or CCPA, for example. Data security measures are taken, for instance, making use of data encryption, data audits have to be carried out regularly to check for weaknesses in the system. — Assure the customers how their data is used and stored, and that they have the right to their privacy.
Mind it that unlike many other processes discussed above, the CX Automation Process present also some disadvantages such as depersonalization, improper responses, poor integration with other systems, shrinking customer bases, safety issues etc.
These challenges can be mostly overcome with planning, improving the system and keeping a healthy balance between the intensity of automation and human intervention in the process.
