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What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
Robotic Process Automation is a technology that facilitates the development, deployment, and management of software robotics that mimic human activities when working with digital systems and programs. Software robots can understand what is displayed on a computer screen, perform the required keystrokes, navigate through systems, find and extract data, and carry out predefined tasks. Customer service RPA robots, on the other hand, can perform tasks faster and more efficiently than humans.
What is RPA Customer Service?
RPA in Customer Service refers specifically to RPA being applied to customer service. This includes automating call center processes, deploying bots to help customers, implementing voice assistance, and more. RPA automating specific customer interactions allows agents to spend more time on essential interactions while providing immediate answers and solutions to customers.
RPA Customer Service: The Rise
Customer service is a joint RPA application function. Why? RPA improves customer service in part by reducing administrative and back-office workloads. Software robots speed up customer service by gathering information from multiple systems, executing requests for assistance, and updating client data.
Robots can automate repetitive, routine tasks such as updating customer service requests, allowing customer service agents to concentrate on customer engagement instead of manual labor. Customer service RPA can improve the customer experience and also help other divisions of the company.
But if you automate customer service in a comprehensive way, it can improve other aspects of your business. RPA tools for customer service allow businesses to automate many time-consuming, labor-intensive tasks. By using RPA for customer service to collect data, the chance of human error is reduced, leading to higher customer satisfaction. Customer support agents can communicate with customers in a faster and more personalized way.
Benefits of RPA for Customer Service
RPA tools for customer service offer many benefits.
Cost Savings
RPA technologies for customer service are one of the best ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency. The average handling time (AHT), which is the amount of time it takes a customer service representative to complete a task, is reduced significantly when they use an RPA-powered system. The processing costs are also cut in half.
Process Improvements
RPA, by leveraging customer service, improves the predictability of processes, maintains compliance with regulations, reduces error, and increases efficiency. It can ensure that your system is updated smoothly. RPA robots are also used to keep workflows updated and to perform inspections.
Customers Experience Improved
RPA is a great way to cater to customers who prefer self-service support. Chatbots allow customers to reach your business 24/7. Your customers can resolve any common issue at any time of day or week. RPA can make it a thing of the past for a frustrated customer waiting for a customer service representative to respond.
Enhanced Agent Satisfaction
The adoption of RPAs in customer service benefits more than just the clients. Agents must spend considerable time tracking and locating consumer data across different systems. RPA systems can do this by quickly looking up processes, allowing agents to reduce lead times and offer better support.
RPA Can Help You Improve Your Customer Experience Process
See how it addresses critical challenges in the customer satisfaction process.
Challenge 1: Data Management
Filling out forms, extracting data, generating reports, etc., are monotonous, repetitive, and tedious tasks that take up employee time.
Solution: RPA Focuses On Tasks That Nurture Customer Relationships
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) helps automate mundane tasks to increase efficiency and reduce costs. When machine learning handles repetitive and monotonous tasks, employees have more time to spend on value-driven tasks such as innovation, creativity, connecting with customers, nurturing customer relationships, etc.
RPA also allows employees to concentrate on tasks that have a positive impact on customer relationships. RPA enables customer service agents to improve their skills by delegating repetitive tasks.
This example will help you better understand the concept. A bank used bots to manage 1.5 million claims every year. The work of 85 bots is equivalent to 200 full-time employees. This represents 30% of the cost. RPA bank saw increased productivity by using the time and money saved to perform tasks that add value to customer relationships.
Challenge 2: Improve Accuracy and Precision
Human errors are not only a time-sink but can also cause customers to perceive an organization as less capable and trustworthy. In today's competitive environment, customers who are impatient or frustrated may never return. Therefore, it is essential to reduce the risk of errors.
Solution: RPA Automates Tasks, Reducing Human Errors
RPA reduces human error by automating processes. Employees can sigh in relief as they don't have to spend hours correcting mistakes. According to a study, between 10% and 20% of the time spent by humans is on repetitive tasks. Human errors make things worse and ultimately drain the time and resources of the company.
RPA can minimize errors, which allows resources to focus on more valuable tasks. RPA also offers employees the automation opportunity to upgrade their creativity and problem-solving skills by allowing them ample time to perform more advanced functions. Understanding RPA and using it to its fullest potential benefits businesses, as it can help reduce costs spent on correcting human errors.
Challenge 3: Scaling To Match Present Needs
It's a fact that companies that deal with seasonal customer interest face a capacity problem. Online retail thrives during winter holidays and Valentine's Day, while the hospitality industry experiences peak activity throughout the year. It becomes difficult to guarantee that every customer receives high-quality service as the number of users increases.
Solution: A Digital Workforce Can Be Scaled Quickly And Operated 24*7 To Accomplish Work
Due to the sheer unpredictable nature of the market, companies may experience sudden surges in activity related to customers. The activities can range from fulfilling an unexpected surge in orders to dealing with flooded customer inquiries. These unexpected demands can harm customer satisfaction if your company does not have the resources necessary to handle the sudden increase in activity.
RPA can help businesses deal with such situations without hiring additional staff. RPA can perform customer-driven tasks with less error and in less time than human employees. RPA services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week so that work can be done around the clock.
Challenge 4: Maximize Insights From Customer Data
Businesses collect vast amounts of data that can be used to improve the design and delivery of their products. This data is only valid after it has been thoroughly scrutinized.
Solution: Improved Data Analytics
RPA provides significant benefits, including improved data analytics. By using RPA, for example, to sort and gather data into predetermined categories, businesses can more quickly and easily align resources and make better decisions. RPA is being used to address customer issues. RPA solutions are also being used to address simple and repetitive problems that make up the majority of customer complaints.
Customer service automation allows businesses to handle customer concerns with greater accuracy and in less time. This helps to avoid delays and mistakes, which can lead to dissatisfaction.
RPA and Customer Service
RPA can do this for you. Robotic intelligent Process Automation has the most significant impact on businesses. It automates repetitive manual processes and saves both time and money.
Customer Satisfaction -- This is a feather added to the cap. Automating complex tasks and operations allows the company to deliver end-to-end services with accuracy, precision, and speed. RPA can handle the work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Once the rules have been defined and the software has been installed, it's impossible to stop. It ensures that workflows are faster, simpler, and more lean.
Cost savings- RPA has many benefits, but one of the most important is saving money. Companies must invest heavily in retaining and hiring their employees. It's also essential to maintain the human touch regarding customer service. Integrating technologies such as RPA allows them to perform the necessary work. Below are some statistics that highlight the cost savings possible with RPA.
Top RPA Use Cases And Case Studies In Customer Service
RPA can be used to automate various tasks related to customer service. Here are some of RPA's most notable customer service use cases.
Help Customer Service Representatives
Customers expect that customer service representatives will understand their needs and expectations. They want to know who they are, what they bought, etc. RPA bots can collect information on the consumer, including demographics, sales, and previous complaints. They can also send invoices and tickets to the customer service representative in advance so they can anticipate questions from the customer and quickly resolve the issue.
Automate Common Customer Questions
AI-based chatbots and RPA bots for customer service can enter information about issues into a ticketing system. RPA bots for customer service can also access the database of tickets and address simple client concerns such as:
- Renewing password or login information
- Update orders, such as changing the delivery address or requesting a return code.
- Changes to payment information such as the credit card number, pay at the door, or Pay-at-the-door.
RPA chatbots can help companies save time by analyzing customer problems and solving simple issues. Experts reported that chatbots saved them 330 hours of customer service per month. The unattended automation rate increased to 85% as it grew in sophistication and learned more about common customer problems. The chatbot handles most customer issues. Those that a bot cannot take are forwarded to a human agent, who has already been given full details about the customer's problem.
Read More: How Robotic Process Automation Solutions Are Transforming Healthcare Industry
Communication of Customer Complaints
RPA bots for customer service can use Natural Language invoice Processing (NLP), Optical Character Recognition, and Text Document and Spreadsheet Recognition to understand customer complaints from emails and texts, extract the data, enter it into spreadsheets, text documents, or generate reports. The resulting pieces are:
- Distributed to relevant customer support personnel
- Use for issue pattern identification
- Registration for audit and compliance
Enfo Group automated its reporting process using robotic process automation. The company could save 70 hours per week by automating the process. It still generated all 300 reports. The same automation method can be used for any reporting type, including reporting customer complaints.
Automated Refunds for Customers
Companies can use RPA solutions to automate their entire refund process. This allows the customer to receive their refund immediately without waiting for a long time with customer service. This improves the customer experience.
IBM's Cloud Pak for Business processes Automation solution uses customer data to automate refund processes. It can analyze a previous purchase of a customer, determine the reason for a refund, and refund them once the item is returned.
Implementing RPA in Customer Service
Before implementing RPA tools for customer service, you must decide what metrics are most important.
Keep an eye out for these things:
- Error reduction: You can complete more complex customer support tasks without human workers intervention. Client complaints and calls are reduced.
- Customer Support Agent Training: Call center agents are traditionally given a script and a telephone. They had to go through complex processes to obtain data about clients. Customer service RPA gives them all the information they require at their fingertips in real-time. RPA solutions for customer service can be measured by how quickly they complete a task or satisfy a client.
- Compliance with Internal Best Practices, Regulatory Requirements, and RPA Customer Service Bots: The bots follow regulatory guidelines meticulously and take all the steps. You can then develop a process that complies with internal or regulatory best practices. Monitoring compliance with these standards is essential.
- Improved Employee Satisfaction: The liberation of employees' mundane tasks is one of the most significant advantages of RPA. Employees can then focus on more valuable lessons. It is essential to survey agents regularly to monitor employee satisfaction.
Start With Simple Tasks That You Can Automate
Customer service RPA bots can do the work for customers instead of putting them on hold while they run programs or collect data. They will also enter that information into the correct fields and reduce errors.
The agent can focus more on the customer and less on the paperwork with this basic automation. Start with something straightforward, and then work your way upwards. You will see an increase in customer satisfaction, increased agent productivity, and a decrease in mistakes.
As RPA Deployments Progress, Agents Will Need To Be Retrained And Upskilled
RPA will change how your agents operate, requiring you to reevaluate their performance. RPA helps organizations to increase their production while maintaining customer service. RPA allows agents to concentrate on tasks directly affecting the customer experience and high-value business activities like cross-selling. You may need to improve your agents' abilities so they can handle the delicate task of managing customer relationships. These new and higher-level duties are exciting and diverse, so they will help agents to be more interested.
Automate Customer Experience Across Touchpoints
Your customers can communicate with you via social networking apps, texting, mobile applications, and web-based customer portals. You must meet the client's expectations at each location. RPA systems for customer service can give you a more complete picture of your customers than the fragmented one gleaned from isolated phone, email, and app interactions. Ensure your customers have a positive experience, no matter how they contact you.
Five Ways To Implement RPA In The Customer Experience
RPA can improve the customer experience in many ways, including your organization.
Concentrate On Tasks That Build Customer Relationships.
Robotic process automation is a great way to automate repetitive tasks and increase efficiency. By automating repetitive tasks, employees have more time for value-added tasks such as creativity, innovation, and problem-solving. RPA also allows agents to concentrate on tasks related to customer relationships.
See how RPA works.
By removing repetitive tasks, it allows agents to focus on developing their skills and improving customer relationships. Many banks are using RPA to automate the processing of orders. One bank uses bots to handle 1.5 million requests a year. It's surprising to learn that 85 bots can do the same amount of work as 200 full-time workers yet only cost 30%.
RPA enabled the bank to increase its productivity by using the time and money saved to solve problems related to customer relationship building.
Benefits of this Approach
- Takes less time
- Boost your productivity
- Needs less resources
- Cost reductions
Responding Quickly To Customer Requests
RPA has revolutionized the way businesses now respond to their customers' inquiries. Amelia is a chatbot that you may have heard about before. Amelia is a chatbot Allstate uses to assist its employees in interacting with customers. Amelia allows contact center agents to stay up-to-date on insurance policies and protocols when talking with clients.
This chatbot allows the company to get the best of both: On the one hand, the customers receive instant answers to their questions. The chatbot can also handle large volumes of constantly changing insurance information quickly and efficiently.
Experts estimate that, by 2021, at least 15% of customer service interactions will be handled entirely by AI. Businesses will use RPA chatbots in the future to answer customer questions, proving that RPA (Robotic Process Automation) techniques are more critical now than ever.
Benefits of this Approach
- Speed up your work and increase efficiency
- Customer inquiries are answered quickly
- Process multiple requests faster
- Enjoy more spare time
Solve A Problem With A Customer Before They Hang Up
Delays in answering customer questions can have a severe impact on your market reputation. It could be better to spend less time on customer service and keep customers waiting. Look at the factors determining how fast your company can respond to customer requests to achieve incredible customer satisfaction. FCR is one of them.
Customer satisfaction is impacted mainly by the KPI.
In a study of 150 call centers, it was found that every percent improvement in the FCR leads to a one percent increase in satisfaction. To improve FCR, customer agents must be provided with all the information necessary to answer customer questions quickly.
Here's how RPA creates a better customer experience. RPA solutions allow the robot to display information relevant to the agent on top of the program running on their computer. This makes it easy for the agents and the robots to get critical information quickly. RPA can help you retain customers by addressing their needs and ensuring that they are satisfied before they leave your site. Understanding RPA for customer service techniques is essential to businesses.
Benefits Of This Approach
- Reassignment of data
- Update fields
- Navigating complex applications
- Retrieve customer information
Human Error Reduction
RPA reduces human error through automation. It is a great relief to employees, as they don't have to spend time fixing mistakes. According to research, 10% to 20% is spent by a worker on low-level repetitive computer tasks. Human action can only worsen the situation and take up much time and resources for an organization.
RPA can help reduce errors and allow customer service agents to focus on more valuable tasks. RPA robots are the answer. Customer automation journey automation gives employees the time they need to perform advanced functions. This helps them develop their creativity and problem-solving skills. RPA benefits organizations as it can reduce the cost of correcting human errors.
Benefits Of This Approach
- Productivity Increase
- Human error reduction
- You can save money and time.
How to Boost Your Net Promoter Score
You must know where you stand in the market to improve your customer service. You can bring in more customers and increase customer retention. The Net Promoter Score has been proven to be one of the most effective ways to measure customer satisfaction.
The Net Promoter Score is a measure of the percentage of customers who are likely to recommend your products or services. The Net Promoter score measures the willingness of your customers to recommend your company's services or products to others. It helps you to gauge your position in the market.
The first step is to assess how satisfied your customers are with your services. RPA bots automate customer service tasks. This allows employees to spend more time on tasks that build client relationships. Customer service agents are now able to spend more time understanding the needs of customers and solving their problems. RPA automation can help you improve your Net Promoter score in any business process automation.
Bottom Line
Customers want to feel appreciated, and only a great customer experience can do this. In today's digital age, the better the customer experience, the longer your RPA company will spend interacting with and understanding customers. RPA helps you understand the concerns of your customers.
