Customer experience automation (CXA): Improve CX & cut costs

Ask any customer service leader what’s on their mind, and they’ll likely utter two words: customer experience. According to a recent Gartner survey, customer experience was a top priority for 2024 — and we likely won’t see it fall down the priority list anytime soon.

But here’s where things get tricky: many support leaders are also tasked with doing more with less. And, being asked to cut costs and manage resources can feel like a direct conflict with elevating the ever-important customer experience.

That’s why more and more support teams are turning to customer experience automation. It’s a way to deliver the service speed and quality that customers expect, without busting the budget or overwhelming your agents.

What is customer experience automation?

Customer experience automation (CXA) is when you use automation tools — like AI-powered chatbots or marketing automation platforms, as just two examples — to handle your support team’s repetitive tasks and routine customer interactions, rather than your human agents.

You’re likely already familiar with process automation in some form. CXA applies that same philosophy to your entire customer journey by automating specific workflows, touchpoints, or customer queries.

It’s easy to think of CXA as sending all of your customers through a generic, impersonal assembly line. However, when you use automation solutions as intentional pieces of your entire customer lifecycle, your customers aren’t forced through a rinse-and-repeat process. Instead, you can use automation to get a better understanding of your customer needs and deliver more personalized experiences.

Put simply, CXA should be good news for your support team and your customers. When you do it right, you’ll improve your operational efficiency while also delivering high-quality support, clear customer communication, and of course, a better customer experience.

Customer experience automation 101: How CXA works

So, if you aren’t pushing your customers through copy-and-paste processes and impersonal messaging, how exactly does CX automation work?

The first thing to understand is that the goal isn’t to automate and offload your entire customer experience. Rather, you’re selecting specific pieces of your customer support processes that you can streamline and optimize. It’s about using artificial intelligence and other automation tools to support your human agents — not completely stand-in for them.

CXA is typically talked about in the context of customer-facing tasks, but remember that anything you automate on your customer support team (yes, even the administrative or back-office stuff) will have an impact on your customer relationships and experience. For example, automating agent scheduling translates to faster response times within your contact center.

With that in mind, there are seemingly endless ways to use CXA on your support team. To make your options a little more manageable, customer experience automation is typically broken down into four distinct use cases or focus areas:

1. Orchestration: Using customer data to determine where automation is most helpful and then integrating your systems, apps, and data for a unified experiencesome text
   • Example: Syncing your CRM data with your support tools to give agents a complete view of customer history
     
     
2. Segmentation: Creating categories based on customer behavior, demographics, or preferences so you can target their specific needssome text
   • Example: Grouping customers by their purchase history so you can tailor your customer engagement strategies
     
     
3. Personalization: Using customer data insights to customize your messaging and offer more targeted and personalized interactionssome text
   • Example: Providing relevant self-service support options or more proactive support based on a customer’s previous questions
     
     
4. Automation: Automating repetitive tasks and workflows to improve efficiency and consistency in your support teamsome text
   • Example: Using AI to automatically route tickets, auto-draft responses, or trigger follow-up messages after a customer interaction

Those are the major buckets to consider when automating aspects of your customer experience, and there’s an assortment of specific tools and tasks that fall within them — from AI agents to scheduling assistants.

What are the benefits of customer experience automation?

According to a recent Deloitte survey, process automation is a top priority among CX leaders. And, looking at AI specifically, 70% of CX leaders identify artificial intelligence as crucial to their operations within the next two years.

But why is this so top-of-mind for support leaders? Likely because CXA offers many compelling benefits, including:

• Increased efficiency: Efficiency is one of the most obvious benefits of automation. CXA can offload repetitive tasks (like ticket routing and resolution) from your agents’ plates, so they have more time and energy to focus on complex or higher-value customer interactions.
  
  
• Lower costs: Staffing is one of your support team’s biggest expenses, which is why many CX leaders turn to cost-effective options like automation and outsourcing to reduce costs and overhead while still maintaining the quality of service.
  
  
• Improved personalization: Tools can surface valuable insights about your customers — and often in real-time. That customer data means automation platforms can tailor customer responses and interactions, or quickly give your human agents the information they need to do so themselves.
  
  
• Better scalability: As your organization grows, so do the demands on your support team. Automation allows your team to handle increasing volumes of support requests without hiring more agents or sacrificing quality.
  
  
• More actionable insights: Access to real-time and historical data (including customer feedback) can help you identify improvement areas, improve your decision-making, and continue to optimize your support operations.

Put all of the above together and you get the biggest benefit of all: better service that exceeds customer expectations, boosts satisfaction, fosters customer loyalty, and increases your retention.

4 best practices for implementing CXA on your support team

From knocking down information silos to helping you quickly sift through data and metrics, customer experience automation offers a lot of potential perks. That’s a good thing. But it also makes it easy to become so enthusiastic and energized about technological solutions that you forget about the core focus of your support team: your customer.

When it’s done well, automation shoudn’t sacrifice customer satisfaction. Here are four best practices to implement CXA in a way that improves (rather than interrupts) your customer experience:

• Define clear goals: Start by outlining specific objectives you want to achieve with automation. Whether you want to reduce your response times or increase first-contact resolution rates, defining what you want to achieve will keep you focused on automations that make the most meaningful difference.
  
  
• Prioritize training: Many automations can take tasks off of your human agents’ plates. However, automation isn’t entirely hands-off. Provide helpful, relevant training so your support team can learn to make the most of your automation solutions. When 57% of employees admit they want more AI-specific training from employers, this effort will maximize the impact of your automations and your human agents.
  
  
• Build smooth handoff processes: Omnichannel support is no longer a competitive edge — it’s an expectation. Your customers will not only move through numerous support channels (like social media, email, chat, and phone calls), but also through different types of support options (like chatbots, voice assistants, and live agents). Those transitions can be sticky spots in the customer journey, so focus on defining smooth handoff and escalation processes for all of your channels and approaches.
  
  
• Focus on conversational AI: Many customers express concerns about AI’s role in customer service. Conversational AI is a good way around these objections, as it delivers instant and automated support while still sounding human. You reap the efficiency benefits of automation without your customers feeling like they’ve been delegated to a robot.

Customer experience automation can be a positive for your support team and your customers. Implementing the above best practices will help you skip the shiny object syndrome and keep your focus on the solutions and workflows that make the most meaningful difference for your customer experience.

CXA in action: Examples and applications to inspire you

When you decide to benefit from the power of CXA, you’ll likely have this question: Where and how do you get started?

Most of that will depend on the goals you outlined for your support team. But, if you need some creative inspiration, here’s a look at some of the potential applications of customer experience automation split into two main categories: back-office and customer-facing.

Balancing customer experience automation with a human touch

Automation can offer big benefits for your support team and your customers. But, the operative word in “customer experience automation” isn’t “automation” — it’s “customer experience.”

Too much reliance on technology can backfire and complicate your workflows. And, when 64% of customers admit they’d prefer companies didn’t use AI for customer service, it can breed frustration too.

That’s why it’s so important to approach automations strategically — rather than assuming that automating everything is the best bet. Your customer service needs to strike the right balance between the speed of automation and the empathy of a human touch.

Not sure how to walk that tightrope? The following scenarios are almost always best handled by a real, human agent:

• High-emotion scenarios: Data breaches, stolen passwords, customers who repeatedly run into problems, and other potentially stressful situations
  
  
• High-ticket items or customers: Times when a support mistake could be costly
  
  
• Complex problem solving: Scenarios that require nuanced understanding
  
  
• Escalations or disputes: Legal concerns, refunds, or other claims where you need human judgment

When in doubt, ask yourself this: As a customer, would I be okay with this step being automated? Or would I expect to be connected with a real human? It seems simple but can be a reliable gut check as you determine what to automate (and what should stay with your agents).

Automating the backend of your customer experience

Customer experience automation is a cost-effective way to improve your support without scaling your team. But, as you think about what areas you can automate, remember that a top-notch customer experience goes beyond what customers see or interact with directly.

Behind every seamless interaction is a properly staffed workforce with efficient workflows and reliable tools. While they’re invisible to your customers, they’re crucial for meeting (or exceeding) your customers’ expectations.

Assembled makes this possible by automating and optimizing many of your backend operations. From AI-powered forecasting and dynamic scheduling to real-time adherence tracking and workload distribution across in-house and outsourced teams, Assembled equips you with the tools you need to create efficient and scalable operations. With Assembled, you and your support team can put your focus where it belongs: your customer experience.

‍Ready to see how Assembled can improve your support team’s efficiency and effectiveness? Request a demo today.