Myths about automation

Myths about automation

Sometimes, merchants express concern about automating support. They’re afraid of stiff, unhelpful experiences for their customers. (And for good reason: Your customers deserve better than getting trapped in chatbot hell.)

Also, when we discuss the Automation Add-on, some merchants get concerned about adding a chat widget (where many Automation features live) to their site. 

Here are some of the common myths about automation (and what concerned merchants should know):

Automation leads to a bad customer experience

Actually, thanks to automation, customers no longer have to wait to get the information they need to get on with their day. Automation helps merchants answer basic questions instantly, which is important to 90% of customers. 

Our analysis shows no correlation between automation rate and CSAT. However, that is likely because no CSAT survey is sent after automated interactions — only human ones. We’ve heard from merchants and customers anecdotally that automation is great, but we’re hard at work finding data to quantify the positive impact of automation on CX. 

It’s important to understand that automation is not a solution to every single question. Automation is best at delivering simple answers to repetitive questions. It can pull customer information, like order numbers or estimated delivery times, to give a personalized answer. But it can’t (yet) think outside the box like a human — that’s your job, which you’ll have more time for thanks to automation. 

The Automation Add-on helps us to provide better CX. It’s easier to get their answers without contacting us now, even if we try to answer really fast. What’s great too is that we have some shoppers that don’t want to contact us — and now they can find the answers to their questions whenever they want.

— Capucine Schahl, Customer Care Manager at Franklin Pet Food

Chat widgets increase tickets, and I don’t have the staff to handle that

Many of the Automation Add-on’s features happen in the chat widget, and some merchants think adding the chat widget to their site will drown them in chat tickets. Totally understandable, but this is a misconception for two reasons:

1. If you don’t want to offer live chat, you can still use the Automation Add-on. The Automation Add-on adds a widget to your site, but live chat is completely optional. Your widget can be automation-only.
2. If you want to offer live chat, the Automation Add-on is your best tool to deflect tickets. For example, Jaxxon immediately saw 17% fewer live chat messages after activating the Automation Add-on. 

If you’re worried about high ticket volumes, make sure you’re using Offline Mode (which deactivates live chat when your agents are offline) and Control Ticket Volume (which requires customers to use automation before sending a message) to limit the number of incoming live chats. 

Automation (especially powered by AI) is not always accurate

We have yet to find an AI-powered tool on the market that is 100% accurate, all the time. 

The Automation Add-on uses AI to power Autoresponders and Article Recommendations. While these tools are quite accurate, you can shape your support strategy around automations that are even more accurate:

• Use self-service tools (like Quick Response Flows, Order Management Flows, and Flows): These self-service tools give customers the same instant answers as AI-powered automation, but are 100% accurate (assuming your pre-written answers are up-to-date and accurate).
• Use the Contact Form over email: Autoresponders use AI to detect the Intent of incoming emails. The technology is quite accurate — but to improve accuracy even more, we encourage you to delete your email address from your website altogether and replace it with Contact Forms. Contact Forms require your customers to select a subject for the message, so your automations (like automated responses, tagging, or prioritizing) don’t have to rely on AI to detect the Intent.

I am not open to hide the email from the website. We want to remain available for our shoppers at any time

This playbook and the Gorgias team encourage you to hide your support email from your website, which may seem blasphemous. But hiding your email doesn't make you less available. 

Between the Help Center and the Automation Add-on’s self-service tools, you provide plenty of great options for customers to get instant answers, even if your team is offline. And with the Contact Form, you’re just as available as you were with email — except the Contact Form protects you against spam, and requires customers to categorize and structure their message. 

If your email is the most prominent way to contact you, you’re actually slowing down your customer service. Customers will email repetitive questions, like “Where is my order?” By steering customers toward automated and self-service options, they’ll get an instant answer, and your team will have more time for more complex interactions waiting in your inbox. 

These are great options for B2C customers, but not for B2B

If you’re a B2B merchants (or serve both B2C and B2B), the Help Center is a great option. That’s because you can create a Help Center for your B2B customers, and refer traffic (from B2B support or outbound campaigns) directly to this segmented resource. Here’s an example of Loop Earplugs’s B2B Help Center:

You can also use Flows to segment your B2C and B2B shoppers, prompting customers to self-identify to get the most accurate answer. While the product is built for ecommerce merchants, we at Gorgias use a robust Help Center, live chat, and the Automation Add-on to provide support for our B2B audience.