Customer Experience Automation: What Is CXA? Examples, Benefits, & Best Practices

March 18, 2024 9 min read

Robert Pleasant

Robert Pleasant

customer-experience-automation

Automation has reshaped the way we work. When monotonous, time-consuming tasks can be done in an instant without employees needing to do more than push a button, the transformative effect of automation cannot be denied. 

It can significantly improve efficiency, employee satisfaction, and customer service, but organizations need to understand what tasks should be automated and how.

One of the most common and helpful uses for automation is improving the customer experience. Automation helps even the playing field, allowing small, agile support teams to provide the same level of customer service as larger organizations, so let’s look at what customer experience automation (CXA) is, the benefits it can bring, and some examples of CXA in action.

What Is Customer Experience Automation (CXA)?

CXA refers to the use of software solutions to automate personalized interactions between a business and its customers across various touchpoints. 

Think of CXA this way: You walk into a store where the salespeople know your name, remember your last purchase, and can predict what you need today — all without you saying a word. 

CXA enables businesses to deliver this kind of personalized service on a large scale through websites, apps, social media, and other channels. 

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Components of CXA

Top 7 Examples of Customer Experience Automation

It’s easy to understand the concept of CXA, but the variety of ways automation can be applied means organizations should consider multiple tools and solutions.

We’ve collected seven excellent ways businesses can automate the customer experience and outlined the benefits automation provides: 

1. Interactive voice response

An interactive voice response (IVR) system is an automated telephone system that uses a combination of prerecorded messages and speech recognition to engage with callers, provide and gather information, and direct callers to an appropriate agent if necessary.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Diagram

For instance, if you’re a Spanish-speaking customer calling for help with a product, the IVR system can guide you to a Spanish-speaking agent who’s equipped to help. 

IVR systems are typically implemented through your cloud contact center software. From there, you can customize the menu options and responses based on customer needs and common questions. 

There are many benefits to implementing IVR, including:

2. Chatbots and virtual assistants

Chatbots and virtual assistants go a step further than IVR systems by providing an interactive bot for customer interactions.

chatbot vs intelligent virtual agent

By using machine learning and natural language processing to understand written queries, AI chatbots provide customers with basic information and solutions to their issues, which enables customers to get help or find answers to their queries without needing to talk to a live agent. 

You can deploy AI-powered chatbots on your website, mobile app, or social media platform to allow customers to get the help they need when they need it.

Benefits of chatbots and virtual assistants include:

3. Automated call distribution

Automated call distribution (ACD) is a call center software feature that automatically routes incoming calls to the right agents. The system distributes calls using factors like caller ID, business hours, and support level. 

Businesses using IVR can also take advantage of ACD to identify caller needs. You can do this by setting up ACD in your cloud contact center platform and creating your predefined criteria for routing calls to ensure that your customers get the help they need. Criteria can include agent skills, customer priority, or agent availability.

Among the benefits of ACD are:

4. Customer self-service portals

Surveys have shown that customers want to troubleshoot issues without speaking to an agent, with 67% of customers preferring self-service. This is where customer self-service portals shine, as they provide a library of information and tools to guide customers through their queries at their own pace.

Setting up a self-service portal includes developing a web page with all the information and tools customers will need to handle common queries. These tools include FAQ pages, knowledge bases, troubleshooting articles, and interactive customer service software.

Self-service portals should also be integrated with the cloud contact center to provide real-time updates and track common concerns.

The benefits of self-service portals include:

5. Email automation

Email is an essential channel for customer communication. However, anyone who’s worked in an email-heavy environment knows how quickly unread messages can pile up.

Email automation can assist with this by automatically sending replies. These can range from basic “we have received your email” messages to automated responses to common inquiries.

Email automation is also a powerful tool for email marketing campaigns. It can quickly send out pre-written messages for email campaigns to selected customers, making email automation an important part of any marketing strategy.

You can set up email automation via the email management tools in your cloud contact center software.

There are several benefits to email automation, including:

6. Analytics and reporting tools 

Understanding your contact center’s key metrics and performance can provide insights into agent efficiency, customer satisfaction, and the overall health of your organization. As such, it’s important to have analytics and reporting tools that can identify these metrics and the interactions behind them. 

Tools that automatically analyze performance and provide reports can guide decision-making, find new insights, and identify rising trends.

You can implement analytics software to track and analyze customer interactions across channels. These real-time insights can then be used to refine your automation strategies and improve agent performance, ensuring customers get the best service possible. 

how-do-cx-analytics-lower-customer-retention

7. Workforce management (WFM) automation

One of the most important ways to ensure contact center efficiency is to ensure your centers are properly staffed. Workforce management (WFM) tools help with this by using historical data sources and predictive analytics to automate scheduling, predict call volumes, and manage staffing requirements.

The benefits of WFM automation include:

Benefits of Customer Experience Automation

Now that you understand what CXA is and have learned several ways to implement it, we need to look at its overall benefits. What can CXA provide to a business?

Improved efficiency

One of the biggest benefits of CXA is improved operational efficiency. Automation streamlines operations, provides customers with self-service options, and eliminates repetitive, time-consuming tasks.

These improvements allow agents to handle more complex cases, improving overall contact center efficiency.

Enhanced customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a top priority for contact centers, and automating the customer experience can help improve it.

Faster response times, personalized experiences, and 24/7 support options (including self-service) can create a better overall experience, which improves customer retention and keeps customer satisfaction scores high.

Customer-satisfaction-survey

Reduced operational costs

CXA is an investment that pays off quickly with the savings it creates. Automating routine tasks and optimizing resource allocation helps contact centers significantly reduce labor and operational costs, leading to lower costs for your business.

Data-driven insights

Good data is of the utmost importance to a contact center. Automated analytics and reporting can provide valuable insights into customer behavior and agent performance by visually representing agent performance and giving actionable insights to drive improvements. 

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Best Practices When Setting Up Customer Experience Automation

The next step is setting up CXA for your contact center. Here are some key best practices to keep in mind when getting started.

Balance automation and the human touch

While AI technology and automation are excellent tools, a human touch is still essential. You need to ensure that automated systems augment human interactions rather than replace them.

Maintaining the human touch will help ensure a personalized and empathetic customer experience, which is vital to customer satisfaction.

Design with the user in mind

Automation requires ease of use. Be sure to create intuitive, easy-to-use automated systems that can efficiently guide customers to the information or assistance they need.

Integrate systems seamlessly

Your contact center needs to be streamlined, and staff should be able to access all the tools needed to achieve optimal efficiency. Make sure that all automated tools are fully integrated with other business systems – this will create a unified experience and keep operations running smoothly.

Nextiva-integrations

Incorporate personalization

A personalized touch goes a long way in customer service. Customer data can be used to personalize even automated interactions, which will make customers feel recognized and valued.

Test and iterate

Nothing is perfect from the start, and setting up CXA can take some time. Testing and refining automation systems are essential, so be sure to incorporate feedback to enhance and fine-tune your system’s effectiveness.

Act on customer feedback data

Customers know what they like, or they can at least tell you what doesn’t work for them. Be sure to regularly seek customer feedback to incorporate into the design and refinement of automated systems – this will help you improve the experience as you go.

Customer feedback

Train agents effectively

Agents need to know how to use the tools at their disposal. It’s recommended that comprehensive training be provided for agents so that they can get the most out of your automated systems.

Monitor performance

Customer experience data-based analytics give excellent insights into your contact center’s performance. Be sure to regularly monitor your automated interactions and service metrics to identify areas for improvement and ensure a consistently positive experience.

A good customer experience dashboard can provide insight into satisfaction levels to help you maintain customer loyalty and retention.

Plan carefully

Implementing automation solutions can be complex. Make sure you have a roadmap and allocate sufficient resources, including training, for a smooth rollout.

Prioritize privacy and security

Keeping personal and proprietary data secure is absolutely essential. When designing automated systems, you need to adhere strictly to data protection regulations and best practices.

This is not only a requirement but will also help maintain customer trust. 

Automation Made Simple with Nextiva

There’s no denying that CXA can have a major impact on a contact center. It can improve workflows, create a better customer experience, and reduce agent churn.

With the right technology and best practices, CXA can supercharge your contact center.

And if you need “the right technology,” Nextiva is one of the best. Nextiva’s contact center solution is feature-rich, easy to use, and affordable for businesses of all sizes. It comes complete with all the automation you need to provide an amazing customer experience. 

Elevate every customer interaction.

Deliver exceptional customer experiences with Nextiva’s CX platform.

Robert Pleasant

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Pleasant

Robert Pleasant is an experienced content writer, having begun his career as a freelancer for BCStrategies before moving on to work for several tech and unified communications companies, including ShoreTel and Dialpad. He currently works as a freelance writer, bringing his experience in UCaaS, CCaaS, and AI to news sites and blogs across the communications…

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