Customer Experience 
When agents spend time on manual after-call work, it impacts queue time and average handle time (AHT), and they feel rushed as phone calls are waiting. That not only impacts the quality of notes, calls, and agent performance, but it also impacts the wider customer experience.
Post-call automation removes the need for agents to spend time writing up notes and logging tasks in the customer relationship management (CRM) system after a call has finished. Artificial intelligence (AI) and APIs come together to extract the pertinent information from calls and provide summaries, optimizing follow-up and feedback collection.
In this guide, we dive into what post-call automation is, how it works, and some best practices to get you started.
What Is Post-Call Automation?
Post-call automation is the process of using AI and automated contact center workflows to handle tasks after a call. Rather than agents having to spend time writing up what happened during a call, the automation analyzes conversation data and makes notes, logs CRM activities, and updates records across any connected systems.
Examples of automated tasks
Contact center automation is often associated with things that happen duringa call.
When you use an automated phone system, you may get:
- Call transcription and note logging: As calls get recorded, AI transcribes the call data and makes notes about important elements of the call.
- Action item detection and task assignment: As the call progresses, items with follow-up activities (like sending a bill, providing a quote, etc.) get assigned to the relevant team/agent.
Using post-call automation, you get access to further functionality, like:
- CRM record updates: Rather than agents having to manually write out updates, the automation software updates all records.
- Follow-up scheduling: If the call requires a callback, appointment, or next action, AI schedules this on your behalf.
- Automated customer feedback collection: Once the call ends, customers automatically get posed a question or a set of questions to score their experience.
| Aspect | Manual Workflows | Automated Workflows |
|---|---|---|
| Post-call documentation | Agents spend minutes per customer interaction manually writing call notes, updating records, and logging activities | AI automatically generates call transcriptions, logs notes, and captures key conversation elements |
| CRM updates | Manual data entry between multiple systems is time-consuming and prone to errors | Post-call automation offers automatic synchronization across all connected systems with instant updates |
| Follow-up actions | Agents must manually schedule and remember outbound calls, SMS, appointments, and next steps | AI automatically detects action items and schedules follow-ups based on conversation content |
| Customer feedback collection | Manual outreach through separate call processes is often delayed or forgotten | Automated satisfaction surveys are triggered immediately after calls, while memories are fresh |
| Task assignment | Supervisors manually assign follow-up tasks based on verbal reports | AI identifies action items during calls and automatically assigns them to relevant team members |
Core Features of Post-Call Automation
When you introduce post-call automation into your call center, you can expect the following features.
Real-time transcription and call summaries
AI-powered call transcription during or immediately after calls means there’s no need for note-taking by contact center agents. As the call is recorded and transcribed, the entire conversation is available for analysis.
Once transcribed, AI creates call recaps that highlight key discussion points and action items. As a result, there’s a vast reduction in manual note-taking and a faster process to instigate next steps.
Automated CRM updates
When a call ends, your call center agents not only have to spend time writing manual notes, but they also have to update any CRM records. In some cases, they’re writing the same notes twice or copying and pasting entries between systems.
Post-call automation syncs call outcomes, notes, and tasks into CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot. This removes the risk of manual typing errors and ensures accuracy and consistency in customer records.
Follow-up scheduling and reminders
At the end of a call, there’s often a next step. This might be a new meeting or a callback. Rather than agents filtering calendars and looking for schedule times, calendar integrations trigger automated follow-up meetings or callbacks.
There’s no need for lost admin time, and you reduce missed opportunities and ensure timely customer engagement.
Call logging and history
If your agents are currently using disposition codes and writing out how calls went, they’ll love the automated call logging you’re going to introduce.
Instead of relying on agent opinion and trusting that they used the right code, AI creates detailed logs with call outcomes, timestamps, and participants. This improves the accuracy of call outcomes and makes it easy to retrieve call details for audits, compliance, and training.
AI-powered CSAT and feedback
When it comes to customer feedback, you’ve got two options using post-call automation:
- AI can infer sentiment and customer satisfaction without requiring surveys.
- AI can automatically ask customers if they want to take a survey when the call ends.
With both these options, you’re using AI to help gauge customer experience scores at scale. There’s no need to create and send manual questionnaires, though you may pair AI scores with longer-form surveys for qualitative reasoning.
Workflow triggers
When you mark a call as “Interested,” “Not Interested,” “Voicemail,” etc., this can create the next activity in your workflow. Disposition-based automation ensures every call gets the right follow-up task without relying on agents to remember to do so.
Triggered workflows include sending emails, assigning call tasks, or updating lead statuses. Off the back of this, you get more accurate reporting and metrics — no need to rely on manual input.
Benefits of Post-Call Automation
Moving to an automated state for your after-call work saves time, improves input accuracy, and opens the door to a compliant, efficient, customer-first contact center.
Save agent time
The biggest win when introducing post-call automation is the reduction in after-call work. This means more agents are available to handle incoming calls, reducing wait time and AHT.
When agents are free from manual, time-consuming note-taking and record updating, they have time to take more calls and focus on quality interactions.
Improve consistency and accuracy
If you cut the potential for human error in note-taking and CRM updates, your data accuracy is going to skyrocket.
What’s more, everything becomes standardized. Searchable records become easier to discover and use for reporting and recalling interactions.
Enhance compliance
Automated call logging supports legal and regulatory requirements. When you’re logging, transcribing, and analyzing every call, there’s zero chance an important detail gets missed.
You ensure data gets captured consistently and securely. If you need a customer record for investigative purposes later on, you can search using pre-defined criteria, keywords, or timestamps.
Boost agent engagement
Your agents are going to love post-call automation. It removes repetitive tasks, improving morale and retention. Ask agents what the least favorite part of their job is, and most will say it’s rushing to make notes while the phone is still ringing.
When agents have more time in their day, they can focus on meaningful, high-value work. Not only can they handle more calls, but the qualityof those calls improves thanks to no longer needing to rush.
Elevate customer experience
Naturally, if you focus on the quality of interactions rather than quantity, customers are going to receive a better experience.
With post-call automation, customers also benefit from faster follow-ups and reduced wait times. With a more personalized service, thanks to better data accuracy driven by automated outcomes and less reliance on manual record keeping, there’s a strong case to be made for introducing post-call automation.
Best Practices for Implementing Post-Call Automation
Post-call automation sounds great, and you probably want to rush into implementing it. Normally, we’d say that it pays to be strategic, and you mustn’t go into this headfirst. However, there are some exceptions when it comes to high-volume, low-risk tasks.
Start with high-volume, low-risk tasks
Before tackling advanced workflows, you can first turn on the automation of call notes, logging, and scheduling.
Here, you benefit from less after-call time thanks to automation features that don’t directly impact customer calls. There’s no harm in turning on automatic note-taking to trial it and ensure it’s what you expected.
Map workflows in advance
Once you’ve actioned your low-risk items, it’s time to plan what happens after common call outcomes. This way, you can start to trigger what happens next after different criteria.
Use flowcharts to visualize automation triggers rather than trying to create them off the top of your head. Ask senior agents and supervisors for their input to ensure your version matches what actually happens on the contact center floor.
Refine with feedback and analytics
As you introduce workflow triggers and automated call logging, regularly gather agent feedback on system effectiveness. It may be that they’re thrilled and have loads of time back in their day. But it’s equally important to hear about teething problems early on.
If this is the case, adjust workflows based on feedback, call analytics, and customer responses. Don’t forget, you’ll be capturing more survey responses than ever — so make them count!
Prioritize integrations
Post-call automation boosts your return on investment when you integrate it with CRM, ticketing, and calendar automation tools. The more you connect to your contact center, the more you can automate and remove the potential of manual human error and data inconsistency.
Balance automation and human oversight
Our final piece of advice is not to rush into automating everything.
Use automation to speed up processes, but keep humans involved for complex or nuanced follow-ups. The combination of real-world experience and data-backed analysis can make your contact center a formidable, efficient powerhouse.
Automate Your Post-Call Workflow With Nextiva
Post-call automation has quickly gone from nice to have to a core requirement for modern contact centers and sales teams. In the case of customer support and sales process automation, in particular, there are significant benefits to be gained from a relatively simple implementation.
Companies that continue relying on manual after-call work will struggle with inefficiency, inconsistency, and missed opportunities. The choice is yours.
By choosing a platform like Nextiva, businesses transform every interaction into actionable customer intelligence while reducing after-call work time and ensuring data accuracy.
The result is faster workflows, happier agents, and more satisfied customers, all supported by a platform built for long-term growth.
Sound like something you need? Take Nextiva for a spin here. 👇
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