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Best Practices for Automating Customer Communication: What Tools and Approaches Do You Use?


Hi everyone! 👋

I'm curious about how you automate customer communication in your companies.

  • What tools or platforms do you use for automating chats, emails, or social media?
  • Which processes have you successfully automated, and how has it impacted your business outcomes?
  • Do you have any tips on best practices for automation while still maintaining a personal touch with customers?

I'd love to hear your advice and success stories! Let's share our experiences and ideas! 🌟

Pinned reply

September 10, 2024

@Ana_stas  Welcome!  Very interesting question and conversation -- would love to jump into a conversation about this in more detail anytime… I’m often exploring new ways to automate and optimize business for myself and consulting clients. 

 

I would say the #1 thing to do if you haven’t already for optimizing chat and email for sure is enable Fin AI -- we’ve been helping teams with this and it’s been a huge improvement especially if you’ve got some rich history in Intercom conversations, help center articles, website and internal documentation.  One of our recent customers in just a month or two has gone from 35% self service support to flipped it around to 75-80% self service support now.   This is thanks to a variety of things but a lot of it is Fin AI both over chat and Fin over Email we’ve been using the beta during after hours times with them to handle requests when the team isn’t available and it’s been a big win. 

 

I’m also very interested in making sure that support is meaningful and doesn’t make people feel like they are being forced to get help through channels they don’t feel supported by in a human way -- AI actually is the first time this type of automation feels personal and as it gets better, it’s really fun to see how people interact with AI and even thank Fin for the help :D

 

When I was at Focusmate, our team was focused on creating ‘compassionate macros” a term my wife and business partner used to help me lean into more automation we were able to schedule various messages to go out at key times because we looked at how can we meet people where they are at in that moment and make it feel intentional and supportive.  We started with transforming the payment failed messages because we knew those could sometimes feel harsh and insensitive, we had people replying to the billing issue messages feeling good instead of feeling bad, that was real win!

 

Whenever you are putting automations in place, I believe it’s key to go into it with this approach not just business operations but thinking of how we can optimize the user experience in the process too. 

 

Fin has been very interesting to do this with because each time it answers you can go through the improve workflow to tweak it and feed more info into the knowledge base to make it better at the next answer. 

 

 

2 replies

Diana Tripac
Intercom Team
Forum|alt.badge.img+2
  • Senior Community Program Manager @Intercom
  • 151 replies
  • September 10, 2024

Hi @Ana_stas , I am connecting you with one of our customers and community top experts for advice and best practices in case there is something they can share 👍 @Milan @Nathan Sudds 

Hopefully, you’ll get an answer soon 🙌

I am also looping in @Beth-Ann and @Fred Walton from our team in case they can also offer some top tips and advice 🤩

 


Nathan Sudds
Expert User ✨
Forum|alt.badge.img+5
  • Top Expert
  • 288 replies
  • September 10, 2024
Pinned reply

@Ana_stas  Welcome!  Very interesting question and conversation -- would love to jump into a conversation about this in more detail anytime… I’m often exploring new ways to automate and optimize business for myself and consulting clients. 

 

I would say the #1 thing to do if you haven’t already for optimizing chat and email for sure is enable Fin AI -- we’ve been helping teams with this and it’s been a huge improvement especially if you’ve got some rich history in Intercom conversations, help center articles, website and internal documentation.  One of our recent customers in just a month or two has gone from 35% self service support to flipped it around to 75-80% self service support now.   This is thanks to a variety of things but a lot of it is Fin AI both over chat and Fin over Email we’ve been using the beta during after hours times with them to handle requests when the team isn’t available and it’s been a big win. 

 

I’m also very interested in making sure that support is meaningful and doesn’t make people feel like they are being forced to get help through channels they don’t feel supported by in a human way -- AI actually is the first time this type of automation feels personal and as it gets better, it’s really fun to see how people interact with AI and even thank Fin for the help :D

 

When I was at Focusmate, our team was focused on creating ‘compassionate macros” a term my wife and business partner used to help me lean into more automation we were able to schedule various messages to go out at key times because we looked at how can we meet people where they are at in that moment and make it feel intentional and supportive.  We started with transforming the payment failed messages because we knew those could sometimes feel harsh and insensitive, we had people replying to the billing issue messages feeling good instead of feeling bad, that was real win!

 

Whenever you are putting automations in place, I believe it’s key to go into it with this approach not just business operations but thinking of how we can optimize the user experience in the process too. 

 

Fin has been very interesting to do this with because each time it answers you can go through the improve workflow to tweak it and feed more info into the knowledge base to make it better at the next answer. 

 

 


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