Why You Should Use Auto-Replies In Your Customer Service Channels

Everyone hates waiting. Whether it’s standing in line at a store or waiting for a customer service agent to resolve your ticket online, the less time it takes a customer to accomplish their goal, the happier they’ll be.

Unfortunately, you can’t always instantly help someone when they send an email or instant message or contact your live chat. Your customer service team may be busy or it may be outside of normal business hours, forcing customers and leads to wait to be helped. And the longer they wait, the less likely you are to earn a sale or a good review from them.

But there’s a way to automatically reply to messages you receive via email, social media, and live chat: auto-replies.

What Are Auto-Replies?

Auto-replies are a tool that you can use to answer customers who contact you immediately. When you receive a message, you can configure an auto-reply to send a message to them that thanks them for contacting you, tells them your business hours, or provides an estimated wait time. In some cases, you can even use AI chatbots to generate context-aware responses for you.

Benefits of Auto-Replies

Using auto-replies is effective because it sets an expectation. If someone joins your live chat and asks a question, but your team isn’t available to help them, they may think they’re being ignored. But, if you use an auto-reply that lets them know you’ll be back between 9 AM and 5 PM, they know why you aren’t answering and how to get a response.

Auto-replies also immediately acknowledge the customer, lowering your first response time and improving customer satisfaction because they know you’ve received their message. Acknowledging your customers helps most on social media or in live chats where contacts expect fast replies via instant message.

Auto-Reply Apps To Consider

If you want to auto-reply to customers, you need apps that let you create your own automations and support your communication channels.

Zendesk is an integrated business email and instant messaging tool that lets you field emails, instant messages, and chat requests from a unified dashboard. You can create auto-replies for any channel along with adding preset answers to FAQs to save customer service agents time. Other alternatives include Zoho and Heymarket, which both work with SMS as well.

Improve Customer Satisfaction with Faster Customer Service

Customer service is all about accuracy and resolution times. If you can effectively resolve requests quickly, your leads and customers are going to be happier – and that’s always a good thing.

If you need help improving your customers’ experience with a responsive website or customer service tools, contact us today.