Finding the right customer support automation platform requires an understanding of the market and what features your customer base requires. Existing solutions vary significantly in vendor maturity, ROI, cost, capabilities, integrations, implementation, and risk mitigation. With AI now being applied to advance the effectiveness of remote support, a strategic approach can be applied to assess a platform’s ROI, usability, and security to determine which solution is right for your customer support organization.
Product and device manufacturers face additional considerations when choosing a solution to handle complex support queries. While basic AI chatbots can manage tasks like warranty claims or product returns, guiding a customer through repairing a broken lawnmower is more complex. A remote support strategy must address these nuances and manage risks. The recent AI hype can create false expectations, so support leaders should invest in solutions with clear, realistic goals.
The following is a framework you can apply to evaluate which customer support platform meets your product support automation needs.
Product Support Automation Platform Considerations
1. Customer Support Processes and Needs
Before evaluating support automation platforms, review your current support processes and customer behaviors. Start by understanding where customers usually look for help— whether it’s your website, social media, or unofficial resources like online forums.
Next, define the support experience you want to offer. What you don’t want are disjointed experiences. If customers call the phone number listed on your website only to be redirected to a social media support channel, that adds unnecessary confusion to the support process. Decide which support channels are important to your organization and to your customers, and find a vendor that offers support across those channels.
Identify which technical integrations you need to build a smooth support process. Look for a support automation tool that will easily integrate with your existing support technology stack and deliver a consistent customer experience with high resolution rates.
Questions to Ask Vendors:
- Does the platform integrate with our ticketing system, help desk, or contact center as a service (CCaaS)?
- What support channels does the platform cover?
- What ROI metrics—such as resolution rates or customer satisfaction improvements—can we expect based on similar businesses?
2. Pricing Structure
Support automation platforms typically use one of three pricing structures, each with its own set of pricing models:
1. Subscription-Based Pricing
- Flat Rate: A fixed monthly or annual fee for platform access, usually including a base level of features or usage.
- Tiered Pricing: Pricing levels increase based on features, user limits, or usage.
- Pay-As-You-Go: Charges are based on actual usage, such as the number of queries, API calls, or active users.
2. User-Based Pricing
- Per Seat: Costs are tied to the number of users (e.g., support agents) accessing the platform.
- Concurrent Users: Charges depend on the number of users active simultaneously.
3. Usage-Based Pricing
- Volume-Based: Pricing depends on the total number of interactions, tickets, or resolutions handled.
- Event-Based: Charges are tied to specific metrics, like API calls, workflows executed, or bots deployed.
Determine which pricing structure best fits your business based on your ability to forecast volume, tolerance for volatility, and scalability to meet seasonal or other expected fluctuations.
Questions to Ask Vendors:
- Is pricing predictable?
- What features are included, and what requires additional payment?
- In usage-based models, how are overages charged?
- How does the price account for fluctuating demand for customer support throughout the year?
3. Content Preparation
The success of a support automation platform depends on both the technology and the quality of your content. A vendor’s ability to transform your existing content into clear support flows will directly impact its effectiveness.
Content preparation should be your priority before and during onboarding. Look for platforms that simplify this by converting existing content into digestible multimedia formats like videos, images, and PDFs. Customers no longer expect to sift through long manuals for answers, so focus on solutions that help you present troubleshooting steps in clear, multimedia formats.
Questions to Ask Vendors:
- What does the onboarding process look like, and how much involvement will your team need?
- What type of content is required for launch, and how does the vendor assist with preparation?
- Can the platform handle multimedia formats, and what happens if your content is text-heavy or incomplete?
- Does the platform identify gaps in support content?
- How are you expected to handle ongoing content updates and production?
4. Platform Specialization
Choose specialized support platforms from vendors with expertise in your niche. These vendors can offer guidance to improve support effectiveness and often use AI or other technology trained with data specific to your industry, which may improve the effectiveness for your audience.
For example, product and device manufacturers need solutions that understand the complexity of step-by-step repair, vs. easy product returns. Review a vendor’s customer case studies and use cases to see if the solution can meet your specific needs.
Questions to Ask Vendors:
- Does the vendor specialize in your industry? Do they have case studies for businesses like yours?
- Will the vendor require additional onboarding time to understand your products, or do they bring relevant expertise?
- If using AI, can the platform handle high volumes of natural language processing (NLP/NLU) data and dynamically adjust responses? Does their solution come with pre-trained AI, or will it take time to train the solution with your data?
5. Internal User Experience
Balance technical capabilities with how easy the platform is for your team to use. If available, run a proof of concept to let your team test the solution on tasks of varying complexity, such as checking orders, finding documentation, and troubleshooting.
When evaluating the platform, focus on real, not perceived, ease of use. A platform may seem user-friendly in demos, but true usability includes the effort needed to make it operational. For example, if the platform requires reformatting content for training, contacting the vendor to make small changes, or navigating a clunky user interface, it’s not really easy to use.
Ease of use isn’t just about the technology—it also reflects the quality of the support team behind it. Their responsiveness, willingness to offer help, work quality, and included professional services all contribute to the overall user experience.
Questions to Ask Vendors:
- Can you try live demos to see how the platform solves problems compared to others?
- Is there an option to create a proof of concept (POC) to evaluate how it will work for your brand?
- How will changes be handled in the product? Will you work with a customer success specialist, or does the solution require you to hire a consultant for additional help?
6. Safety and Security
The safety and security of a product support automation platform affect your customers’ digital and physical well-being, meaning it should weigh heavily in your evaluation.
If the platform uses AI, you should understand the risks of hallucination, especially with generative AI. Choose vendors with guardrails to manage these risks and prevent physical harm. Products like headphones may require less oversight than complex or potentially hazardous products like lawnmowers or insulin pumps. Your platform and its safety measures should align with your product’s risk level, such as requiring human review before content goes live or standardizing escalation processes for higher-level support queries..
The risk of data leaks can also be managed by selecting a vendor that adheres to strict industry standards like SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, or HIPAA. Your industry’s specific requirements will help narrow your vendor options. Rushing to launch can increase these risks by skipping critical safety checks.
Questions to Ask Vendors:
- If generative AI is used, how does the platform mitigate the risks of hallucination that could provide incorrect support guidance?
- What level of human oversight is required or provided to ensure content safety?
- How is business and customer data used, and what compliance measures are in place?
- Which security compliance certifications has the platform achieved?
7. Analytical Capabilities
Support automation with actionable analytics helps you continuously iterate and improve the effectiveness of your support strategy and content. For manufacturers with large product catalogs, understanding support effectiveness can be particularly challenging. Choose platforms that provide a clear view of support performance, identify gaps in support content, and analyze customer interactions.
Business leaders often expect perfection at launch, but taking an iterative approach based on the data you gather from your own customers will allow you to build an automated support strategy that is customized to your customers’ needs, and result in an improved ROI.
Questions to Ask Vendors:
- Does the platform provide customer interaction data, content gap analysis, and performance metrics? How easy is it to access and understand this information?
- What ongoing maintenance is required, and what support or SLAs does the vendor provide?
Takeaways
Automated customer support has advanced in recent years with the advent of AI, making it possible for organizations to offer step-by-step automated support where live agents were previously needed. However, not all customer support platforms are equal so it’s important to understand a platform’s technological capabilities and set realistic expectations for its impact on your organization.
Depending on your business model, additional factors—like scaling to meet seasonal demand, translation needs, or support for field technicians—may further influence your decision.
Use the above guide to evaluate vendors and find the right solution that meets the needs of your support organization and grows with your business over time.
