Customer support is one of the most valuable aspects of running a successful business. Connecting with customers can seem challenging at times. This is especially true when you have dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of customers, depending on your business size.
Slack is an increasingly popular channel for supporting customers - for both external and internal customers. Setting up automatic responses in Slack is a critical part of any such setup. It can be an easy way to give your customers quick responses in a personalized manner - while also making customer service much more efficient. In this blog - we will discuss what auto response messages in Slack are, where they can be used, and how to set them up. We will discuss how they can be setup using Slack and tools like ClearFeed for Customer Support scenarios.
What Is Slack Auto Response?
As the name suggests, an auto-response sends automated messages responding to specific triggers or keywords in Slack. This feature allows the support team to maintain an uninterrupted presence, address commonly asked questions instantly, and offer immediate acknowledgment to the customer, at all times (including non-business hours).
Why Is Auto Responder an Essential Tool for Support Teams?
Auto responses can significantly enhance customer interaction in two important ways
- Immediately acknowledging customer queries: In the service industry, timing is everything. Being able to promptly answer or at least acknowledge a customer's inquiries, even during non-working hours, not only avoids frustration but also demonstrates attentiveness to customer needs.
- Provide immediate solutions to common queries: Bots using AI and Search technologies can point customers to relevant resources for help or even provide a generated answer. Automated auto responses promote efficiency - part of the workload is automated, allowing the support team to focus on more complex inquiries.
How to Set Up Auto Response in Slack?
There are three ways one can go about setting up automated responses in Slack.
- Using Slackbot: to define trigger words and post automated replies.
- Using Slack Workflows: to define trigger conditions on a channel to post messages or replies back.
- Using ClearFeed: to setup either automated OOO responses or automated answers in Slack.
Lets take a look at each below.
A. How to setup Automated Responses using Slackbot
To setup automated responses using Slackbot, perform the following steps:
- Launch Slack, and locate your Slack workspace name at the top-left corner. Click on it to drop down the menu, then select 'Tools & Settings' -> 'Customise Workspace' as shown below:
- The above action will redirect you to your default web browser, opening the Slack Admin page.
- Find and click the 'Slackbot' tab on the Slack Admin page. Here, you will be able to start creating your auto responses.
- Find and select the 'Add new response' button. This is where you can provide the content for your automated replies or messages.
- In the left panel, input the words or phrases you'd like Slackbot to recognize and respond to. You can program Slackbot to respond to multiple triggers by including multiple keywords or phrases separated by commas.
B. How to setup Automated Responses using Slack Workflows
To setup automated responses using Slack Workflows, perform the following steps:
- From the Slack desktop application, open the "..." Menu on the left pane and click on Workflows -> Create Workflows as shown in the below screenshot.
- One can create workflows that post a fixed reply on any message with an emoji as shown below. This works in channels where emojis are used to signal tasks that need attention.
- Publishing the workflow will turn on the automatic response.
C. How to setup Automated responses in Slack using ClearFeed
ClearFeed is a conversational support platform for Slack that helps support teams scale customer and employee support to hundreds of Slack channels and users.
One of the key functionality for such a software is enabling automated responses. ClearFeed supports both out-of-office responses and automated answers based on FAQs and Knowledge-Bases. Here's how:
How to setup Out-of-Office responses in Slack using ClearFeed
Once ClearFeed is installed in a Slack workspace, the following steps can be followed to setup out-of-office responses in Slack:
- First - Users can setup business hours for their team from Settings -> SLA as shown below
- Now they can define automated response workflows on specific Slack channels where support requests are posted. These responses can be enabled/disabled for different categories of customer requests with different delay timers as shown below. ClearFeed's software automagically identifies new customer requests and also combines related ones into one where appropriate.
Further details are available in our blog on Automated OOO Replies.
Automated Responses Using Knowledge-Bases in ClearFeed
- Users can add knowledge sources in ClearFeed. Currently ClearFeed supports knowledge sources like public documentation websites, Notion, Google Docs, KBs in Zendesk and FreshDesk etc. An example is shown below:
- Once a knowledge source is configured - it can be configured to generate answers and search results to either a triage channel (where agents are reviewing support requests) or directly to customer facing request channels. An example suggested answer in a Triage Channel is shown below:
Further details are available in our blog on GPT-powered Answers.
How ClearFeed Addresses Challenges with Slack Auto Responses
As we have seen - while Slack provides a couple of different ways within Slack to post automated responses, these suffer from lack of critical functionality:
- No way of setting up business hours in Slack - neither at a personal level, nor at a team level.
- Slackbot provides a way to setup automated responses only at a personal level - and those also based only on specific keywords.
- Workflows work at a workspace level and are useful for Support teams - but lack integration with business schedules.
- Workflows can also only be triggered by emoji reactions. Slack lacks the capabilities to automatically identify new requests by Customers in a Slack channel, to be able to combine multiple messages into a single request (where appropriate) and so on.
ClearFeed addresses these fundamental challenges - and goes further by seamlessly bringing in your documentation and knowledge bases in a seamless manner to automatically respond to customer requests on Slack.
Getting Started with ClearFeed
ClearFeed provides a holistic solution to service teams looking to scale engagement and support on Slack channels. Some of theworld's top technology companies use ClearFeed to improve customer experiences and make support teams efficient. You can get started with ClearFeed by signing up for the service - or reach out to us at support@clearfeed.ai, join our community Slack channel, or book a free demo with us to better understand our product and how we can help.
