Why Customer Service Operations Have Become Smarter and More Strategic
We might be living in the digital age, but we’re also living in the age of the customer. Customers expect top-notch, easily accessible, personalized service. These expectations put the power in the hands of the customer to decide whether a company is actually customer-centric in its approach.
According to one Forrester report, good customer service is built on 3 fundamentals: effectiveness, ease, and emotion. A solid customer experience strategy can help all departments of an organization, ensure top-line growth, and control costs. Because of this, investment in new customer service technology is very high on many organizations’ list of priorities.
Over time, as customers become smarter about their choices in brands, customer service technology also becomes more complex. Here are several trends in customer service operations that you will want to pay attention to so your company can deliver excellent customer service:
#1 Companies extend and enhance self-service.
Many customers are moving away from using assistants by phone to more self-serve options such as the web, mobile, virtual agents, and automated chat systems. This is a win for both company and customer as customers get what they need in an efficient and frictionless environment and companies cut costs of phone communication. Customer service will continue to make use of communities to spread information and emerging cognitive engagement solutions will create relevant evidence-based recommendations.
#2 Companies sustain automated customer conversations.
Customers not only want to ask questions but want to be able to hold a conversation when getting the information they need. Hence, companies will expand exploration of intelligent agents to add more conversation to support interfaces. Companies will also design real-world conversations that aim to solve problems.
#3 Companies explore new customer service, labor models.
Many companies outsource some of their customer services needs to fill language gaps and keep up with seasonal demands. Indeed, companies will aim to focus more extensively on innovative models that allow customer requests to get answered quicker and in some case, provide identify the right service professional to go to the customer’s place of business or home instead of the other way around.
People are still what makes any business go — from providing a product or service to purchasing that product or service. It is imperative that companies pay attention to customer service changes, seek to understand emerging technology, and more importantly aim to keep the customer happy.
