Watch out for emerging tech trends in customer service. They can help you get ahead of the competition.
Your customers have constantly changing expectations and preferences. However, they have this constant need of being recognized, listened to, and cared for. They expect you to answer their questions before buying a product and deal with issues as they arise in an extremely personalized manner. Needless to say, you need to give them what they want if you want to win their loyalty to your business.
So, how can you meet and exceed your customers? expectations? How can you provide the best customer service to your customers? Here are some of the trends that are expected to shape the future of customer service in 2015 and beyond.
Video chat support will gain more traction. Video will continue to make a significant impact on the way service teams interact with their customers. Research indicates that video is still the Millennials? first choice for communication. People belonging to Gen Y (those born between the 1980s and the early 2000s) typically shy away from using the phone while Gen Z (people born between the mid 2000s up to the present) does not want to communicate via email.
Be ready to provide multi-channel customer service. With the global smartphone use expected to reach two billion this year, you need to find ways to make it easier for your customer to get in touch with your business. Considering the fact that more than 50% of customers would prefer to connect with service teams through text messaging, you need to have the necessary technologies in place to provide fast and efficient customer service. Do this and you can certainly boost customer loyalty and? improve your retention rates.
Web self-service is starting to gain popularity. Studies show that there is a growing number of people who just want to get an answer to their question or solve their problems without reaching out or forming an emotional connection with your business. However, while you can use an automated assistant software or predictive chat technology to cater to the needs of these people, you should also make it extremely easy for them to communicate with a living person whenever they require it.
Proactive engagement can help provide effortless engagement experiences. You can increase customer satisfaction, conversion rates, and average order values by anticipating the needs of your customers. As such, companies are expected to provide proactive chat, offers or content at the right time during the customer?s pre-purchase journey to help answer their questions. In so doing, businesses can also improve their profit potential and be able to predict future customer behavior.
Better delivery methods will play a more important role in 2015. Nine out of 10 people who use an ecommerce site list delivery as their greatest annoyance. Considering the fact that today?s savvy customers require speedy delivery, eBay?s head of Engineering predicted that this will soon become the key factor that will help determine which companies will gain additional business in the future. So, don?t be surprised if delivery by drone or anticipatory delivery (sending stuff before it is even ordered) becomes a reality in the near future. After all, Domino?s and Amazon have been experimenting with these concepts for some time now.
