These 5 Trends Will Define Great Customer Service

More than half of 2020 has passed and emerging trends in customer service show that more and more businesses are getting stronger on this front.

96 percent of consumers across the globe say customer service is an important factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand. This implies no business can ignore the value of customer service. 

If you want your customers to be with you and not leave you for competitors, delight them with faster resolution of their problems. Never let your customers wait and acknowledge their emails or through whatever channel they contact your business. 

Realizing the significance of customer support in 2020, the blog highlights a few of the trends that are worth discussing here.

Trend #1 – Human Touch is Incomparable

Voice may seem dead but, it’s still not. It still continues to be an evitable part of customer service even when automated tools are invading customer service. Customers need a human touch always and that’s what they get when they interact with your operators. They want a quick resolution of their questions. Your brand needs to provide faster responses to customers. 

Remember your business may leverage a number of automated customer service tools to reduce long call queues, but customers prefer to talk to a live agent to get an instant solution.

Employ an enterprise help desk software integrated with live chat. Customers can thus instantly talk to support agents online and resolve their issues. When agents are offline, customer queries and requests reach their shared inbox in the form of support tickets.

Data Insights

According to MarketsandMarkets, speech recognition will become more popular in customer service in the years to come. The speech and voice recognition market is anticipated to reach USD 21.5 billion by 2024, at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.18 percent.

Advanced speech analytics technologies are trending in the market. Self-service IVRs that utilize the speech recognition technology enables end-users to resolve their problems independently, and seek help from a live agent, in case required.

Trend #2 – Population is on the go

Mobile has changed the way of life, our lifestyle. The constant movement does have a deep effect on consumer behavior. When in problem, what comes first to the mind of the customer is call the customer service department and resolve the issue. Continuing this customer service trend 2020, almost all business will be done on the go. Providing customer service “on the go” is non-negotiable and should be on your company’s radar.

A large number of mobile applications are now integrated into customer support processes. This way a customer can request a call-back or be transferred to live chat through the mobile app. 

ProProfs offers its own live chat app that supports iOS and Android operating systems.  Interact with your customers anytime, anywhere and answer their queries immediately with the ProProfs Live Chat mobile app. Learn about your website visitors with their Geolocation. Invite them to live chat and simultaneously support multiple visitors through a single operator.

Our live chat app offers numerous features like:

• operator-to-operator messaging;
• predefined responses;
• push URLs notification;
• operator-logout functionality in the operator chat window;
• access control panel from iPhone/iPad and much more.

Further, offering live support to your customers on the go helps to grow leads and generate more sales.

Trend #3 – Messaging on Multiple Channels

There is no second thought on how pervasive social media or tiktok has become today. Customers have become “smart” today. They don’t want to waste their valuable time calling on the phone or emailing your customer support team for their queries. Rather, they find it easy to send you a message on Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Queries can come from anywhere and everywhere. Customers can be easily found on messaging apps. Meet your customers where they are. 

Make your social media presence relevant, as instant messaging takes over all other modes of customer communication in the times to come. It is no surprise that a large number of companies are found on social media and they are deeply involved in widening their presence on multiple channels. Not only will it delight customers through instant resolution, but also help in lead generation and business growth. 

Trend #4 – Gear up for an Omnichannel Customer Experience

Are you a forward-thinking business? If yes, you may be thinking of or have already shifted from multichannel communication to an omnichannel one.
Businesses will need to deliver a seamless omnichannel customer experience (CX), wherein all channels of customer communication are well-integrated. All customer queries and requests should be accessible from the same place.

Your customers expect you to have support tools that make your and their life easy. Enterprise software for customer service is one such tool that enables various departments to work in a collaborative fashion. Everyone working on the ticket will be aware of the customer’s case history and the progress on it. Tickets will be visible to a large number of people at the same time and they can make internal comments on them.

Besides, the SaaS help desk ticketing system allows creating child tickets to track internal subtasks. Faster issue resolution is what matters the most to your customers.

Related Read: All Things About SaaS Customer Service

Trend #5 – Self-service is the key

In 2020, self-help is expected to become the new customer service trend. It will, indeed, be a game-changer in the customer service industry. Customers of today look to solve their problems on their own, instead of bothering support agents. Nobody has the time or the patience to be on a call with an agent for hours and then, hang up waiting.

Businesses realize the importance of self-help, as it is cost-effective and creates delighted customers. This is the reason why you should build a searchable knowledge platform and let your customers help themselves through user manuals, guides, help articles, FAQs, and online documentation. 

As your customers don’t ask repeated questions, agents can invest their valuable time on other customer support-related tasks. They can also save on operational costs due to less number of tickets being created. 

A few of the frequently asked questions on customer support tools:

Q1. Can I view customer questions if my agent is offline, but the customer leaves his query?
Yes, help desk software enables you to view customer questions in the form of support tickets. They reflect in your shared inbox. There is thus no loss of tickets.

Q2. How do I help customers to checkout faster once they have added products to their cart?
You can provide your customers quick solutions by chatting with them online. In case they stay for long on a page, you can offer them help or encourage them to click the checkout button by resolving their questions faster.

Q3. How do I improve on the performance of my customer support operators?
One of the most useful features of a help desk software is that it comes with the “reports and analytics” feature. Basis the ratings, you can find out the individual operator performance and also how the team fares on the customer service. Customize the training based on your customer feedback.