Customer service will always be a game changer for every business, no matter what scale or size. So, it’s imperative that every business follows the latest customer service trends so as to keep up with the ever-rising customer expectations.
We made you familiar with the top customer service trends that’ll be big in 2018! Here are some more.
Sales and service teams will be aligned to provide a better customer service:
Customer service will be taken a step further with the alignment of the sales and service teams in the upcoming year.
The result?
Well, the alignment will not only enhance the customer service but will also turn contact centers from cost centers into key drivers the top customer service trendsthe top customer service trendsthe top customer service trendsof profit. This will further enable both the teams to collaborate so as to recommend products, process orders, and resolve customer concerns.
Digital self-service will be preferred by the businesses worldwide:
It is a no-brainer that today’s customers love helping themselves. They’ll prefer solving their problems on their own rather than contacting a company.
Customers today expect 24/7 real-time customer support, that too without reaching out to the support team!
Quite weird, isn’t it?
Well, that’s not really a problem if a company invests in digital self-service. In fact, the latest trends suggest that the businesses will move towards digital self-service so as to lower support costs and provide a 24/7/365 empowerment to customers.
The criteria for hiring customer support team will be different:
For a change, businesses will be investing a lot more in customer service than ever before.
Yes, that’s a fact!
With the increasing demand for omnichannel customer support, companies will now focus on hiring support agents who are great at assisting customers in multiple ways. Rather than an agent’s efficiency to serve the customers on a single channel, companies will consider hiring the ones with a high level of channel agility so as to provide a seamless customer experience across all channels.
AI will not replace the human chat agents:
There are speculations that AI will replace human customer support in the near future.
As a matter of fact, the statement above is just a myth. That’s because there will always be a need for human-to-human interactions. AI can automate some of the processes involved in providing a great customer service. The AI-powered chatbots, for instance, can take care of the repetitive queries. However, the companies will still need to hire support agents for more complex queries.
No doubt, AI can lessen the burden on a company’s support team. It can actually free them to focus on higher value, more complex customer engagements. However, it can never replace the human agents for the fact that AI-powered bots can only learn what they’re taught!
So, these were some more customer service trends that businesses need to look forward to so as to stay ahead of the competition in 2018!