New service trends are emerging as digital-first customer experiences come to the fore, tailored towards the modern, autonomous customer.
According to McKinsey & Company, the customers “believe they can get whatever they want, whenever they want, within minutes.”
In keeping with these changing customer expectations, customer service is evolving. As such, here are ten digital customer service trends to keep an eye on.
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The Shift Towards Self-Service
Customers are increasingly searching for answers themselves through digital channels, such as websites, mobile apps, or chatbots – whether that is for finding information, resolving common issues, or purchasing products and services.
Indeed, customers appreciate the convenience of self-service, which may also save organizations time and money. A Nuance study even suggests that 89% of consumers want to engage in conversation with virtual assistants to quickly find information instead of searching through web pages or a mobile app on their own.
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An Uplift in No-Code/Low-Code Tools
Low Code/No code (LC/NC) refers to visual development platforms that allow business users to develop and deploy applications without writing code. These solutions use pre-built components assembled like Legos to create digital experiences.
As a result, businesses rely less on developers and expensive third-party platforms.
Beyond traditional use cases like chatbots and mobile apps, the low-code and no-code revolution is expanding as businesses wish to accelerate their digital transformation plans. LC/NC CRM enhancements are an excellent example of this.
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Customers Seek Simplicity
Customers today expect simplicity and convenience in their digital experiences. Many CX teams are striving to meet this goal through customer experience management (CXM), which aims to ensure a streamlined, cohesive experience across all touchpoints.
Many innovations are surfacing to support CXM teams. These include proactive support, remote asset monitoring through the internet of things (IoT), and conversational AI.
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The Rise of Hyper-Personalization
Hyper-personalization is the process of tailoring experiences to individual customers rather than audience segments or demographic groups. It begins with collating customer data into actionable profiles.
Such data then channels into recommendation engines, online forms, and marketing software for an experience that suits customer needs, preferences, and value. It is much more than addressing customers by name.
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A Push Towards Proactive Customer Engagement
Proactive engagement smooths over customer journey friction points to lower effort, increase retention, and enhance value. There are many ways in which it does so, including:
- Sending proactive support messages to online customers who are taking a long time to checkout.
- Offering recommendations based on website behavior, customer lifecycle stage, and other factors.
- Sharing personalized renewal reminders alongside other critical event notifications
- Anticipating queries that new visitors and prospects may have and providing helpful content.
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Smartphone-First Experiences
More and more customers use smartphones to connect with businesses, making it the most critical “vessel” for CX. As such, having a responsive website in place, which automatically adjusts to the device’s screen size, is vital. It ensures that customers can always access the website, no matter what device they use.
Mobile apps are also a cornerstone of many smartphone first experiences. They provide a more seamless experience by offering exclusive features. For example, a food delivery app can allow customers to track their orders in real-time, an excellent innovation for customer engagement.
Finally, companies may also start to optimize customer service for mobile. Doing so involves ensuring that the customer service team is available on the channels that customers use most, such as live chat, social media, and messaging apps. It also requires a level of self-service, like a knowledge base or FAQ section, enabling customers to find quick answers to their queries.
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Preserving Customer Context
Preserving customer context is essential for seamless service experiences. When customers contact the team, they expect agents to have all the information they need to resolve the issue.
Fortunately, there are several ways to preserve customer context. One is to use a CRM system, which stores customer data in one central location, so it is easy for agents to access.
Many such systems now include AI, which assesses customer behavior and sentiment to discover more helpful insights to supercharge customer communication and broader CX strategies.
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Strategic Video
According to HubSpot, the number of consumers watching online videos has doubled since 2018. Yet, it is not only a marketing channel. Indeed, video may also enhance customer support through giving live demonstrations or troubleshooting technical issues.
Also, video is an excellent channel to embolden the human factor in CX, offering support to customers in a friendly, hands-on manner. Arne Bassez, VP of Business Management at Pexip, discusses this in more detail in the video below.
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Predictive Routing
Predictive routing is a contact routing technology that evaluates each interaction based on a customer’s previous behavior, product preferences, persona type, and other variables to predict the skills and personality traits an agent will need to serve them optimally.
The software then matches the contact to an available agent based on the latest data. Rapport increases with this capability, which often reflects in customer satisfaction and net promoter scores.
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Continuous Journey Optimization
Continuous journey optimization is the process of constantly improving CX by analyzing customer data across channels and touchpoints and making changes to the customer journey.
Businesses must track and analyze journey analytics to find areas for improvement. They must also make changes quickly, as customer needs can change rapidly.
The rise of analytics-based technologies, which allow businesses to better understand their customers in different contexts, supports this trend.
Is your contact center ready for the new digital reality? If not, the following video may prove helpful:
