Important Components Of Customer Service In The Future

With the Fourth wave of Industrial Revolution looming upon us, every business have increased their customer’s expectations. Customers want everything NOW and we ought to deliver. One cannot deny that technology driven support systems are the new hype and to survive in this economy, it is an urgent need for contact centers to stay up-to-date.  

The worldview is to allow automation or AI driven technologies to take-over as many that can be automated while the contact centers can enable their agents to  diversify his time and skills on other activities. The drive for such an ecosystem had already started with the advent of omnichannel contact centers. Such advancements have evoked expectations amongst the new-age customers and has given an opportunity for improvement, across industries.
As predicted by many moguls, customer service quality will be a major differentiator of 2022 and I have taken the liberty to list down few crucial trends that businesses must keep eyes on & equip in their contact center solution, so as to keep up with the game.

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Customers are now well-connected and they have access to several touch-points. From social media to instant messaging, they have different methods to reach out to a business, be it for a complaint or an important feedback. A full-fledged commercial body needs to be ubiquitous, using the omnichannel contact center to its full potential. 

This will enable us to connect-with and understand every individual’s journey with the product and will allow us to analyse and improve. Overtime, teams will realize where does the influx lie and they can strategize and equip themselves accordingly. Based on recent studies, social media has become the most common touchpoint for millions of customers. Companies are mobilizing on this particular front, now more than ever as they run a risk of getting a bad experience out in the public. It is safe to say that how brands cater to their consumers on social media, will be a huge deciding factor for the future of customer service, in this decade.

Contact center agents are the backbone of the whole customer service system. But often humans can lag behind when everything is happening at the speed of bits and bytes. An AI powered agent assistant will be ofgreat help.

Agents can benefit from the assistant in multiple ways and rapidly improve customer service. When a feedback is registered or a complaint has been logged, the agent assistant will pop-up with relevant solutions, instantaneously. With NLP capability, the customer's issue can be easily comprehended and a possible solution can be provided to the contact center agent. This takes off the burden from the agent and assists in delivering services within a short span of time. 
As per Deloitte, 9% of customer service leaders plan to invest in more AI capabilities over the next two years.

The future of customer success lies on how we tend to this new generation of customers. Millennials do not like the hassle of extra interaction, in order to fix a problem. Instead, they will look up for a solution in the search engine and would try to get an immediate fix. 

Virtual Assistants in the form of chatbots & voicebots can be a relief for these self-servicing customers. Irrespective of the mode of instruction, these smart bots provide immediate help based on its learning. To be clear, they can take-up on all the repetitive tasks and provide mass solutions to recurring issues, all at once. In doing so, they have the capacity to open the door for another sales process. 

These assistants are extremely helpful for businesses who provide complicated services that involve a lot of data like banks or the healthcare industry. Virtual Assistants are proactive in nature and will prompt solutions to the contact center based on your customer’s queries. They relieve the burden on human agents, bring seamless interaction to the table and ensure a commendable customer feedback. Chatbots do a great job by integrating various APIs to retrieve or send data back and forth with CRM, Order Management System etc. With virtual assistant in mobile phones, you almost can have similar experience like “Hello Alexa, how much EMI is due for the month!” Yes, virtual assistants can operate via text or voice.

In a completely digitized environment, video support will bring a personal touch to the whole discipline of customer service. This is when customers will truly feel heard or rather ‘seen.’ 

Live video support from contact centers can assure trust and accurate assistance within a small span of time. From hardware issues to complicated software issues, customers will be able to express their concerns with ease. 

Imagine you have problem with your car, video chat solution can enable a video call with the customer service team. The car expert can request you to point the rear camera to a particular place and provide quick diagnostic and possible help. In the long run, such impactful customer service will ensure good ROI and even reduce costs on many fronts. If used wisely, it can also create opportunities for upselling.

We are truly alive in a time where devices are getting smarter every day. The day is not far when devices become truly self-aware. We already live amongst AI-driven devices. These devices are constantly feeding up on data and learning to be self-dependent. 

Imagine a world, where you do not have to take your laptops for servicing or car for repairing cause the AI inside it has detected its looming failures and has already applied the fixes. This isn’t far from reality. Various teams are working on this module of AI to take the game of customer service through contact centers to an entirely different level.

Intelligence driven devices will be adapting to all its surroundings while constantly learning about its user and their preferences. This way, services will be catered in accordance to every individual. With such works in progress, we can state that the future of customer service lies on pretty high stakes and everyone is rushing to keep up with it. 

Conclusion:

The laws of customer service have changed drastically over the last decade and with growing impact of it on the economy, the future of customer service through contact center holds lots of possibilities. To provide steady attention to every consumer, brands need to rewrite their plan of action. It’s high time to elevate automation to the different levels of the procedure, while amplifying the efficiency of the reps. Customer centric approach will deliver new scopes of revenue generation and will secure a brands reputation for the coming years.