With customer behavior and expectations evolving daily, your customer service must undergo a makeover to keep pace. As we enter a new decade, it’s essential to reflect on how customer behavior and expectations have shifted in recent years and identify the tools and technologies to help us meet these changing demands. In this blog, we talk about the technologies transforming customer service in 2020 and beyond.
Changes in Consumer Behavior
Over the past decade, we’ve observed significant shifts in consumer behavior:
- Customers dislike waiting in call queues.
- They expect immediate responses to their queries and requests.
- Personalized customer service is a must, available 24/7.
- Customers prefer the convenience of speaking to a live agent.
- They do not want to repeat themselves when transferred to another agent.
- Purchase-related queries must be resolved instantly.
- Customers want to multitask while interacting with a company.
To satisfy these evolving demands, businesses need to provide faster, more personalized, and timely customer assistance that seamlessly integrates into customers’ daily routines. Continuous data-driven insights can enhance customer satisfaction scores. By integrating artificial intelligence, businesses can deliver superior customer service and experience, giving them a competitive edge.
Essential Technologies Transforming Customer Service
1. Live Chat
In 2020, live chat became an essential feature for customer service. Over 41% of customers today expect a live chat channel to be on a company’s website. That number is even higher for mobile-first customers – more than 50%. That means live chat is no longer a nice-to-have feature – it has become a competitive necessity. Within the next year or two, live chat is expected to grow by 87%.
Live chat allows for prompt responses to customer queries, saves interactions for future reference, and assists customers in making online purchases. It also enables customers to multitask while interacting with a live agent without waiting on hold. Multichannel call centers can help set up and manage live chat tools on websites, apps, or social media pages.
2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Many modern call centers also implement artificial intelligence to better serve their clients’ customers.
AI has significantly impacted call centers with interactive voice response (IVR) systems, enhancing efficiency. AI assists agents by projecting necessary customer information on their screens, saving time and improving service quality. Advanced AI-enabled IVR tools can interpret customer accents and intonation, routing calls to the appropriate agents. Although AI technology is still developing, it is expected to become more efficient in interpreting tones and emotions, emerging as a powerful customer service tool.
3. Big Data
Big data and granular insights drive modern businesses. Call centers now provide clients with data analytics to make informed, customer-focused business decisions. Data-driven insights reveal customer preferences and identify areas for improvement in customer service. Big data also aids call centers in hiring and retaining qualified agents who can deliver better customer experiences.
4. Quality Assurance (QA)
Quality assurance is the key to deliver the customer experience that your customers have come to expect from you. It can help you build your brand, gain new customers, and get repeat business. According to a survey, by 2020, customers will give more importance to the experience than to price or product. Even today, 86% of customers are willing to pay more for better service. 67% of customers cite poor service as a reason for leaving a company.
QA in call centers manages customer expectations and loyalty measures agent performance, ensures regulatory compliance, and identifies business success factors.
Conclusion
These technologies are revolutionizing the customer service industry and will continue to do so for years to come. Fusion CX, with years of experience in customer service, has integrated these technologies to offer live chat, AI, data analysis, and quality assurance services. As a multichannel call center, Fusion CX can be the perfect partner to enhance your customer service.
