What to expect from the year ahead? It’s time to think about which new customer service trends companies should consider in the upcoming year to offer cutting-edge support and be widely competitive. 

 

Omnichannel technologies continue to evolve significantly and customers’ expectations are increasing constantly. After the Covid-19 Pandemic, some relevant changes emerged:

people are more impatient during their interactions with the company, they would like their requests to be immediately solved, they consider it more convenient and they are returning to brick-and-mortar stores. This means companies should not stay away from optimizing multichannel customer service and more customer-centered strategies should be implemented.

 

Let’s go through the three main ongoing trends:

 

 

  • Even-increasing relevance of customer experience (CX)

 

 

Nowadays keeping a customer loyal over time is not an easy task because people are looking for an even more engaging experience and they quickly go away from business that does not efficiently fulfill their needs. Most customers think companies are not always meeting their expectations, especially after the return of the in-store purchase. They feel more neglected by the digital customer service department. A bad customer experience makes them choose another brand.

The first challenge in 2023 is to balance the offline and online experience by always ensuring a satisfactory service through different channels. Companies should invest more than ever in a professional contact center system to efficiently handle other conversation methods. They should focus their forces on promptly solving requests in an omnichannel scenario, and be more emphatic with the customers. 

 

 

  • Rising demand for advanced self-service tools

 

 

This second aspect is also related to the demand for an even-better CX: It is increasingly clear the need for customers to have alternative support to customer service. They first prefer to solve questions on their own. 

Companies have faced this new behavior by implementing new technologies in their support departments, such as chatbots, FAQs, video tutorials, and troubleshooting sections. Building an optimized system of answers to the most common questions is a good strategic choice to invest in in 2023. Both customers and agents can benefit from this scenario: it decreases the number of calls in the queue and consequently, it reduces the waiting time because people only call for more complex issues that they can’t solve on their own.

 

 

  • AI technologies and UC data analysis to improve the service

 

 

These years it is expected to see higher adoption of AI technologies and UC data analysis systems to improve the customer service department. This is an inevitable consequence of the greater customers’ expectations of five-star support. In the upcoming year, companies should implement these methods to improve their service. This doesn’t mean customer service will have a less human approach but implies better organization. 

  • AI-based technologies help to automate some processes (e.g. IVR messages and call routing system) and consequently streamline the daily activities of the agents so they can focus their forces on straightaway solving customers’ issues at their best. 
  • Analyzing UC data helps to understand the service weaknesses and customers’ common requests and aids to give valuable suggestions on how to enhance the service performance. Leveraging brings great results in providing support and cuts off service costs by decreasing inefficiencies.

 

Let’s always have to heed that an improved customer service experience goes hand-in-hand with the employee experience. A well-organized and intuitive UC system makes a difference in the relationship between customers and the company because it helps to make agents feel more confident in supporting customers at their best.

 

 

Are you among 65% of the companies willing to increase their investments in improving customer experience in 2023? (source: Metrigy research)

Contact our experts to discuss your following plans. They will help you to enhance it and get valuable suggestions on which best UC solutions you should adopt in support of this upcoming goal.