How Technology Enhances Customer Service

New technologies not only contribute to our daily lives and make everyday activities easier, they’re completely changing the way we live and work. Like it or not, it’s now a fact: technology has become an integral part of our daily routines.

In our competitive the business world, where the importance of delivering exceptional customer experience cannot be emphasized enough, technology has the power to help shape the future of customer service. It’s no surprise then that forward-thinking businesses have started to utilize the current tech boom to this end.

By leveraging the advantages of technological advancements, businesses can more easily satisfy and retain their customers and improve overall customer experience.

In this article, we’ll look at five customer service technology solutions that have already started to shape the future of customer service. Check them out, and make sure you too are leveraging up-to-date technology to deliver better customer experience.

Omnichannel communication

Nowadays, more and more businesses are recognizing that a customer journey may begin on one channel and end on a completely different platform.

When it comes to contacting customer service, customers can today take their pick from phone, email, SMS or webchat, and this omnichannel communication allows businesses to personalize their customer service by letting customers communicate via their preferred platform.  

Providing omnichannel customer service is no small feat, but the real challenge businesses have to tackle is to deliver consistent levels of customer service across these channels. Therefore, it is important to ensure that customer communication quality is equal for all the channels you use in order to be able to quickly resolve issues.

And don’t forget, sometimes less is more: instead of being present on every platform, make sure to focus on the channels your customers want you to be present on.

Social media

Chances are you’ve checked your personal social media platforms at least once in the last few hours, and perhaps even came across this article via a social media channel.

There’s no doubt that the popularity of social media platforms is continuing to grow, and a number of platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, have turned into important customer service channels.

These days, instead of calling a customer service representative, customers prefer to go online and check social media platforms to get real-time information.

And as conversations on social media channels are often in the public domain, your potential customers can see how your business handles customer queries (for more info, check out our article on the importance of online reviews). If you resolve an issue quickly on a channel seen by your customers, they will be reassured that you’re taking good care of them. On the other hand, unanswered or negative comments will easily scare potential customers away.

Self-Service is the new customer service

Self-service is definitely a hot topic in customer service at the moment. And with consumer behavior developing as it is, it is really important for businesses to keep up with these new trends.

Customers today are looking to solve their problems themselves, rather than dialing customer service lines. As a result, self-service options have become ever-more popular for companies, with a knowledge base software or FAQ on their website allowing them to provide a comparatively simple way to manage customer queries.

Other popular self-service options include the implementation of chatbots (more on this below) and self-service IVR solutions. Giving customers information quickly helps reduce call volumes, while a well-constructed FAQ helps narrow down calls to those involving more complex issues.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to change customer service as we’ve never seen before, with chatbots undoubtedly being the next big thing in the tech world. The global artificial intelligence market value is around 200 billion US dollars and is poised to experience a tenfold increase by the year 2030, reaching a staggering two trillion US dollars.

Evolving chatbot technology is becoming more and more important in customer service, as it is increasingly being proved that chatbots can deliver exceptional customer experience. While customer service reps can struggle to respond to all incoming conversations, chatbots can intervene and easily handle thousands of conversations across several channels.

Implementing a chatbot solution as part of customer service activity is an inevitability for any organization that wants to deliver exceptional customer experience – it’s just a matter of time.

Data analytics

As data continually flows through call centers, forward-thinking companies have started to utilize this information to deliver improved customer experience. Data analytics, for example, allows you to better understand your customers’ behaviors and needs, and thus help you make your customer service more personalized.

But if you want your customer service reps to use data to help deliver prompt customer service, then you’ll need to invest in tools that support it. By using powerful reporting tools and call center software solutions, your customer service reps will be able to turn data – such as call recordings, chats, social media messages and SMS messages – into valuable customer feedback.

VCC Live’s call center software is a good example of what can be achieved, offering real-time statistics that allow you to understand and continually improve your customer interactions.

As you can see, evolving technology is continuing to reshape the business world, and customer service departments are no exception. But if you make sure to keep up with the latest trends, you too will be able to utilize up-to-date technology to deliver exceptional customer experience.