4 Trends That Will Help Transform Your Customer Service Strategy

Globalization and e-commerce have amped up the competition for most consumer focused businesses, and many organizations are now making the most of call center outsourcing.

To rise above and compete with vendors around the world, your brand needs a 360 degree customer experience (CX). It’s all about superior customer service.

That’s why your ability to offer a quality customer experience will ultimately decide how successful your business is. 

Failure to offer excellent customer service will be devastating in the long-term. Your company will lose sales, squander revenue opportunities and fail to capture loyal customers as they move on to your competitors.

However, the implementation of a robust, customer-centric service program will result in the opposite. Sales will rise, yearly profits will increase and current customers will not only become loyal but they will refer others to your business through both word of mouth and online reviews.

What’s your cost of customer acquisition, and how much do you save when customers show up from a referral? There are significant savings to capture.

Here are four customer service trends that you absolutely cannot afford to ignore if you want to offer your clients world-class customer service:

1 - Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is fairly new to customer service, but it is growing exponentially and is now pretty much essential for any business looking to keep up with the service offered by competitors.

The chatbot, which you’ve probably seen on many customer-facing websites, is one example of how AI is transforming the customer service game.

Whether installed as a chat window on a website, an app, or over the phone by voice, chatbots provide customer service, present product recommendations, provide advice on how to deal with a faulty product or service, or they can direct consumers to an appropriate contact center representative to help them further. All this right at the hands of the consumer.

2 - Reducing customer effort is key

Customers are more knowledgeable than ever before, and with the increased flow and ease-of-access to information that has come with the internet, customers now expect to be able to solve their problems immediately.

This behavior has increased the importance of a new type of customer service - self-service. A type of digital support, self-service is a way of providing your customers with free online information that they can use to instantly solve an issue.

The best thing about self-service support? It removes the need for the vast majority of customers to call your customer service line due to trivial questions, freeing up representatives to focus on tasks that will provide a higher value to your customers.

3 - Servicing your customers across all channels

In our daily lives, we use phones, tablets, laptops, watches and numerous other technologies to browse the web, look for new products and find new services, and there’s no way of guaranteeing your customer’s preferred device. This is why an omni-channel approach to customer service is essential.

You need to be able to satisfy the needs of your customer across all devices. Let’s be honest, if a customer can’t access your website via their phone or it’s not functional, they’ll simply move on to the next company that offers a similar product or service to you.

4 - Real-time data that transforms customer service representative

As technology has evolved, and more consumers than ever are tech savvy, the expectations of customer service representatives have increased. Customers no longer expect to wait on hold on the phone for 40 minutes while an agent trawls through paperwork to get the right information.

The advancement of real-time data technology means that companies with the technology now have faster, and more accurate information readily available for customers, on-demand.

This automated process provides representatives with a database that enables them to find out information on customers, as well as find solutions to problems, with a mere click of a button. Not only that, but agents can use real-time data to predict customer issues before the customer even knows they exist.

Why outsourcing your customer service could be the right choice

Many businesses simply do not have the time, resources or know-how to implement a truly effective customer service experience that makes the most of innovative new technologies to wow customers. This is where the expertise of a contact center comes into play.

Advantage Communications has all of the tools, innovative technology, experience and knowledge to take your customer service to the next level. While this all may seem complex and expensive, our solutions are cost-effective, ready to implement and entirely customizable to the specific needs of your company.

Are you looking for more information about outsourcing your customer service to a call center in Canada, serving global clients? Contact us today.