In this modern competitive business environment customer support, apart from branding, is becoming the backbone of business differentiation and the reason companies are able to set themselves apart from their competition, and make customers want to buy their products and hire their services. Quality customer support offers so many benefits that nobody can overlook this aspect of business.
This is why organizations are racing to improve their customer support as much as possible and turning towards new approaches and technological advancements that will allow them to improve the experience of their customers. When it comes to customer support, it’s important to go a step further than your competitors and always look to perfect your skills.
This is why each New Year companies implement new approaches and look to dazzle their customers, so that they remain loyal and spread the word about their business. Given the fact that we have already entered the third quarter of 2017, it’s good to start thinking about what to do with your customer support strategy in the upcoming year. Here are some things that will matter in 2018.
Personalization, personalization and personalization
The development of modern customer support tools that allow companies to manage their service while gaining valuable information about what customers want has changed many things. These are solutions that companies can directly utilize to help customers and store valuable feedback.
The possibility of gathering such information on your own without having to address a third party has allowed businesses to learn more about their current and potential customers. Companies need to work on acquiring and storing this data at all times, as this knowledge can allow them to be more effective in customer service as well as making direct sales.
In 2018, it will be more important than ever to be able to predict what your customers want and need. Customer expectations change every year and this is why you need to follow up on these changes and create an approach that is tailored to your target audience specifically.
Brands need to work on their communication, no matter what customer support channel we are talking about, and they need to reduce the distance between them and their customers while making sure that their approach is not generic.
Self-service solutions
Apart from the fact that companies are pursuing valuable information to provide their customers with the service they want, it is also important to give customers proper solutions that they can use on their own, without your help, to acquire the information they need to make a purchase and better understand what your business is all about.
Allow customers to use tools on their own that can help them reach out to your brand as they see fit. There are more and more customers that want to do things on their own, because they cherish their individuality and they prefer managing on their own, while contacting someone for help only when they find it necessary.
It’s not about the quantity of self-service tools, it’s about offering quality to customers. Businesses will customize the majority of their customer support to be self-service by 2020, given the fact that all younger consumers prefer doing things on their own.
All self-service tools including live chat software, knowledge base systems, social media support and other solutions are predicted to be able to give a more personalized and consistent support to customers, giving them valuable answers to questions they come up with their own. On top of that, statistics show that self-service tools are outperforming phone support and this trend is only expected to grow in the future.
Improving the speed of service
No matter what customer support channels will be most popular in the future, they will all have one thing in common – they will need to provide a quick response to customers. The business that answers and helps first will be the one that customers will choose to buy from.
Call centers are already becoming obsolete because it takes time for help to be provided and people might need to call multiple times in order to get the information they require.
This means that customer support tools that are able to increase the speed of service are likely to be more successful in the future. Still even if this is a fact, it doesn’t mean that phones or emails are going to be completely ruled out. For some types of businesses these customer support channels might be more fitting and they will need to find ways to adjust them and be as responsive as possible.
Customer satisfaction is directly connected to the speed of service and it is one of the most important factors. People don’t have time to wait around for a business to notice them, especially when they know that there are multiple similar organizations that can provide them with similar services or products.
Using data to provide an amazing experience
When talking about these trends, bear in mind that it is deeply connected to self-service tools and the way they are used. With self-service tools businesses are able to remove all the customer support burden to their customers, as they won’t have to do anything except set up their tools and watch them do their magic. Or do they?
In order to create useful self-service portals, it’s important to acquire valuable data through which its possible to develop such useful solutions. On top of that, you can also utilize self-service portals such as knowledge base solutions to gather even more relevant data.
For example, by implementing comment sections and Q&A sections within your knowledge base, you will be able to gather data on customer opinion and how they perceive a certain subject, which is directly connected to your business. Consider outsourcing data research services at the start, until you are able to create a useful strategy.
Make sure that you follow up on these four trends and you will be able to create quality customer support channels in 2018 as well. Implement all of the modern customer support software tools that instantly give you more options to curate and control your customer support.
Robin Singh
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