With 2020 down to its last few months, companies complete yet another year of customer service work. And as we bring the year to a close, many will start looking at what’s ahead for next year. Here are some of the customer service trends for 2021 that you should be ready for.
2021 customer service trends no. 1: The growth of proactive support
Customer service has always been geared towards a reactive approach. Customers encounter issues and proceed to contact you, to which you respond. However, your agents can often become burdened with too many questions, while the customer is stuck waiting for a response.
A growing movement towards a more proactive approach aims to resolve this problem. Here, the company actively anticipates whatever issues customers might encounter. They then develop and present this to them even before they need it.
Proactive customer support provides companies a lot of benefits. It helps reduce the number of support calls significantly, freeing agents to focus on other customer needs. Companies can also control the conversation around their brand. By providing customers with solutions even before they need them, you can influence public perception in a more positive light. Data from Microsoft shows that 68% of customers have a more favorable view of companies with proactive customer support.
Riding the trend
Effectively delivering proactive customer support requires a considerable shift from your usual support process. Here, you need to be readily available across multiple channels. This strategy gives you more room to listen to customer conversations and know their pain points early.
Building a comprehensive resource center for your customers is also vital. Keep in mind that this isn’t just about solving simple problems. You need to go a step further and address m more difficult concerns that they might encounter. Additionally, you have to be active in alerting customers about new concerns that they should be ready for.
2021 customer service trends no. 2: The growth of contactless customer service
Various forms of contactless customer service have always been present. However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted just how vital they are. People worried about health sought these features for their safety ehenver heading out to physical establishments.
Even after the pandemic is over, companies should still expect a high demand for this type of service. For that, you need to be ready to deliver full contactless support whenever they request it. The challenge lies in how you will effectively deliver that to them.
Riding the trend
Here, observers expect personalization to become an even more essential component. After all, customers would still want a semblance of interaction with human agents. As such, you need to give them the choice to opt-in or out of these interactions. You should also have a good understanding of each moment of the customer journey where contactless service would be required.
For instance, your store might have several stops from the time the customer enters the door to the time they pay for their purchase. By rethinking how these customer-facing spaces and functions work, you can better map out how to introduce contactless services to them.
To further ensure effective implementation, you have to consider how the shift will affect the various organizational pillars in your company. Creating a unified customer database will help your various departments implement a seamless and contactless service. It is also vital that your company is adaptable, as the demands of contactless services can change quickly.
2021 customer service trends no. 3: The growth of predictive analytics
To more effectively meet the greater demand for proactive customer support, you need to have a better understanding of customer behavior. For this, experts believe that predictive analytics will become an important customer service trend.
Predictive analytics is a collection of strategies and methods aimed at creating a future model of an event. In the case of customer service, that future event is the customer’s possible buying behavior. The growth of various social media channels and advanced data gathering methods means that you can create more accurate models and better anticipate their actions based on the data.
Riding the trend
Knowing which of these numerous data points to focus on is essential when creating your predictive model. Some of the vital ones are:
- Transactional data
- Customer product usage
- Text data from customer communications like emails, chat, and other channels
- Customer reactions to price changes
- Customer preferences
Artificial intelligence and machine learning will help you make sense of the voluminous data and see the pattern of behavior. Once you have your analysis, you can begin mapping out how to respond to these customer behaviors. Being able to anticipate and respond effectively to customer actions will help you retain them longer.
2021 customer service trends no. 4: The continued growth of chatbots
Chatbots have only recently seen widespread use in customer service but they are experiencing a significant boom. Advancement in technology means that they are now more powerful than before. And businesses are seeing the benefits that these are bringing in. As such, 50% of support teams are ready to invest more in technology.
Riding the trend
To get the most out of this automation, you need to deploy it the right way. Think about what kind of interactions your customers will have with chatbots. Would your chatbots provide only the basic information or will they have to respond to more complex questions? All of these will dictate the design of your bots.
How you integrate chatbots with your human agents is also important. Don’t think of them as separate from each other. Instead, your customer must be able to transfer seamlessly from bots to agents. With that, your service process becomes more efficient in handling customer concerns.
Be ready to embrace these trends in 2021
These customer service trends show that 2021 is again going to be an exciting year for companies and their support teams. And being ready to embrace these trends will be a good step for your company. Follow them and see how they can help boost your business this coming year.