10 Customer Service Trends to Watch in 2014

Cemm100 Make Customer Communication Simple & Effective 10 Customer Service Trends to Watch in 2014 "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." - John F. Kennedy UI From Cost Center to Differentiator Customer service is overtaking price and product as the key brand differ- entiator, as it's increasingly difficult to stay outstanding from competitions in the pure product level. 62% 82% 62% of global consumers switched 82% of consumers felt their service service providers in 2013 due to poor customer service experiences. providers could have done some- thing to prevent switching. Accenture Global Consumer Pulse Survey Tip Make customer service part of your marketing strategy. Allocate more budgets to customer retention and customer loyalty programs. 02 Moving to the Cloud Saas has overtaken on-premise in the CRM industry. Many solutions once available in multiple deployment modes are now Saas only. 70% 70% of organizations are either currently using Saas solutions for horizontal business processes like CRM or are interested in doing so. Forrester 2013 Customer Service Trends Report Tip Pay special attention to service reliability and data security when selecting your cloud-based service providers. 03 Going Mobile The popularization of smartphones makes mobile commerce one of the fastest growing industries in 2013. When customers go mobile, how can customer service stay behind? $223 billion $37 billion 2011 2016 Global B2C mobile commerce spending will grow 6 fold between 2011 and 2016, reaching $223 billion by the end of 2016. IDC Worldwide New Media Market Model Forecast Tip Build your mobile presence in a way that adds value to customers in a mobile environment, rather than duplicating your web presence for your mobile offering. 04 Going Social The best way businesses use social media in 2014 is to integrate mar- keting and customer service. Increasingly more customers rely on social media to stay engaged with their service providers. 70% 59% 12% 2010 2013 The adoption of social customer service 70% of businesses will use social media programs increased by about five-fold as part of their customer service programs between 2010 and 2013. by middle 2014. Aberdeen Group Tip Use a social media management tool that allows you to take care of all your social accounts in one place and get notified immediately when there is a pending request. 05 Going Proactive It's no longer enough to wait for customers to reach out when they need help. Communicating with customers proactively is becoming an ongoing activity for professional customer service teams to prevent issues before they occur. 29% 29% of enterprises are currently investing in proactive outbound communications. We predict that the range of channels for proactive outbound will increase, and will include service alerts, workarounds, customized cross-sell and upsell offers, and new knowledge base content. Forrester Tip A common proactive service practice can be seen in live chat support, where service agents can send personalized chat invitations to targeted customers on top of taking inbound chat requests. 06 Big Data To be relevant in the future, businesses must leverage big data to real- ize customer intelligence across channels so as to provide proactive and personalized customer service. 64% Big data investments in 2013 continue to rise, with 64 percent of organizations investing or planning to invest in big data technology. Gartner Tip Use big data to get customer insights and identify high margin customers for cross selling, up- selling or higher levels of service so you can improve gross margin mix and customer retention. 07 self-Service Self-service will continue to grow in 2014. It not only helps in reducing inbound inquiries and improving support efficiency, but also is a loved way of getting support by increasingly more customers. 75% 67% 67% of respondents said they pre- 75% of survey respondents said self-service is a convenient way to ferred self-service over speaking to address customer service issues. a live person. A recent survey by Nuance Enterprise Tip Directing customers to self-service resources before they get in touch with the service staff will greatly reduce support requests while maintaining customer satisfaction. 08 crowdsourcing Customers talk more. Going forward, businesses that provide an online community where customers and employees can share their voice and get questions answered together are more likely to create a fulfilling support experience. 20% One-way participation in content will decline to under 20%. Brands that build web services that foster community and loyalty gain equity; those that rely solely on price and selection fade. Google Insights Tip Using group problem-solving and reward tools like gamification can encourage user participation in interactive support environments such as an online community. 09 Omni-Channel Experience While communication channels increase, delivering an omni-channel expe- rience becomes a necessity to superior customer service. Customers want the ability to start an interaction in one channel and complete it in another, with consistent, personalized and contextual information provided. 12% rise 24% rise 25% rise 2011 2013 2011 2013 2011 2013 web self-service chat community Voice is still the primary communication channel used, but quickly followed by self-service channels, and digital channels like chat and email. We've seen a 12% rise in web self-service usage, a 24% rise in chat usage, and a 25% increase in community usage for customer service in the past three years. Forrester Tip Using a multi-channel help desk solution which enables you to access the full history of a customer's prior interactions across channels will make your way to omni-channel customer service experience. 10 24/7/365 Forget 9 to 5. 24/7 service is becoming more an industry standard than an advantage in e-commerce, especially among businesses targeting the global audience. Most customers don't have the patience to wait. 24Seven Tip • Use self-service tools and automated programs to help customers get answers by themselves. • Leverage the power of mobile technologies to provide customer service while on the go. • Employ service staff remotely in different time zones around the world or outsource your customer service to a professional call center, if necessary. Presented by Cemm100 www.comm100.com