The goal of every customer service initiative is to improve customer experiences. Customer experience is a business strategy that all brands should adopt.
Businesses can do this by delivering smooth and personalized solutions to customers. Their success in the business market lies in their effort to address customers’ demands.
One recurring business trend involves companies investing in customer experiences.
Various customer service trends are emerging as customer experience becomes a priority. In this article, we’re walking you through some of these trends.
1. Predictive Analysis as One of the Customer Service Trends
Predictive analytics allows businesses to determine the potential of their strategies. Information drawn from predictive analysis gives insights on the things customers want.
Organizations can use such information to improve customer service. They get to invest more in processes that guarantee customer satisfaction.
Organizations should start analyzing predictive data based on their reach. They should also consider their reputation in the analyses to retain customers. Companies using predictive analytics can serve their clients better.
Customer satisfaction guarantees high conversion rates and purchasing power.
2. Customers Continue Getting Smarter
Customers are getting savvy with the release of various digital technologies. They set their expectations based on their knowledge of goods and services.
Customers are comparing your offerings to those sold by your competitors. Most of them value experiences more than the prices of products.
You need to check your competitors at a customer’s point of view. Do the same procedure to your business to identify your selling points.
Give the clients convenience to attract more or keep them. Your processes and policies should favor their interests.
3. Paid Loyalty Programs
A loyalty program is an incentive giving customers access to perks and benefits. Thousands of businesses offer free loyalty programs to grow their client base.
VIP loyalty programs provide more benefits and perks than the free ones. Such programs offer clients a sense of exclusivity to goods and services.
For instance, Amazon’s Prime membership offers shoppers better deals. Consumers are choosing fee-based programs over free ones for exclusivity. Most of these consumers include millennials and savvy individuals.
Adopting paid loyalty programs can guarantee an increase in revenue. This strategy helps you get your customers excited about new products.
Your clients can recommend their friends and family to join the program too.
4. Projection Mapping for Immersive Experiences
Projection mapping allows your company to create thrilling experiences. You can use projection mapping tools to create interactive 3-D presentations suited for clients.
Such tools enable you to adopt creative marketing strategies. The presentations can inform and engage consumers on your offerings.
Tools available for projection mapping are expensive for small business. However, these tools can reduce in price to allow all business sizes to benefit.
Tech firms are working on small to midsized versions of these tools. You can use them to conceptualize your marketing idea and turn them into immersive content.
Check out our tech page to find out how we help businesses work smarter and faster through technology partnerships.
5. Connecting Customer Experience to Your Business Goals
Offering great customer experience can improve your business outcomes. However, there has to be a connection between the customers’ experiences and your goals.
Your business goals should focus on fostering customer experience. You can use the customer experience data to anticipate the needs and demands of your clients.
Businesses should have a customer experience strategy and platform that’s in-house.
Use the in-house platform to help streamline your company’s goals with the customers’ expectations. Outsourcing experience management services can be expensive and time-consuming.
This new connection allows you to gain data needed to understand customer experiences. Finding this data can be challenging when running a small business.
Most small business owners can’t access the technology for gathering this data. The solution is to invest in your business as you watch your customer base growing.
Business loans tailored to the financial needs of your business can go a long way in ensuring the growth and success of the enterprise.
6. Compliance to Data Protection and Ethics Laws
The General Data Protection Regulation champions for data ethics. After being enacted in 2018, the law gave consumers power over their data.
EU citizens now have the freedom to share any personal data with businesses. Companies risk paying millions of dollars in fines if they violate the GDPR.
Your business should handle customer data under the GDPR. The law prohibits you from sharing user data with outside companies to make profits.
Consumers now want their data to be kept safe than ever. Failing to meet these demands can make you lose your customers.
Small and medium businesses need data to grow. The data may include customers’ tastes, shopping behaviors, and feedback.
However, they should obtain this data lawfully to avoid paying hefty fines.
7. Digital Transformation Is Here to Stay
The digital transformation began once the world was introduced to the world. The idea doesn’t seem to expire anytime soon judging by its adoption.
Digitizing your processes should be among your top priority for success. For it to work, digital transformation has to be a continuous process.
It would help if you thought about the long-term benefits of going digital. Be keen on the emerging technologies and choose those that suit your business.
8. Personalization and Self-Service
Personalization services continue to focus on the human aspect. You can use analytics data to establish buying patterns related to your offerings.
With this information, it’s easier to offer personalized experiences to customers. It would be better if you placed the clients into groups based on their behavior when offering the experiences.
With self-service, your customers get responses to queries quickly. For example, you can create an FAQ page to offer answers to the common questions.
An automated message system can help give them the response they need.
9. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Business managers rely on robotic process automation to streamline operations.
RPA helps automate tasks and reduce costs involved in carrying out these tasks. Your employees can offer the best customer service instead of wasting time on automatable tasks. RPA combines the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
By definition, RPA is a system governed by structured inputs and business logic. You can have software configured to automate repetitive tasks in your company.
RPAs can communicate with digital systems, trigger responses, and process transactions. Their benefits include reduced human error and reduced staffing costs.
10. Employee Experience
Your employees should be motivated to offer great customer service. Employee experience constitutes sentiments your employee give when they’re at work.
Your business establishment should have a leadership style and vibe that favors them. It would help if you had compensations and benefits in place to motivate them.
Employees need a workplace that makes them realize their potential. The environment should comprise of furniture, art, and meals that guarantee comfort.
Since they spend most of their time indoors, the office should improve their working experiences. Such factors can help you create workplaces that ensure productivity.
11. Podcasts Continue to Gain Popularity
Podcasts are like the modern alternative to radios. They allow people to tell stories and listen to other people’s stories.
Starting a podcast channel can help you speak to your clients directly.
It also gives consumers a chance to understand concepts in different fields. Such an approach allows you to engage with an audience that’s interested in your topic.
You can grow your listeners in a short time depending on the quality of the content.
Since podcasts lack visuals, they help you visualize an object for comprehension. Your listeners imagine for themselves how your product looks like before buying it.
Just like blog posts, podcasts encourage feedback. You can get the feedback via email or the comment section of the webpage you posted the podcast.
12. Mobile Devices Connecting People and Products
Consumers prove that mobile phones are important aspects of their lives every year.
One of the customer service trends to note is the continued use of mobile phones. People use smartphone apps to connect with family, friends, and companies. They have apps for learning, shopping, communicating and reading.
Focus on finding a way into your clients’ mobile devices.
Create content that can be marketed through both desktop computers and mobile devices. You can even have an app developed to sell products through the clients’ phone.
Consumers still use mobile phones to speak to customer representatives. Chatbots that offer personalized responses don’t change the way consumers seek support.
Your company’s landline number can help when a customer’s problem needs a real-time solution.
Use Customer Service Trends to Guide Your Processes
Consumers are looking for the best customer service as the business world grows. They have the power to choose products that suit their tastes. Your enterprise should have strategies in place to accommodate these demands.
Use customer service trends to improve your service delivery processes.
You can learn more about customer experiences from our site. Our goal is to offer information to business owners for them to improve their ventures. We’re always on the lookout for exciting technologies that can impact businesses.
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