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Top 10 Customer Service Trends 2013 Pt.2

Submitted 1/24/2013 by Kaloyan Georgiev

 

6. Reducing internal transfers – one of the most important things for a customer when contacting a customer service agent is time. Yes, it is more important even than the quality of the service itself. Customers, as most people, don’t like having their time wasted. By finding a way to reduce the number of internal transfers and contacting the customer with the needed agent on the first call companies will have an exceptional tool in the battle with the competition.

7. Gamification – more and more companies are offering games and other stuff to entertain the customer as a part of their customer experience. In 2013 the good customer service will be only a single part of the good customer experience as a whole. By providing a place on your website where your customers can have fun you make them come back more and more and “stick” to your brand.

8. Data gets bigger – acquiring information by trend spotting, social media and surveys, companies can create a great knowledge base for their customers which can be used in many beneficial ways. This year the data will get even bigger which might not be a good thing when you want to focus on the important stuff. Finding what information is important to your company and taking action on it is a trending act in 2013.

9. Change in channel preferences – voice may still be the primary communicational channel used, but is very quickly followed by chat and email channels. Expect an additional usage of self-service channels and even a better alignment of channel strategy coming from customer service companies.

10. Customer service as a competitive tool –while oligopolistic companies can get away with bad customer service, normal companies can’t. Customers can put up with the unsatisfactory customer service from an airline company, because, well, there aren’t many options to consider, but they won’t put up with such thing when it comes to a company with a lot of competitors. If you are running a restaurant or an auto repair shop – you better deliver great customer service or you won’t be competitive at all.