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The 5 Latest Customer Service Trends You Need To Know In 2022
Contributed article by Wanda Lafond
Customer service has been changing rapidly in the past few
years mostly due to the changing business landscape. This, of course, is the
direct result of the global pandemic that forced some companies to shut down
completely while others transitioned to hybrid or completely remote models of
work.
Nevertheless, no matter what changes in the business world,
companies need to keep up with these shifts in the industry and implement the
necessary changes within their own organizations. Hence, here are the five
latest customer service trends you need to know in 2022.
#1 Customer Support Delivered Through Social Media
With the rise of social media during the last decade, more
and more companies started joining popular social media platforms to deliver
content directly to their audiences. No doubt, social media makes it much
easier to make important announcements, have product launches, and so on.
Moreover, social media also provides many options for brands to go viral with
their content while also establishing closer connections with dedicated
customers.
Considering all of this, it was just a matter of time for
social media platforms to become one of the primary channels for delivering
customer support. Just a few years ago, there were still not that many
businesses offering customer support on social media, but this has definitely
changed. More and more businesses are offering customer support through
multiple channels, both traditional and new ones such as social media.
The best part about offering customer support through social
media is that it is clearly much easier to manage than some other channels. In
fact, according to BrandWatch,
the customer support offered through social media can be up to 12x cheaper than
customer support via phone. It’s no wonder that more and more businesses are
realizing that it’s a great opportunity to reduce their customer support costs
and satisfy clients at the same time.
#2 Shorter Response Time and Round-The-Clock Availability
Nowadays, brands are increasingly focused on their
customers. Many business decisions (including those related to customer
support) directly depend on the data companies collect about their customers in
an attempt to please customers in every way possible. This is probably why more
and more customers now expect a much shorter response time when they send a
request to customer support. On the other hand, businesses themselves are now
prioritizing round-the-clock customer support availability to handle these
requests.
For instance, according to Statista,
48% of consumers expect to get a response to their questions and complaints on
social media within just 24 hours. This is probably why there are so many
brands replying to tweets as fast as they can, especially if they see a
customer complaining about something. It’s not just a way to handle the
situation correctly when it’s already exposed to the public, but it’s also a
way to show that they are proactive.
Another reason why round-the-clock availability is so
important today is that globalization has expanded conventional notions of a
target audience even for small businesses. Your customers could be located in a
different time zone, so if their request needs to be processed quickly, your
customer support will have to be available during irregular hours to do so. With
24/7 customer support, “irregular” hours are not even a thing because support
can be delivered anytime.
#3 More Self-Service Options for Independent Customers
Even though customers have now become more demanding and
expect businesses to deliver high-quality service to them, a lot of people are
also quite independent in their own right and willing to take action
themselves. This is why more businesses are now offering a wider variety of
self-service options for customers who want to handle their own problems
themselves.
On one hand, this is great for customers who want such
autonomy. On the other hand, it’s also good for companies because they now have
to handle fewer customer support requests with so many people doing the work
themselves. For instance, one popular way to offer such self-service options is
by having a knowledge base on your website rather than a simple FAQ section. A
conventional FAQ section is quite limited in the amount of information it can
provide, but a knowledge base with categories and good search and filtering
features is perfect for customers who want to find questions to their answers
themselves.
The only downside is that not every business has the time or
resources to create a knowledge base like that. That’s why you can hire a
professional writer from the custom writing reviews site Best Writers Online.
This writer will create all the content for you after you provide them with all
the necessary guidelines.
#4 Increased Personalization in Customer Interactions
As explained earlier, businesses are hyper-focused on their
customers nowadays and always aim to deliver the best experiences no matter
what. This is why most customers nowadays expect to see a fair amount of
personalization in all the interactions they have with the brand. Not only does
it show that the company values them, but it also makes the handling of
requests faster.
Unfortunately, many businesses still don’t know how to create
such personalized experiences which can result in customers leaving. In fact,
according to Accenture,
33% of customers who cut short their relationship with a business in 2016 did
so because personalization was lacking. Though this statistic is a few years
old, many customers still stop purchasing from certain brands specifically for
this reason even today.
So, how can businesses solve this problem? You can hire an
expert writer from the writing services reviews site Writing Judge to create
personalized content for your customers (e.g. emails). However, it’s your
customer support team that needs to be trained to deliver better experiences to
your customers when they make requests.
#5 An Automated Workflow with Increased Communication
Last but not least, one more trend evident in customer
service is automation. Thanks to the newest technologies, businesses are able
to use the newest digital tools to automate their workflows and increase
communication with their customers. Chatbots can instantly respond to messages,
automated emails can be triggered by certain customer actions, and the
day-to-day activities of your customer support team can be done by programs
entirely.
According to Microsoft,
30% of American consumers said chatbot interactions were “very effective” in
dealing with customer support issues. That being said, chatbots still have a
long way to go. Fortunately, the AI sector is rapidly developing which is why
chatbots are being perfected every year and will likely be able to deliver
high-quality customers support in the nearest future.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, customer service is perhaps one of the most
essential aspects of any business which is why paying attention to this
department in your company is so important. Use the trends listed in this
article to help you create your customer service strategy for the year and
deliver high-quality experiences to your audience.
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Wanda Lafond is a professional content writer, copywriter, content strategist, and communications consultant. She started young with her writing career from being a high school writer to a university editor, and now she is a writer in professional writing platforms— her years of expertise have honed her skills to create compelling and results-driven content every single time.
Writing Resources:
Writing Judge
Best Writers Online
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