Late summer and early fall is often the time for many customer service organizations to develop an investment strategy for the coming year. I find that companies often struggle regarding the best place to invest in innovative applications due to the many options available. Most customer service decision makers understand the many benefits of emerging technologies supporting their customer needs, but tight budgets often limit their ability to move forward with new investments. My short list of five key technologies that support new revenues, lower service costs and provide compelling customer experiences include mobile application support, automated chat, real time analytics, big data analytics and video customer support. These customer service investments demonstrate quantifiable business benefits and provide valuable customer insight.
Although emerging applications offer a tremendous potential, the reality is that business decision leaders need to fully appreciate how these applications will transform their business and provide better customer engagement. To build a business case, you first need to identify the key pain points of the current operations and quantify the cost of not doing anything. The emerging applications provide savings in the following ways:
· Mobile app integration delivers support directly from the mobile app. It provides faster response and interacts with the customer at the time of greatest interest. It also provides a seamless customer experience from their mobile device.
· Real time analytics mines customer structured and unstructured data from customer cases and social interactions. Analytics provide insights into a customer’s issues to improve service, personalize interactions and identify product problems. It also supports faster problem resolution for customers.
· Automated chat or virtual assistants offer help to online customers with advanced natural language speech solutions. It lowers the cost for online support services and eliminates unnecessary calls for basic information.
· Big data collects, manages and analyzes customer data from multiple sources with informed decisions and customer insight. It improves customer satisfaction by better understanding a customer’s needs, help brands make educated decisions and sends alerts on trends and issues.
· Video customer service offers visual communications to smartphones and tables. It promotes customer intimacy and encourages real-time collaboration. It also supports remote expert access to facilitate problem solving and shorten problem resolution time.