Over the foreseeable future, there will be a notable shift towards representative-enablement technologies to understanding customers through analytics.
According to Gartner, investments in technologies focused on the consumer are rapidly becoming the top priority for enterprise service and support leaders. In a recent survey of service leaders, the respondents evaluated 51 technologies to assess how they are currently being used and their value for service companies.
In fact, the report titled “Technology Trends in Customer Service and Support 2021” shows that it is now a crucial factor for many organizations of what bets business leaders would consider on their future importance.
Among all the technologies surveyed, consolidated agent desktop, case management, online account portal, internal collaboration tools, and unified communications today deliver the most value for support and service leaders.
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Lauren Villeneuve, senior principal at the Gartner Customer Service & Support Practice, explains, “Customer service and support leaders derive value from these technologies because they support an important part of their operations.”
In addition, they support innovative and advanced operational needs to manage a remote workforce effectively, new demands and expectations from consumers, and heightened expectations for service to bring enhanced customer experience and value.
In two years, the forecasted most valuable technologies revolve nearby the customer with the help of understanding customer behavior through analytics and digital self-service platforms.
It is vital for business leaders to understand how customers interact with today’s digital channels in order to support digital buyers within them and improve the overall customer experience journey.
In fact, a vast majority of customer service leaders that were surveyed view investments around analytics as a primary investment to augment the self-service capabilities of their organization.
The past challenges of analytics stem fundamentally from a lack of data or transforming the raw data – which could produce actionable insights. In reality, they can be utilized to inform decisions.
However, the customer service leaders also noted they are overcoming such challenges and expect that the most significant surges in value over the next few years will evolve from advanced technologies – which analyze as well as leverage customer data.
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As the global technology landscape advances rapidly, Gartner recommends that customer service leaders responsible for overall support or service strategy and leadership need to consider the following actions –
- Reviewing core service objectives, understanding customer preferences, and behaviors while conducting an in-depth market scan to prioritize technologies for investment.
- Collaborating and coordinating with other functions, including marketing, finance, and IT – in order to get current plans or technology. In fact, understanding their perspectives as well as identifying areas of coordination is also vital.
- Gathering data on customer behaviors and experiences for identifying the technology’s potential role in the customer service process.
- Assessing the performance of existing tools and technologies by evaluating cost, customer experience, rep experience, usage, and strategic relevance – in short, how they fare against the market trends.
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