Technological advancements have always created ease and convenience in our lives. These advancements have impacted all areas of living whether it is transportation, means of communication, data transmission, entertainment aspects, educational activities, lifestyle, or home care. Technological advancements have transformed various aspects of our lives, including the legal profession. Managed IT support services for law firms ensure efficient legal processes, document management, and secure data handling in today’s evolving landscape.
Not only our personal lives but the whole corporate and business infrastructure has also been the beneficiary of modern technologies. The prime example of this is the transformation of record and data keeping, which shifted from filing cabinets to computer screens. Now there are many other functional aspects of business in which technology is playing its part to make them better and more efficient.
One such aspect is customer service. This is an important component of business, or probably the most important of them all. However, the current customer service landscape is in shambles, and there are a few reasons behind it.
The major one is financial scarcity because after the pandemic we all know that businesses are going through a rough patch, due to the economic recession. These financial crises made many businesses completely shut operations, while those that are still functional are barely trying to remain afloat. In times like these, businesses think that they hardly have any resources to spend on customer service. Although, some firms tend to ignore customer service completely, as according to them it is not something worth investing in regards to revenue and returns.
Both these narratives are far from the truth, as customer service is one of the most essential components of a business, and if done the right way it hardly costs anything for business while providing immense amounts of customers and in turn, revenue. This is the only reason that terms like Cox Customer Service Number were one of the most searched topics last year. Since Cox is the third-largest cable company in the country, people were eager to get in touch with their customer service in order to get services from them. This was all possible because of the rave of amounts of positive reviews Cox has received over the years, due to exceptional customer treatment.
Why Businesses Should Focus on Customer Service?
The business prospect of today has drastically shifted, and this shift has also been caused because of the pandemic. The pandemic proved devastating for not only businesses but consumers as well because a large number of people were pushed to the brink of unemployment, and due to this, the average purchasing power has shrunk quite a bit. So it is obvious that consumers have become extra mindful when conducting transactions with any business. Customers now do proper research about a product, brand, and most importantly their customer service practices before deciding to do business. Plus in this digital society, everyone has the option to put their word in front of the world, no matter how good or bad it is.
So, companies with poor customer service get exposed really quickly as word of mouth spreads like wildfire. This greatly hampers their brand image, and as a result, cuts the consumer base and even creates obstacles with new customers who are looking to do business with a firm. This makes one thing clear that brand image is everything today, consumers would rather go with a brand that has positive reception from existing customers since they don’t want to take risks with their money, as it is already very hard to come by these days. The biggest factor that contributes towards uplifting the brand image of a company is positive customer interactions, and this only comes from good customer service.
In this age of technology where modern techniques are helping in every aspect of life, it’s about time that businesses realize that they need to induct modern technologies and practices in their current customer care setup for a cost-effective and efficient solution. So, customers can get quick assistance on their queries which in turn will help in both, revenues and building a brand image.
Customer Service Technologies
Here we have made a list of modern technologies that are being integrated into the customer service departments of reputable firms.
Social Media
Social Media is the biggest form of interpersonal communication today, as most people are already present there. Many brands are already using social media platforms for effective marketing, as it has become very easy to target the right audience. Not only marketing but, social media has also proven to be an effective tool for customer service. As it is a medium that allows consumers to directly communicate with their service provider and present their concerns, queries, and grievances. This is why we see that most big brands have social media presence on all big platforms and they have millions of followers as well.
Chat Bots
Chatbots are also a very effective customer service technique that is gaining rapid momentum. Chatbots allow companies to give customer handling responsibilities to computer programs like A.I, instead of real people. Most common user queries are fed into an AI program and through certain algorithms, it almost feels like you’re talking to a real person, instead, on the other side there is just a program. This allows companies to cut their operating costs and workforce while also allowing them to rapidly assist customer queries and concerns through artificial intelligence and machine learning which are faster than any human assistance.
Self Service Portals
The world is moving towards automation, as this brings ease and convenience to our lives without the involvement of any third party. Similarly, customer service is also getting automated and the first step towards was in the form of chatbots that we explained above. Apart from that, many self-service applications are present that guide users through different aspects of customer care. These applications usually have basic tutorials for service setup or troubleshooting to help users get out of technical problems. While on the other hand, there are options to pay the bill online, upgrade or downgrade services, get information on a product or service, and many other options for which a consumer usually contacts a customer service department.
Conclusion
Technology and modernization are the way to go if we need to survive in this world. Either we adopt these changes or get swept away in the tide of modernization. Obviously, this is something nobody would want. So, it’s high time that businesses who are looking to get their feet back in the market should start adopting the modern customer service trends and technologies in order to gain back the consumer base they lost during the pandemic. Because in this new world a customer wouldn’t be spending a penny on a business with poor customer service, nor a business would be able to flourish using traditional customer service techniques.