Customer support has transformed in recent years. Today’s businesses require simpler, fasterand more-effective customer service support, with even more-prudent support solutions to come. The goal is for customers to continue performing their regular activities while their issues are being resolved.

While the traditional helpdesk format won’t ever become extinct; technological advancements are changing everything. Some of those improvements, as well as their impact on customer support, are discussed below:

1. Deliberately-Prominent Artificial Intelligence:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) may seem farsighted,but  a significant number of innovative businesses have already applied AI abilities to their operations; and the trend is growing. AI technology is overturning conventional customer support by autonomously analyzing and understanding required service needs. As a result, it proactively responds to customer behaviors and interprets their historical data.

Businesses will still need human agents; but AI technology sophisticates the customer support methods to deliver more-prudent service faster. One such method is the chatbot. Enabled with machine learning, chatbots encapsulate the future of customer support, by acting as a trenchant filtering system for the service team. Chatbots provide resourceful self-service provisions to confront simple customer queries and escalate complex issues to the service representatives.

2. Inevitable Live Chat:

One of the most important benefits technology has created is the power of real-time communication. A live chat optional lows customers to establish real-time conversations with support agents. Live chats also provide other benefits, like:

• Pre-emptive actions - Initiate chat invitations when service needs become predictive.
• Ease of use - Live chats are easily-accessible to customers and reduce anxiety while transferring a call or awaiting a reply message.
• Cost-savings - Enabled with real-time ability, support agents can close more cases in a day with more efficiency, resulting in a reduction to the average cost per case.

A significant number of today’s business websites are equipped with pop-up chat ability specifically because of the support it provides.

3. Cross-Channel CRM Integration:

Businesses today infiltrate every aspect of a customer’s life, from upholding their support endeavors to offering customer service, regardless of where they are. As a result, an omnichannel presence and operations have become generic. Support teams find it troubling to have to repeatedly check multiple sites to identify customer queries.To counteract this issue, CRM tools are progressively-powered with the ability to integrate using multiple channels, like social media, e-mail, live chat, and so forth.  In this way, support agents can seamlessly tap into multiple venues, whenever and wherever they need to locate customers requiring service.

CRM tools also pull together data acquired through the different channels so a customer support representative can immediately know every detail about an issue, from its history to its problem patterns. This means customers don’t need to switch between different representatives in different departments to solve their issue.This is how cross-channel CRM integration is shaping the future of customer support.

4. Advanced Reporting:

Reporting is important in every area of a business - customer support is no exception.It records when and how customer resolutions are delivered. Reporting helps businesses follow the path of their customer service policies to know how effective and efficient they are.Reporting has become more flexible and detailed as technology has developed.Businesses can expect reporting features to include more refinements and retrofitted efficiencies moving forward.

Businesses can then use these enhancements to:

• Identify prominent service needs,
• Prioritize queues in real time, and
• Learn more about each customer and agent.

Know more about a customer’s needs will allow businesses to then improve their services to meet these needs.An advanced reporting framework will raise the level of customer support that businesses provide.

5. Big Data Customization:

“Big data”is not a new buzzword. Every day, businesses generate and accumulate high volumes of data; of which, a major portion is never acted upon. A recent study stated that only 12% of gathered data has ever been analyzed.

Moving forward, it’s expected that AI will result in big data becoming more customizable and functional. The voluminous data helps personalize customer services, making it more actionable and the customer support more individualistic.Moreover, it also helps align service needs with service initiatives. Businesses will soar to new heights as customer support methods are improved.

Final Thoughts:

Customer support has become more sophisticated and astute due to the advent of technological developments. The impact of the preceding developments will redefine the sector, resulting in future prosperity for businesses.