Navigating new technologies is the most clear trend of customer service in 2024 but it’s definitely not the only example. Maintaining a healthy business-customer culture is also important to consider. Unsurprisingly 97% of consumers are more likely to stay loyal to a business after good service interactions.1
Here, we’ll cover the top trends for you to expect out of call centre technology in 2024. We’ll help you get ahead of the curve and understand how you can improve your customer service efficiency year-on-year!
Suggested reading: Customer service has evolved. If you really want to advance your CS for the next year, check out our eBook: A New Approach to Customer Service
Trend 1: Conversational AI
This year, there was an explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) in practically every sector of business, customer service included. With developments in Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and the newly emerged ChatGPT and Google Bard, conversational AI has rapidly become embedded in how we work and communicate with each other.
Over 90% of people who use a computerised device interact with some form of AI on a daily basis2 and when we observe the benefits of AI you can see why:
- Cost cutting – Chatbots and virtual agents can be cheap to use therefore cutting costs for what was once a paid service.
- Rapid problem solving – AI is capable of solving basic queries expediently.
- Accessibility – Anyone with a digital device and internet connection can access AI easily using any browser.
Does the ‘Golden Age’ of AI3 put into question the necessity of the human side of customer service in the call centre? Perhaps our fascination with AI precedes its actual functionality within a customer service setting. Take for example the fact that 98% of customers find interactive voice response (IVR) so frustrating they try to bypass them.4 Equally customers reportedly often use popup blockers to prevent chatbots from appearing altogether.
Call centre technology trends would have you believe that humans are now obsolete in customer service. This is a misconception. AI has simply put pressure on customer service systems to develop and refine their operations. To represent the face of your business, deal with the nuanced issues of the customer and anticipate a customer’s needs, customer service management still relies on a human to deliver quality customer care.5
Trend 2: Sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis, also known as opinion mining, is a method of customer service analysis that attempts to quantify the sentiment or emotional tone expressed by customers in their interactions with your business including:
- Customer feedback
- Reviews
- Social media posts
- Support tickets
Sentiment analysis lets businesses identify patterns in customer feedback to:
- Improve their products and services.
- Customise marketing campaigns and strategies
- Monitor and manage brand reputation
With the sheer amount of feedback channels present in modern society, it is important to stay on top of your sentiment analysis. Social media in particular is a platform where information is disseminated rapidly and is seen by many. So proper sentiment analysis of your social media channels can make all the difference between damage control and a PR crisis.
Sentiment analysis is often left up to AI to complete. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology, AI extracts the insights behind the comments left by customers. Certain clauses and buzzwords are picked up by the AI and processed to form a projection of the sentiment.
However, NLP is not always accurate. Here are some of the reasons why:
- AI can struggle with complex language – The meaning of words and phrases can vary wildly depending on the context in which they’re used. For example the phrase “it’s exceptionally bad” holds both a positive (exceptionally) and a negative (bad). Therefore the AI might analyse the sentiment as positive based on the word “exceptionally” alone.
- AI requires a lot of data – Creating datasets is necessary to get accurate results from your AI. This can often take years and increases the costs of sentiment analysis. With instantaneous data channels such as social media, AI may be too slow to identify sentiment trends before they escalate.
Manual, human analysis is therefore very important in order to decipher most accurately the sentiment trends of your customers in real time. An agile data processing service may be the answer to your sentiment analysis problems, providing a variety of expert agents for a hybrid approach to data analysis and processing.
Trend 3: Omnichannel customer service
Providing omnichannel support to customers is a trend of 2023 that will certainly continue into 2024. Simply put, omnichannel customer service is a system where customers are able to contact businesses on multiple platforms such as:
- Phone
- Chat/SMS messaging
- Social Media
Providing multiple channels for engagement with your business has become a basic expectation of the customer and should be followed closely because of these benefits to your business:
- Maintaining deep engagement with your customers – providing multiple channels of contact for your customers exemplifies how much you care about their needs making you more customer-centric.
- Accessibility – providing different channels of contact means you are more likely to suit the communication preferences of different customer demographics. Case in point: 46% of Gen Z and 47% of millennials prefer social media when interacting with companies and about 67% of baby boomers opt to use phone calls.6
Pro Tip: To optimise your omnichannel system, ensure connectivity between channels so that your agents can access customer data and conversation history to prevent customers from having to repeat themselves.
Get a head start in 2024 with Odondo
Integrating new tech into your customer service system without costing the customer journey may seem like a daunting task. A key solution would be to seek the expertise of a trusted customer service provider.
At Odondo, we can provide you with that very expertise, syncing your tech needs with your customer-centric profile and creating a customer service model that is tailored to your business. We can:
- Build your customer service team from scratch or elevate your existing team with a hybrid approach to customer service.
- Process data for you, converting raw data into key insights. This means you can focus on your business rather than manual processing. An excellent way to cut costs and save time. Just look at our customer service outsourcing pricing if you aren’t convinced.
- Support a complete omnichannel solution. We can provide high-quality agents with voice, live chat and forum moderation capabilities: creating an airtight multichannel system that makes customer service agents available seamlessly to solve your customers’ problems.
To find out how we can deliver bespoke solutions to your business, just request a quote from one of our customer service experts today!
1 Forbes| 100 Customer Experience Stats For 2023 (2023)
2 FW3| 70+ Top AI Statistics 2023-24 (2023)
3 Databricks| 2023 State of Data + AI (2023)
4 Forbes| What Customers Want and expect (2018)
5 Odondo| Delivering Quality Customer Care: A Checklist for 2023 (2023)
6 Businesswire| Millennials and Gen Z Driving Major Shifts in Customer Service (2018)
Aamir Baloch
Aamir is one of the Co-Founders at Odondo, where he obsesses over the details to deliver a strong and compelling proposition for each of his clients.
Prior to Odondo, he was CTO at one of the UK's largest price comparison websites, with contact centres in the UK and India. In his spare time, he loves reading, politics, tennis, and playing the piano (badly).
Start improving your customer experience today!
