The Tables Have Turned on Customer Service

By Mayur Anadkat, VP of Product Marketing

It's an understatement to say the world of customer service has changed. Today's customer, including me, wants to be able to get a response, quickly from customer service via whatever technology is convenient. Unhappy with a service? Tweet it. Questions about a product you're thinking of buying? Web chat.

Why is customer service, bad or good, such a hot topic right now?

Because the tables have turned.

That's right. Companies no longer dictate how and when a customer can contact them. 1-800 BUY-THIS is not enough. Customers want to tweet, chat, email and Skype. The companies with a modern contact center are acknowledging where they are today, and (this is the important part) planning for where they will be five years from now.

Forbes, The New York Times and Venture Beat all have written about the value of customer service over the past few months and they all say the same thing. Customer service is business critical and it is evolving, fast.

I just read a blog by Forrester research associate Meredith Cain, which featured a reference to the classic 80's movie, Back to the Future II. Big technology predictions were made back then about what would be around in 2015, and many of those predictions were pretty close. More importantly, her blog also featured a new report by analyst Ian Jacobs "Plan Now For Customer Service in 2021," that evaluates five technologies that will "transform customer care over the next five years."

Two of those five are video adoption and virtual assistants, and I agree that those are strong bets. We all need to evaluate our customers, where will they be in five years? What will they want, and how do they want it?

So, the tables have turned and your customers have the power. What changes are you going to make to your customer service?

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You may also enjoy this article in Fortune: "Why More Contact Centers are Moving to the Cloud"