Customer Service trends in 2021
Introduction
Customer service in 2021 will still be driven by COVID-19 pandemic, and its lasting effects.
Contact center managers have had to reconsider their business models, plans, and infrastructure. These changes have accelerated a transition into a new way of working which is remote, flexible, and technology-led.
The pandemic has caused a complete reassessment of the contact center industry and its management. Here we will explore the post-COVID customer service trends set to dominate the year 2021 and beyond.
Work From Home Contact Center Team
With the effect of COVID-19, contact center employees are shifted to adjust to remote work in 2020. Transition to work from home operations has been a drastic and fast-paced change in 2020 which could continue into 2021.
It is considered that working from home will likely become a more permanent strategy as employers are able to see the cost savings of a remote workforce.
As COVID-19 vaccines are slowly being rolled out, the pandemic will still impact the year 2021. There would still need to have social distancing and having to go back to the conventional work from office is not yet a feasible option for most business.
A recent survey from contact-centres.com supports the view of long-term work from home transition. About 35% of contact center leaders consider that their centers will become mainly work from home.
With the given survey, it is a strong indication that the best course of action is to have a more flexible and remote work culture.
The Rise in Remote Desktop Software
As homes are transformed into office spaces, COVID-19 has brought face-to-face support into a decline. However this does not mean that the need for support is in decline, such a situation which is impossible.
Customers will always prefer accessible and high-quality support, and in the year 2021, this means more customers will need to connect to services remotely.
A major necessity of the changing customer service in 2021 is remote desktop software.
For instance, it would be best to access your office computer from anywhere at any time without having any compatibility issues.
The use of remote desktop software will form a major trend, not only for customer service, but also for remote support if you have any software issues on your computer may it be on any platform.
Self-Service Option
As customers shift to e-commerce and remote support, self-service will as well change and be can seen on web-based deployment. This means there is an increased need for accessible, up-to-date, and even personalized online self-service.
With an increase of customers expecting to achieve their goals on their own using only the tools available on the website, customer portals such as control panel and knowledge bases are all part of a major customer service trend in 2021.
With COVID-19 having a drastic change and having almost everything online and remote has readied customers for a contactless approach to service in which they could do everything on their own before asking for assistance.
Self-service centers will need to make sure that their remote support options should have self-service options in place.
Customer Centricity and Importance of Experience
Customer-centricity had a huge impact during COVID-19.
Having support teams working from home does not change the fact that customers want a smooth and straight-forward support experience. The way customer support is given could vary, but quality support is of the utmost importance for customers.
The importance of the customer service experience trend has been on the rise in 2021; having consumers wanting more emphasis on the customer experience, rather than customer resolution.
Customer-centricity is about making customer experience unique and memorable, and with experience from supporting, it may come back as one of the most important traits for customer service trends for 2021.
Outsource Work from Home setup
Another service trend for 2021 is the resurgence of outsourced, offshore contact centers.
Some companies predict that they would start eyeing the productivity statistics of their remote workforce and seeing no major downtrend. After this, this would be the time on checking the challenges with remote equipment.
As remote teams are highly productive, remote workers tend to be cheaper overseas, and since providing a remote setup can be a hassle, it is predicted that some might consider third party outsourcing.
Customer Service Trends for 2021
The core focus for the customer service sector in the coming year is simple; it would be about doing more with technology to emphasize and elevate the customer experience at this particular time.
In conclusion, customer service in 2021 will be remote, integrated, and contactless.
