The Burgeoning Market for Customer Service

The evolution of customer service in last two decades has changed the face of the industry. From “tring tring” to ‘How may I help you?” the attitude of buyers as well the sellers has been drastically changed. Read this to know which aspects of customer service industry has been appallingly changed.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.”

-Charles Darwin

The nature of customer service is rapidly changing. Day by day the industry is becoming customer-centric, quality oriented and strongly competitive. If we compare the industry with the previous decades, then we could realize that the face of customer service industry is almost changed. There was a time when the internet was not considerably explored if anybody wanted to buy something they asked their friends or relatives about the review of the product, online shopping was ‘once in a blue moon night’. There was the large communication gap between the buyer and the seller.

There is no doubt that within past decades the customer service has evolved at the extreme. From writing a letter to the seller to communicating with the seller via live chat, the things have been grown noticeably. It has evolved in various aspects like staffing, methodology, technology and communication. Let’s try to understand these aspects in detail:

1.      Nurturing the manpower- now and then:

According to McKinsey, 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated, and it is an employee who treats the customers.

Before couple of decades, the customer service was not so progressed; therefore there the employment opportunities were limited. Back then during the 90s, the mirror of customer service industry was just physical location or if the customers were lucky, there could connect to the seller using telephone. Today, there are various advanced modes of communication are available. Therefore the companies require people to operate the tools and to handle the customers. They to plan organize and coordinate to meet the expectations of the customers. Hence, more number human resources are needed to provide the customers, exceptional customer service.

Due to this rapid revolution, the organization meets various challenges, some of them are mentioned below:

·        Finding the right job applicants for the right position is sometimes difficult for the organizations.

·        Training them and making them adapt the organization’s rules and regulations

·        Maintaining positive and productive environment within the organization

·        Shift problems: 24x7 available for customers

·        Growth and development

Thus, it can be said that staffing has become more complicated than ever before. Recruiting the right person for the right work is not it as it seems. Organization has to go out of their way to build the team of talented and dedicated employees.

2.      The method of customer service is improved:

The method of process of customer service and handling customer data has been totally changed. There were days when paper manual with defined process for most of the cases and scenarios worked. The same script was used for different type of solutions. Today, it is fairly improved. The customer service has become more personalized, and customer centric.

Back then, the companies didn’t have much data of customers. But today with the help of various CRM tools, company can keep the track of customer’s small details. Like birth date, date and time of last purchase, location, email, phone number, last conversation details, etc. These help the company to keep the process and resolution time minimum and due to advanced tools, the issue resolves faster.

Moreover, today’s customer service has been more organized and well managed. The work allocation, department wise and work wise division, hierarchy, and various levels of management has made customer service faster, smoother and more professional.

3.      Technology and advanced tools has made life easy:

(Photo source: https://bit.ly/2hq776z)

Back then, if there was any issue related to product or service, they need to write the email and have to wait for few days for reply or if they are lucky, then company would have the phone and the customer can contact the company via phone. But, still the average resolution time was very high and customer had to go through various obstacles.

As mentioned in the above image the customer service modes has been changed according to time by time:

·        In 1990s: In the early 1990s, telephone was used by customers for communication and in the late 1990s, email communication was evolved.

·        In Early 2000s: WWW revolution took place, as the result customer service industry evolved.

·        Mid 2000s: Chat was born. Customer could connect to seller via chat.

·        Late 2000s: During 2008-09, the Mobile-commerce started evolving as a king.

·        After 2010: Unpredictably, the social media become the critical part of customer service.

4.      Communication gap between buyer and seller has been reduced:

There is no doubt; the technology has reduced the communication barrier between the buyer and seller. Back then letter, email and call were the primary tools to communicate with the seller. But as mentioned in the above point, with the help of tools like internet social media, mobile app, live chat, SMS, email, and video chat, the customer can reach the seller in the span of moment.

The above picture is the example of one of the conversation on live chat. Live chat is quick, easy and efficient tool of customer service in today’s time.

5.      Personal trends of customers has been changed:

Above are the various trends now and then. It clearly shows shown the trends has been changed. Then, the customers were less informed, with limited preference and were satisfied with less priced. But, today’s customers are much aware about the quality and their preferences. They are highly active, alert, demands personalized solution, and expects exceptional customer service.

The Last Word:

The way the face of the customer service has been changed, it can be predicted that the upcoming years of customer service will emerge with new technology and trends. The customer will expect legendry customer service from their respective sellers. Marinating loyalty of the customer will become difficult if the companies will be profit centric instead of being customer centric.