Essential Guide

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Editor's note

Customer service has evolved in ways unthinkable just a few short years ago when it was seen as simply a department to handle product returns, complaints or customer inquiries. Bolstered by the power of AI and analytics, customer service technologies now play a strategic and multidimensional role in fulfilling positive customer experiences that lead to brand loyalty and increased revenues.

This guide examines the evolution of customer service -- from humans to chatbots -- and its role in determining customer wants, needs, behavior and favorability; personalizing customer engagements over multiple channels; and maximizing areas like optimization, automation, predictions, recommendations and discovery.

We also report on some of the tools, techniques, and emerging customer service technologies, including self-service platforms, that companies are implementing to remain competitive and satisfy customer expectations and demands anywhere, anytime, and on any channel. Real-world examples reveal what some companies are doing to upgrade and manage their expanded and technologically souped-up customer service programs.

1Where customer service and experience intersect

As the customer experience mantra permeates practically every aspect of a company's primary business functions, including financial planning, marketing strategies, sales techniques and product development, customer service is a major beneficiary and finds itself on the front lines in the race to secure brand loyalty and increase sales.

2AI soups up traditional customer service

Automation is transforming traditional customer service departments and call centers into multidimensional corporate forces. AI, chatbots, process automation and predictive analytics are some of the sophisticated customer service technologies being implemented to take customer engagements to a more personalized level. Yet unintended consequences also need to be considered.

3Customer service morphs into self-service

The customer is always right, as the timeless proverb goes. Part of being right is being in control. Automated self-service platforms can hand customers greater control over their decisions and transactions. At the same time, companies collecting the resulting flow of customer data can derive valuable insights into behavior patterns and buying habits to improve customer engagements and, ultimately, the overall experience.