Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2017. Read them in this 9th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Kevin Gavin, CMO, Five9
Time to Start Thinking of Customer Service as a Business Driver in 2017
Video Customer Service Turns Mainstream
As
the modern customer increasingly feels empowered to communicate with
brands via various channels like phone calls, texts, social media and
more, the rise in video communication will become more mainstream. Just
as social media brought on a new way to communicate with consumers,
video will be a powerful tool to ease pain points in an easy and
efficient manner. In 2017, more businesses will move to adopt video as
the new normal in customer service or risk getting left behind.
Analytics Will Help Brands Recognize Customer Problems Before They Even Know They Have One
In
2017, leading brands will put the right resources in place to ensure
more personalized and proactive customer service. Analytics-driven
customer service will start to become critical for businesses who want
to continue providing the best customer experience. With the rise of
analytics, businesses will reap the benefits of things like seeing a
customer's history immediately when they contact customer service and
providing personalized experiences for consumers based on likes and
preferences. This technology will also predict what consumers need based
on patterns in their customer journey, allowing for agents to
proactively reach out to consumers before the problem is even realized.
Companies who implement this technology will retain more customers and
increase brand loyalty.
Contact Centers Become a Leading Source of Revenue
Not
too long ago, contact centers were seen as cost drivers, not revenue
drivers. Agents used to hurry through their calls as fast as they could,
to not be on the line for too long and drive up costs. However, this
has been changing as companies realize the power of happy customers and
in 2017, we'll see more and more companies put an emphasis on contact
centers as revenue drivers. Companies will realize the importance of
brand building via customer service and they'll continue seeing their
bottom lines positively affected by it.
##
About the Author
Kevin Gavin is Chief Marketing Officer at Five9 with responsibility for
marketing communications, lead generation, product marketing and
channel marketing. Kevin's
executive experience includes 6 years as Chief Marketing Officer at
ShoreTel. He is a passionate evangelist for leveraging the latest
technical advances in communication technology to enable increased
employee productivity and improved team effectiveness.
