Digital self-service technology is already having effects on customers, and the trends are telling us more about what is coming in the future. And while self-service is a concept that was first introduced over a century ago, we still don’t know how digital technologies and trends will impact it.
What we are sure about is that digital technologies are improving customer service and people are already wanting to serve themselves, without human interaction and with less time wasted. So here are the trends we recognize they are shaping the future of self-service.
Top digital self-service trends of 2020:
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Making customers feel valued and welcomed
When speaking to a customer service through human agents, it is probably the speed of the service and the professional conversation that are the most important aspects. but what if the human touch is gone?
One of the biggest challenges and trends of digital self-service is to improve the interaction with customers to make them feel welcomed and that their time is valued. This is a hard thing to achieve without humans and using just a digital platform.
Efforts to do so can include stronger messages, better designs of customer self-service portals, and overall optimization according to customer behavior while using these platforms.
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Usage of analytics to keep growing
While analytics seem to be a huge advantage of digital self-service, not every company is already using its power, and the usage of analytics is still a trend on the rise.
Limitations are also a big cause of businesses not using analytics yet but as technologies advance, more and more businesses will be learning more about their customers through analytics
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Digital self-service is making 24 hours a standard
Without a digital platform, customer service centers of many businesses you already know are working 24 hours. That is great, but thanks to automated self-service portals, a 24 hours service is surely becoming a standard.
Through a digital platform with much less number of agents serving customers, there is not any problem for 24 hours services, whatever the size of the business is or its industry. This means that these platforms will be raising the standards of customer service in the near future.
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AI to bring a more human-like experience
One of the biggest applications of AI in digital self-service is to try to return the human touch lost when agents are out. The attempts to humanize customer self-service portals will remain as a trend for long.
Chatbots are already the biggest products where artificial intelligence advances are applied, but once more advances are achieved, many more technologies will be impacted including IVR.
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Usage of chatbots is on the rise
Chatbots are becoming everywhere, and each year we are seeing many more businesses taking advantage of them to improve their customer service.
One of the growing digital self-service trends is the usage of these chatbots, whether powered by artificial intelligence or not, more widely. Chatbot platforms are already influencing this growth as they now offer more customizable chatbots that can be integrated with messaging apps as well as websites.
Chatbots are also becoming a way to sell products directly as they become more advanced, so a chatbot can even go further than a small asset in the digital self-service ecosystem.
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More customized experiences
Customized experiences are one of the digital self-service trends that keep rising. Customization of digital customer service can mean each user is getting a different experience based on data gathered about them.
With much data gathered about each user on the internet, this can truly become possible in the near future.
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Governments getting into digital self-service platforms
One of the biggest digital self-services trends is governments and public organizations forming from behind.
Some governments are already working to improve the self-service they are offering, and they are working hard on it, as they began to recognize how much savings and improvements can be achieved with self-service platforms, especially on a large or huge scale.
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The competition is higher than ever
In the world of the internet, all businesses come to users through single feeds. They all have websites and social media channels that users will just compare, no matter how different their industries or sizes are.
This means that people will be expecting your digital self-service platform to offer a similar experience of what offered by the big brand platform they used, making the usability and design of self-service platforms for businesses much more important than we could have ever expected.
