7 Latest Customer Support Software Trends & Forecasts for 2024

Consumers have always been demanding when it comes to customer service. But the COVID-19 pandemic pushed their expectations to new heights, as the current customer support trends 2022 would show. This is why organizations need to stay on top of their game in providing top-notch customer support.

To do that, companies need the help of novel strategies and first-class customer support software. In doing so, they can continue attracting and retaining discerning customers who place importance on great customer care.

For customer support executives planning their next steps for 2022, you can take as a guide the following customer support software trends.

Accelerated Digitization
Decreasing Customer Patience
Need for Speed
Service Recovery Unlocks Greater Opportunities
Meaningful Moments
Disintermediation: Saying Goodbye to the Middleman
Conscious Consumer

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, organizations struggled to adapt. They had to move their operations to the cloud, which they would have done gradually if they had a digitization plan. However, the times were not kind to plans—everything had to change almost overnight.

One of the hardest-hit departments of any organization was customer service. At the beginning of widespread lockdowns, a company conducted a study of customer support calls. It found that the average company encountered double the amount of difficult calls. Typically, they would only have 10% of calls they would consider as such. But at the time, calls rated as difficult went up 20%.

Those were due to the anxieties of customers related to the pandemic. They were emotional, leading to calls becoming more challenging for customer support representatives. Add to that the fact that they are working from home for the first time. They are without the infrastructure provided by the company, such as fast internet connections and up-to-date computers. They are also working without a network of support, which they could have accessed easily in the office.

Still, organizations and their people would have had no choice but to adapt. All this time, they would have managed to streamline their operations, particularly on the customer support side. Nevertheless, it would be prudent to keep in touch with customer support software trends for the coming year. Those lacking the technology to do so could check out the best customer support platforms to match their organizational needs. In this way, they could be more prepared in dealing with customers.

1. Accelerated Digitization

The COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to close their doors temporarily. This meant they had to move their operations to their homes and those of their employees. The circumstances forced their hands, thus they had to accelerate their plans for digitization. Companies not considering it previously were compelled to do so.

According to a McKinsey survey, organizations have increased the pace of their digitization by three to four years. While some of the measures they put in place were temporary, executives expected that these changes would have a long-lasting impact on their operations.

To put it into a numerical perspective, in December 2019, the average share of digital customer interactions was only 36%. In July 2020, only a few months after the mandated lockdowns, the number rose to 58%. Among the regions, North America had the highest jump, from 41% to 65%.

Source: McKinsey, 2020

It is not only internal operations and customer interactions that are rapidly getting digitized. Companies are also on the fast track in developing more digital products and services. Globally, the rate of adoption acceleration is seven years—from 35% in December 2019 to 55% in July 2020. Regionally, Asia-Pacific made the greatest leap, from 33% to 54%, an acceleration of more than 10 years.

These momentous changes can only propel a more massive and more rapid acceleration of digitization. Executives are changing their mindsets regarding technological adaptations in business and there are no signs of this changing anytime soon. This has been one of those customer support trends 2020 that continues to remain significant.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations to accelerate their digitization plans by three to four years.
In July 2020, the global average share of digital customer interactions was 58% while it was only 36% in December 2019.
Executives expect some of the temporary digitization measures to become permanent.

2. Decreasing Customer Patience

Brands have learned to be more innovative due to the changing demands of consumers. One area of particular focus is customer service. After all, how brands treat their customers can make or break them. One survey showed that 60% of consumers in the US and the United Kingdom admitted that they will stop patronizing a business after a bad customer service experience (Stella Connect, 2021).

In fact, 53% of consumers have made true their threats—they switched brands when they encountered poor customer experience. This is a huge difference from the 33% who said the same thing in the previous year (Stella Connect, 2021).

This only shows that brands have a smaller margin for error and for holding their consumers’ attention. Customer patience is decreasing and the challenge now is to provide them with the best service and the most accurate support in the shortest possible time. Apart from using customer service tools, organizations can also deploy business intelligence software. Not only can it offer customer insights, but it can also speed up information sharing as well, which is essential in customer service. These are only a couple of reasons why business intelligence applications are useful.

More than half of consumers have made true their threat to switch brands after an adverse customer support experience.
Brands have a smaller margin for error when it comes to customer service because of decreasing customer patience.
Organizations are facing the challenge of providing optimal service or support in the shortest possible time.

Need for Speed

Because customers are now less patient, there is a need to be fast in providing service and support. Of course, the real keyword here is efficiency. Because even if a brand is quick to act, it would still be moot if it misses the mark.

What is most important to customers nowadays is the response time of brands in offering customer service. In the US, 35% of consumers are willing to wait for five minutes for a response from the customer care team. Meanwhile, across the pond in the UK, only 30% are patient enough (Stella Connect, 2021).

That is not a surprise, as response time holds the highest priority over the following: personalized communication, agent tone and style of communication, agent knowledge about products and services, and overall time required to resolve an issue.

Source: Stella Connect, 2021

In line with that, organizations can continue to leverage their telephone or in-person support system. Indeed, one study has found that 71.4% of enterprises still rely on personal engagements over the phone or on-site. These methods allow agents to really understand what the customers need and to provide them with the most efficient solutions on the dot. For customers, it would be less frustrating than dealing with a bot that cannot or can barely understand their issues.

The response time of brands to customer concerns is primary to consumers.
More than 70% of organizations still rely on telephone or in-person interactions for quick customer support resolutions.
Efficiency is important in customer support.

Service Recovery Unlocks Greater Opportunities

Only 70% of consumers will reach out to a brand two or three times more if their issue is not resolved after the first contact. Afterward, they will leave a less-than-glowing review or switch to a competitor for good (Stella Connect, 2021).

This should concern organizations and compel them to act upon customer dissatisfaction. Because when they are unhappy, they tell nine to 15 people about their negative experiences. In some cases, consumers will share their unfavorable reviews with up to 20 other consumers (Thomas, 2018). That is a lot of potential buyers a business can lose with just one bad experience.

To prevent such from happening, enterprises must be quick to address the issues of an unhappy customer. When they do, and when they manage to surpass their expectations in the process, the customer could become more loyal to the business. A Stella Connect (2021) survey supports this. A whopping 97% of buyers in the US and the UK would continue conducting business with a brand if they manage to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

Moreover, the same survey revealed that 84% of customers from both countries would feel a deeper emotional connection with a brand after a service recovery. In an era with myriad options for customers, service recovery is a great opportunity for any organization.

Nearly three-quarters of customers would be willing to contact a brand three or four times to resolve issues before switching to the competitor.
Unhappy customers tell nine to 15 people about their negative experience with an organization’s customer service.
More than 80% of consumers would be more emotionally connected with a brand that manages to turn around a bad experience.

Meaningful Moments

Personalization continues to be among customer support industry trends, but customers are craving for more than that. Marr (2021) noted that “people want to feel special.” Because of this, consumers demand that brands understand their individual requirements. As such, they want unique experiences and meaningful connections with the brands they patronize.

People are turning to their devices to act upon a need. The challenge to businesses is to pinpoint those micro-moments, as Google calls those windows of opportunity to provide consumers what they need at the exact time they need them.

As Weed (2017) noted, search is central to micro-moments. Consumers are driven by immediacy and relevance. This is evidenced by the increase in searches for “open now.” Google’s data showed that it has tripled since 2015. Additionally, mobile searches for “same-day shipping” or similar have grown more than 120% since 2015 as well. Google Trends (2021) also show that searches for “open now” peaked toward the end of December 2019. The term has had a high volume of searches as well between March 2020 and December 2020.

Source: Google, 2021

This means that brands have to be able to “anticipate and assist” with consumers’ needs. To be successful in that, they need to be more mindful of the customer journey and to apply customer experience best practices. Once they are able to anticipate customers’ needs, they can provide them with better customer support along the way.

Personalization is still a must, but consumers want more to feel special.
Consumers are looking for unique experiences and to have more meaningful moments with the brands they patronize.
Micro-moments are windows of opportunity where organizations can provide consumers with what they need or want as soon as they need or want them.

Disintermediation: Saying Goodbye to the Middleman

Products and services would sometimes push inflated prices because of the middleman. These are the retailers, the wholesalers, the distributors, the advertisers, and the platforms that connect the business with the online shopper. A couple of examples of these are giants Amazon and Google, which serve as platforms for markets.

But now, there is a rising trend that cuts out the person in the middle: disintermediation. Ted Ladd, in the paper titled “The Achilles heel of the platform business model: Disintermediation” published in Business Horizons defines the practice as a “potentially fatal weakness…where buyers and sellers find each other on the platform and then bypass the platform—and its commission—to complete their transaction direction, off the platform.”

While that is problematic for platforms and for other middlemen, it is a boon for businesses and customers. Both parties have a direct route to each other, especially in resolving customer concerns. To make everything smooth, organizations can plan and implement an omnichannel strategy.

Products and services often increased prices because of middlemen like retailers and distributors.
Disintermediation is a rising trend, where brands and customers meet directly and cut the middleman from the equation.
While disintermediation spells trouble for platforms and other middlemen, it is a boon to brands and consumers, especially in the realm of customer support. In that way, customers can address their concerns to brands directly.

Conscious Consumer

Consumers, especially Millennials, are being driven to become eco-consumers. That is, they want sustainable products and would willingly support brands that are sustainability-driven. This change in attitude is not surprising.

In 2019, global international shipping CO2 emissions reached 710 million metric tons. The following year, emissions dipped to 648 million metric tons. This change can be attributed to the global pandemic when many people lost their livelihoods. But by 2025, the global outlook would be 709 million metric tons.

It would not be until 2030 that emissions are predicted to decrease, thanks to countries that may be implementing plans to reduce emissions.

Buyers, more or less, are aware of the environmental impact of their behaviors. To reduce the effects of their consumer behavior on the environment, people are buying locally, either online or in-store. In 2020, nearly half of French shoppers changed their buying behavior. They are followed by 35% of German customers. In contrast, only 11% of consumers in the United States reported any changes in their purchasing behavior (Shopify, 2020).

As they change, consumers also want brands to change. A survey by Wunderman Thompson (2021) revealed that 89% of people believe companies do more to reduce their carbon impact. And, 88% agree that brands have a responsibility to take care of the planet and its human inhabitants. On top of that, 86% of respondents expect businesses to do their part in solving the climate crisis.

Thus, organizations should take note. Since consumers are becoming more responsible in their shopping choices, brands, too, should become more responsible if they want to retain the support of conscious consumers.

How does this relate to customer support? Brands need to be aware of this, which is among the customer support trends in retail so that they can address customer concerns regarding their green initiatives.

Consumers, especially Millennials, are becoming conscious and are looking for more sustainable products.
Buyers expect brands to change—they believe that companies need to do more to reduce their carbon impact.
Organizations need to be aware of this trend to address consumers’ questions about their sustainability plans.

In Stride with Consumers

With customers becoming more demanding, it can be a challenge for brands to meet their expectations. Accordingly, organizations should pay better attention to the behaviors of consumers. One way they can do this is by studying the insights they gather from customers.

Another way is by listening to what they are saying in customer support conversations. Having a customer experience management tool can surely help. The concerns and issues they air when they are in touch with customer service agents can enable brands to improve their services and to find out what customers need.

That is not all. Businesses can also take note of emerging customer support software trends. These are observations of customer behaviors and requirements in the US, the UK, and other countries. With a global perspective, brands can keep apace with trends and tend to the needs of their customers best.

References:

Dixon, M., McKenna, T., & De la O, G. (2020, April 8). Supporting customer service through the coronavirus crisis. Harvard Business Review.
Google Trends. (2021). open now. Google.
Marr, B. (2021, November 8). The 8 biggest consumer and customer experience trends in 2022. Forbes.
McKinsey. (2020, October 5). How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point–and transformed business forever. McKinsey & Company.
NTT. (2020). 2020 global CX benchmarking report. NTT Limited.
Stella Connect. (2021). Customer service trends for 2022 report – Stella Connect. Stella Connect by Medallia.
Thomas, A. (2018, February 26). The secret ratio that proves why customer reviews are so important. Inc.com.
Weed, K. (2017, October 2). The future of marketing? Consumer segments of one. Think with Google.

By Jenny Chang

Jenny Chang is a senior writer specializing in SaaS and B2B software solutions. Her decision to focus on these two industries was spurred by their explosive growth in the last decade, much of it she attributes to the emergence of disruptive technologies and the quick adoption by businesses that were quick to recognize their values to their organizations. She has covered all the major developments in SaaS and B2B software solutions, from the introduction of massive ERPs to small business platforms to help startups on their way to success.