Ultimate Software : Three 2018 Customer Service Trends – #12DaysofHCM

[Attachment] As rapid technological advancements continue to redefine the B2B and B2C landscape, organizations are experimenting with various strategies to optimize efficiency and cost. This has understandably carried over to customer service; machine learning and natural language processing have led to extremely advanced chatbots, and the sheer enormity of available data has made analyzing and predicting customer behavior feasible even for smaller organizations.

But despite these technologies' panacea of possibilities, it's crucial to remember that customer service quality is often the primary differentiator between products today. In fact, 78% of customers have abandoned a transaction because of poor service, and many customers are willing to pay more for better service. Consider opportunities to leverage both technology and high-quality, real-person service with these three 2018 customer service trends to watch for:

• The omnichannel experience. Delivering a seamless customer experience should be a top priority for organizations, and this often takes the form of a variety of customer channels. From mobile to social to self-service, omnichannel customer service will become the expectation.
• Personalization. Recent research suggests 72 percent of customers expect companies to predict their needs, and they want service that's receptive to these preferences. Data is the primary key to personalizing customer experiences.
• Optimizing tech tools. Automation, machine learning, and natural language processing are all incredibly advanced tools that will add immense value for service providers. Supported by an enhanced digital infrastructure, service agents will be able to focus on providing high-quality, personalized, human service.

Ultimate Software's #12DaysofHCM is back by popular demand! For the next week, we'll continue recapping some of the most talked about topics from 2017, and previewing what's ahead for 2018.