After a dynamic and innovative year in 2023, it's time to look ahead. In the past year, we witnessed a growing adoption of AI in customer service, with increasingly sophisticated chatbots handling more complex requests. However, the need for a personalized and frictionless customer experience has become more evident than ever.

Let's dive into 2024!

This new year, much like its predecessors, may pose its own set of challenges. Economic, geopolitical, and social crises loom, raising concerns for both businesses and consumers. During economically challenging times, consumers become more discerning. Cost-conscious individuals no longer tolerate subpar experiences. It's the companies providing a better customer experience and building stronger connections that will earn customer loyalty.

2024 will be the year to strike a balance between delivering the best in digital and establishing human connections with customers. Companies will continue investing in digitization while adapting to the evolving landscape of customer relations, emphasizing rich and personalized human interactions. In this article, we invite you to explore the various trends for the upcoming year.

1/ Digital transformation will impose new challenges

To continue to grow and stand out, companies have no choice but to reinvent themselves and innovate. To do this, they must adopt the new codes of customer relations to offer the best possible experience. The knowledge of the customer journey, listening to their expectations and continuous experimentation are the keys to success.

In 2024, customer relations will be omnichannel. This does not necessarily mean being present everywhere and all the time, but above all knowing how to combine and rationalize channels. The objective is to offer customers the right channel at the right time.

Customers expect to interact with companies through various channels – be it live chat, email, social media, or phone – and to receive a consistent, high-quality experience regardless of the chosen channel. For instance, a customer might browse a company's social media to learn about its products, check pricing on the brand's website, and then visit a physical store to make a purchase.

Numerous communication channels lend themselves to the implementation of an effective omnichannel strategy. Examples include social media, chatbots, and video assistance. Integrated into customer service, remote assistance provides a true omnichannel experience. Consider a scenario where a customer encounters an issue with their equipment. To reach the company's customer support, the customer can opt for a phone call, a message in a chatbox, or sending an email. To resolve the customer's issue more promptly, the support agent can send an invitation via SMS or email, allowing the customer to connect directly via video from a simple web browser.

To ensure the success of this strategy, companies will have to equip and train their employees to all these new technical solutions.

2/ Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Customer Relations

In 2024, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will continue to be seamlessly integrated into customer service processes, facilitating increased automation and more precise predictions of customer behaviors.

Recent years have witnessed significant technological advancements, translating into faster and personalized customer interactions. This enables agents to focus on more complex tasks, ultimately enhancing the overall efficiency of customer service.

Key advantages of generative AI in customer service include:

• Personalization: By analyzing customer data, it tailors responses to the specific needs of each user, thereby enhancing the customer experience.
• 24/7 Availability: Operating continuously, it provides uninterrupted assistance even outside regular office hours.
• Instant Support: Offers immediate responses to frequently asked questions, thereby improving the overall response time of customer service. 77% of customers acknowledge the effectiveness of AI and bots in addressing simple queries.
• Automation of Repetitive Tasks: Frees human agents from monotonous tasks, allowing them to focus on more complex issues and relationship-building.
• Sentiment Analysis: Evaluates customer sentiments from their messages, aiding in identifying and resolving potential issues before they escalate.

In 2024, AI will play an even more pivotal role in customer relations. Advancements in AI and machine learning will empower AI systems to comprehend the context of customer conversations, respond more naturally to their queries, and even anticipate their needs. AI will increasingly be integrated into various customer service channels, ensuring customers a consistent and high-quality experience, regardless of their chosen communication channel.

3/ Human contact remains essential

The emergence of digital has led companies to believe that consumers no longer want human contact. However, they attach particular importance to interaction and would like brands to listen and empathize more. According to a Salesforce report, 83% of customers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a company.

In 2024, any company that wants to grow and provide a good experience will have to offer a human customer service.

4/ Video becomes the norm

Phone and email remain the main channels for calling a customer service. However, they are declining in contrast to digital channels such as chat, forums or video support.

Video support is the channel with the biggest increase. It has increased by 43% since 2020. This channel appeals to both customers and companies, as it allows for, among other things:

• A humanized customer relationship
• A simple and fast assistance
• An efficient treatment of requests
• A resolution from the 1st call
• An improved customer experience

Source: Salesforces

Video assistance provides a more personalized and direct connection, enabling businesses to solve issues more efficiently and quickly, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction. Additionally, it fosters a sense of closeness and trust between brands and their customers. By allowing face-to-face interaction, even remotely, companies can establish a more personal and empathetic connection with their clients. Therefore, video support will continue to play a crucial role in customer relations as an effective means of supporting and assisting customers.

5/ Ever more demanding customer expectations

Companies know that customers are increasingly demanding. The reason is simple: in the same sector, the offers are more and more diversified. It is then easy for a customer to switch from one brand to another. To stand out from the crowd and avoid having customers leave, a company will have to provide an outstanding quality of service in terms of speed, security, and engagement.

In 2024, customer relations will have to be fluid and fast! According to a Qualimétrie study, 45% want their request to be dealt with quickly and resolved as soon as they receive the first call. Brands must therefore use technology as well as creative approaches to improve efficiency and offer customers ways to save time. Visual assistance has many benefits when integrated with customer service, including improving first call resolution rates. The use of visual assistance allows the agent to visualize the problem encountered by the customer. This allows the agent to diagnose and resolve the problem faster while ensuring a good customer experience.

Customers also have high expectations regarding security. A Cisco study shows that 81% of consumers consider transparency to be the most important thing organizations can do to restore and build trust when it comes to handling their personal data. A good customer experience therefore also requires a company to be transparent about how it uses and collects its customers’ data. In 2024, companies will need to ensure seamless security, promote security practices such as two-factor authentication or the use of one-time passwords, for example, and ensure compliance with personal data protection regulations such as the GDPR.

The third expectation of customers concerns the commitment of brands. 88% of customers expect companies to clearly state their values. Customers want to give meaning to their consumption by consuming less, but better. They therefore attach particular importance to the values and commitments promoted by brands. The evolution of customer relations is leading companies to show more sincerity and reliability in their organizations.

6/ The employee experience at the heart of customer relations

There is a correlation between customer satisfaction and employee experience that is called “Symmetry of Attitudes”. This concept consists of placing the quality of the customer relationship and the quality of the employee relationship on the same level in order to increase employee engagement and customer satisfaction. According to McKinsey, people who report having a positive employee experience have a level of engagement 16 times higher than employees with a negative experience. It is therefore essential for companies to put employees at the heart of their organization.

In recent years, the volume of customer requests has continued to increase, as have customer expectations. Therefore, it is essential to give them the keys to do their job well. This can be done through digital awareness, training, or access to business technology tools. There are many solutions (selfcare, knowledge bases, etc.) that can increase employee performance. Video is an interesting and innovative solution to establish privileged relationships and provide personalized experiences. Whatever the use case, the use of video offers significant advantages for agents:

• Time savings: problem resolution is faster thanks to real-time video and collaborative tools (shared annotations, screen sharing, etc.);
• Reduced effort: visual access to the customer’s problem allows the agent to make less effort to understand the situation from the start;
• Maximize productivity: with faster resolution of customer cases, employees can handle more.

7/ Customer service: a key factor in building customer loyalty

Customer service has become more important than ever to businesses, as it plays a critical role in their success. While the original purpose of customer service was to provide quick assistance to customers, this is no longer the case. The goal of customer service is to create a lasting relationship with each consumer who interacts with a brand by offering rich interactions. To achieve this, companies will need to:

• Place customer service at the center of the organization

Customer service is the main point of contact that consumers have with a brand. This means that advisors are the primary contact for customers. They are the only people in the company who have such a global knowledge of customers, their expectations, their frustrations, etc. It is therefore essential to link customer service to the rest of the company and to encourage collaboration between the various departments. By promoting internal collaboration around customer success, companies will be able to improve the customer experience, strengthen customer loyalty and optimize business growth.

• Consider customer service as a true profit center

By capitalizing on customer service, companies can turn it into a true profit center. First, it allows them to retain customers, which costs much less than acquiring new ones. Secondly, advisors can identify recurring issues that are deemed negative by customers. They can then provide valuable information to the company to correct these blocking aspects. Agents will be able to focus on more important customer requests and possibly handle more cases. Finally, employees now accompany customers throughout their journey, from product discovery to purchase and post-purchase. They are thus able to develop sales. By detecting customer needs, they can identify sales opportunities, and even carry out up-selling or cross-selling.

For companies, it will therefore be essential to invest in this department in 2024 if they want to stand out from competitors, attract new customers and retain customers in the long term.

In 2024, showing empathy, empowering customers, going beyond their expectations, building a close relationship with them and maximizing the employee experience will be key areas where companies will have to invest to optimize customer relations. The implementation of video communication technologies, such as visual assistance, can help you achieve your goals. At Apizee, we provide 100% web-based and secure solutions. If you are interested in integrating video into your business strategy, we would love to help you. Please contact us to learn more or to get a demo.