8 Breakthroughs for the Future of B2B Customer Support

man-with-headphones-facing-computer-monitor-845451
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

What better time to look over the decade just gone – and its impact on customer support – just as we wait eagerly for the next one. Mobile technology’s arrival and development drove the last decade – resulting in easier communication like never before. We also saw the arrival onto the mainstream scene of “big data” into the mainstream, giving customer support teams to more customer information – again like never before. More than just review customer support trends yearly in the past, we should look far forward to the future of customer support.

What then does the new decade have for us to look forward to? Get ready then for the below 8 B2B customer support breakthroughs.

1) Customer support professionals with little or no direct contact with customers will be hired by large companies

We’re at the dawn of an era where the work of customer support offline matters more than actual telephone contact. Tailor-made self-service content, chatbot technology, and other related concepts are in. As far as an increasing number of B2B professionals are concerned, customer service agents will be a last port of call  – the mantra being very much less human to human contact for resolving problems

2) Conversations will be painlessly convertible into searchable text.

With a great conversation between agent and customer comes great data. How to harness this though once the call is finished? Such data can’t be harnessed nor is it eternal yet a majority of businesses wish to tap into its value. Which explains the popularity of real-time speech to text technology – making sure all this information is not lost from the system.

3) Out of necessity, support experience for mobile text and chat messages will get better.

Looking back only ten years, our lives were unlikely to have revolved around your mobile phone, save for some photos and email. Now that small device in our pocket tends to run our lives. Not surprisingly, therefore, the support experience to go with this is expected to match the call center one. Mobile chat experience does not come up to the same quality as on desktop. A majority of mobile users will look to getting a streamlined experience for text and chat. No time for wondering about text messages being sent or keeping the chat open.

4) Individual-level information – not only company level – will be the motor behind customer support decision-making.

It was the case for a long time to worry about customer happiness. Now, it matters if it was the customer, the company, or a specific stakeholder. They are not one and the same hence the change in focus in B2B support. This company to individual shift in information will result in more impactful support conversations.

5) Personal assistant technology will come with automated support, e.g. Alexa to get the answers to common support questions

Siri and Alexa-type technologies will thrive and be more customer-friendly. Let’s face it, people will not use technology that isn’t useful Thanks to a chatbot, a virtual assistant will be able to use it to answer their questions – in order to help the user.

6) More Support conversations in B2B will occur when professionals want to communicate

Whilst self-service options will continue to prove useful, many businesses equipped with support agents will just prefer integrating Slack to their system. This will eliminate the need for redirecting to a website-based support form. This should make customers feel they’re being supported.

7) B2B support: more a case of illustrating through use of tailored content on demand

We’re watching less television. So potentially moving to less support content. And interaction. People are watching less live TV, so it follows that we’ll have less live support interactions. Agents will be recording voice messages to narrate a problem resolution. Instead of typing out a long response, a support expert may record their screen for 5 minutes and narrate how to solve a problem. This will be a bit like using Netflix to work with business. The resulting video will be accessible to the customer via a portal.

8) Proactive support teams will know who when and now to contact, thanks to machine learning.

Provided that your software solution contains legacy customer data, machine learning can help you grow your valuable interactions. If you had to, for instance, inform a customer of a bug on a  key product on their account, you would know – thanks to machine learning – who to contact, when to contact, the language to use and all based on the previous interactions you will have had with that customer on negative issues.  This will all ensure the message gets through the right and bring you so much more value. Your support team will have more information at hand like never before.

New means of communication and getting customer data are on the way. We’re waiting eagerly for this new decade to see what’s waiting for us.