Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

It’s impossible to provide great customer service without great customer data. You can’t give people the white-glove treatment if you don’t know anything about them. Especially in today’s data-driven world, companies need to leverage their customer data to make informed decisions and improve their business. Yet some organizations struggle with outdated or insufficient information. Other brands capture plenty of data but fail to connect it all.

The idea of a single view into the enterprise has existed for some time as a "holy grail" concept—not just for Customer Service teams, but for IT leaders, and managers looking for big-picture dashboards for better decision-making. The trouble with realizing this concept has historically been an unreasonable investment in time and treasure to tear-down and rebuild vast enterprise systems. Today's fast-paced mergers and acquisitions activities only compound the technical challenges.

You've heard them before. You might have even thought it yourself at one time. But be on the lookout for these 5 Customer Service fallacies ready to sink the unwary in 2021.

Not every quarantine trend has had a long shelf life—if you abandoned your sourdough starter eons ago, you’re not alone. But when it comes to customer service, some habits born out of the pandemic are here to stay. The Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2021 found that 64 percent of customers started using a new support channel last year. Among them, 73 percent say they plan to continue using that channel this year and beyond.

Customer service apps are great. They help us communicate with customers very easily, and engage them effectively, all while staying under budget. Unfortunately, a customer service app will only be effective as long as it’s good for you, your company, and your customers. Here are over 15 customer service apps your CS team will love, their pros and cons, and the platforms they’re available for. Let’s get started.

About 82% of customers deeply value convenience, friendliness, and human touch when it comes to their ideal customer service experience. If you want customers to continue to return to your business, you need to treat them well, and successfully handle the customer service challenges that inhibit your support team. Customer service challenges are scenarios that get in the way of providing the customer with a favorable resolution.

The pandemic era showed us that consumers were going online in their search for better and safer ways to transact with businesses. This shift in behaviour means that customer service has become more important now than ever, and organisations must change the way they view the function going forward. Customer service needs to be a crucial part of every company’s growth strategy.

Social media isn’t just the tool of teens—over the past year, it has quickly become one of the fastest-growing channels for customer support, with tickets up 181 percent since the start of the pandemic. Now, more than ever, customers are looking to connect with brands on their favorite social media platforms. In addition to meeting customers where they are, social media is a great method for customer outreach whether or not you pay to promote content.

Customer support is demanding work: You’re on the front line handling queries, issues, and complaints all day. To motivate and retain support agents, companies need to acknowledge their work. Customer service recognition is when the customer service team’s hard work is seen, understood, and valued by the whole organization.

If you're researching customer service metrics, you'll undoubtedly hear a few mentioned over and over, like CSAT and ticket backlog. While these common metrics are useful, they alone can't give you the complete picture you need to boost your customer service game. By focusing on these and ignoring other, lesser-known customer service metrics, you'll miss out on vital information that can help improve your customer service strategy and your team's performance.