artificial intelligence

Today, technology is developing at the most rapid pace, thereby producing the most patent filings as well as capital for ventures. The recent developments in tech have introduced us to the Internet of Things (IoT), jet-speed breaking in connectivity through 5G, and next-level process automation and virtualization.

However, with this rapid growth in technology, a lot more have evolved, owing to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This makes IT professionals curious to understand their role in designing and developing technologies that would be relevant in the contactless world tomorrow. Not just that, with this acceleration of all things digital, companies and executives have to know which technology trends matter the most.

As per the entrepreneur and futurist, Peter Diamandis, within the next decade, the nation is going to experience progress in technology that is going to surpass the advancements made in the past 100 years in totality.

This is because of the fact that technology is ought to restructure a lot of industries and domains, including energy, transportation, and health and materials sciences.

This is going to have broad implications for enterprises as value chains are going to be affected due to the combination of 3-D or 4-D printing with next-generation materials. This would eliminate the demand for spare parts as manufacturers would be able to meet the needs that suppliers fulfilled previously.

Not just that, retailers would be able to combine immersive and spatial computing, sensors, AI, computer vision, and augmented reality to attract customers by offering video game-like experiences.

Have you ever thought what it would be like if a fully automated finance function in your company would gain control over science-based industries like pharmaceutical or chemical through virtualized R&D functions? Well, that day is not very far away!

However, the way in which your company adapts to these new heights of rapid innovation is going to be the gamechanger.

In order, to do so, it is imperative to stay updated with the trends in technology and understand their applicability across industries. Henceforth, we take you through the top emerging tech trends that can drive your business in 2022.

Robotics and Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the technology that facilitates automation of jobs. It is a software used for dealing with data, interpreting applications, replying to emails, and processing transactions.

The arena of robotics has been introduced to us ever since more intelligent automation took off, and gradually it started being used in the manufacturing and healthcare industry.

Nowadays, what we see are mostly hard-to-program stationary robots, but with this emerging trend, it won’t be difficult to develop Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR), that are stationary robots on the move, and programmed with machine learning.

If predictions are to be believed, Forrester Research estimates that 230 million or 9% of the global workforce would have to face the threat to their livelihood. Not just that, it is believed 6 out of 8 million robots shipped worldwide would be mobile, thereby constituting 75% of it.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning

The developments that the field of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning has made in the past decade has created a lot of buzz. This new technology trend has the capability to generate notable effects on our life in the form of how we live, work, and play.

Image and speech recognition is one of the most important factors that has helped AI gain superiority in the market. Additionally, navigation applications, ride-sharing apps, and smartphone personal assistants. As an emerging trend, AI would be used in the future to analyze emerging interaction that would determine underlying insights and connections.

It would assist in assessing the need for a particular service, thereby enabling organizations to study the changing pattern of behavior within customers and taking well-informed decisions about resource utilization.

As the domain would spread its wings across sectors, a lot of employment would be created in programming, development, maintenance, support, and testing. Currently, the global spending on cognitive and AI systems is $57 billion, and by 2025, the AI market is predicted to reach $190 dollars.

Machine learning is a subset of AI, that along with automation and AI is predicted to create 9 percent of new U.S. jobs by 2025. This would increase the demand for data scientists, automation specialists, robot monitoring professionals, content curators, etc.

Blockchain technology

Whenever we think about blockchain, the first thing that comes to our mind is cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. However, in reality, it is much more than that, and effectively offers security. To explain blockchain, it would be best to say that it is the data to which a user can only add to, rather than taking away or changing, thereby making a chain of data.

Since the previous block of chains cannot be changed, it remains secure. A single entity cannot take control over the data, and there is no involvement of a third-party to validate or oversee transactions.

An increase in the usage of blockchain has created a demand for skilled professionals, who are well-equipped with web app development, the fundamentals of OOPS, data structures, programming languages, flat and relational databases, and networking.

5G

Till date, the 3G and 4G technologies have given us immense scope to browse the internet. Besides browsing and using data-driven services, the bandwidth for streaming on Spotify or YouTube has increased.

However, with the emergence of 5G technology, this entire internet service scenario is going to change. To start with, people can enjoy cloud-based gaming services like NVidia GeForce Now, Google Stadia, and much more.

Telecom companies like QualComm, Nokia Corp, Apple, Tmobile, and Verizon are working towards launching their 5G applications, and it is anticipated that by 2024, 5G networks would cover 40% of the world.

Everyday, we see multiple technologies mature and evolve all around us. However, these four technology trends that are listed above have the capability to offer promising career potential not just in the present, but also in the foreseeable future, thereby increasing the demand for skilled professionals in almost every sphere of technology.

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Customer Service has existed for as long as the business has; simply because the two things go hand-in-hand.

With the passing of ages, technology has improved and this led to a simultaneous evolution in customer services.

With these, customers have grown to expect faster and efficient support from businesses.

And this is true for every kind of business, be it a small business or a multinational conglomerate.

Advancements in artificial intelligence, real-time messaging, crypto-currencies, self-service, and many more such technologies have the potential to affect the future of the customer service and success industry vastly for the better.

In this article, we will take a look at 10 ways in which the future of customer service will be affected by these advancements in technology.

1. The age of video communication is now!!

Eye contact is a very powerful thing, not just in the novels but in every day-to-day task. And in the customer service industry, this aspect is becoming very necessary.

This is because video calling is no longer a myth. The positivity of video calling lies in the fact that with video calling.

It becomes easier for both the customer to explain his/her issues and the professionals to understand the requirements of the customer easily.

Moreover, with video calling i.e. eye-contact things become very transparent and help improve relationships with customers.

They too can rely on the authenticity of the business. As such this is becoming a very important and useful tool for many businesses.

2. Email will be outpaced by real-time messaging

Just like video communications which are also done in real-time, customers expect support techies to be always “on-line”. This means they would rather prefer to chat than ring up or communicate via email.

One example of such a communicating medium is the Facebook Messenger that has gone one step further to even show their average responsiveness. This means you can avoid unnecessary engagements depending on the responsiveness.

On-site conversations and chats are considered by customers as authentic and in real-time which is a very reassuring option for customers to engage.

There are various tools for helping businesses to collect and assign all incoming messages from customers across various channels in one place so that businesses can effectively carry out their customer service and support tasks.

This helps professionals to identify potential roadblocks and effectively counter balance them.

3. The future is here: Data-driven decision making

Customer service no longer includes only supporting the customers by understanding their issues and solving them.

A lot more goes into it. The first and foremost being understanding customer feedback and upgrading the existing customer service technology in use. To do this we need information or data.

However, in order to effectively use the technology in place, we need a mechanism to measure its success quantitatively and that is where data analytics comes into the fray.

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This is why service technologies nowadays record the various information gathered via customer interactions.

Moreover, other departments such as marketing and sales departments can also use these data to further develop their initiatives and sales pitches for a better business environment.

4. Social media: not just a platform to connect

Social media has long been a platform for people from across the globe to connect with each other.

However, the fact that whatever anyone says on social media platforms, remains for the world to see, has made it possible for social media to be used as a tool for both sales & marketing as well as for customer support and services.

As authenticity becomes more and more important for any business, many large and small organizations have started using social media as a service tool.

Answering customer queries online gives much credibility to a business’s customer service aspect. This can even go on to improve your brand value as well.

5. Chatbots are here to aid professionals

Nowadays if your customer support/service department does not include a chat-bot, then it is simply not considered to be an effective one. There is logical reasoning behind that.

But before we go into that I’d like to clear one thing first: Chatbots or bots are not AI; they are simply very clever mathematics and logical interpretations that are presented in a conversation-like user interface.

So, how are bots the game-changer of the future? Well you see it acts as a SaaS and answers customer queries and then resolving common issues.

In case the query is unique or not in the scope of the bot it will automatically redirect to a customer service agent. Moreover, bots are online 24/7 even when your customer service team is asleep.

6. Self-service is rapidly becoming a necessity

More often than not, customers complain about the length of time they had to wait for a call and forget about the real problem for which they were making the call in the first place.

The aim of self-service is to reduce this time delay for the customers. This is becoming more important because each and every service query does not need a human response.

This is why many organizations are including self-service tools in their customer service department.

These include creating a detailed FAQ section that the customers can go through thoroughly and be able to solve the problems themselves.

Chatbots are another self-service example as we saw just above.

These tools are most effective for those customers who work for long hours or like to get things done on the commute.

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7. Customer support and SEO

Contacting customer service to get your issues resolved has been the traditional and conventional method in the past.

However, with the turn of the century, we were introduced to this awesome thing called Google.

Nowadays we tend to ask Google for any big or small issues we have in every sphere of our lives.

But with this, there also comes the chance that your customers may end up on a different page and find wrong suggestions to their solutions, which can make things worse for your clients.

And in this age of customer success and services, that is the last thing you want to happen to your customers. This is where SEO comes in as it can really work wonders.

8. The role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence is something that is no longer a science-fiction. It is as real as sunlight and rain.

According to a report, 85% of customer interactions are predicted to be managed without any human intervention by 2020.

AI and Machine Learning can effectively impact customer support and after-sales support in the days to come.

9. Blockchains for e-commerce customer support

Blockchains are going to be very beneficial to the e-commerce and electronics industry in the future; mainly their post-sale customer support departments.

This is because, with Blockchains, a company can access all the information regarding their products in a single ledger.

This will contain everything from the manufacturing date, installation date, product details, and ownership details.

Moreover, this information will be shared between all the parties involved, i.e. the manufacturer, the customer, part-providers, and any other parties involved.

This means more transparency and hence better customer service and success.

10. Customer success in place of Customer service

Customer success is predicted to be the motto of the future as much as customer service is today.

The pace at which companies nowadays are searching for customer value is the main driving force for this to happen.

However, this can have an adverse effect on small businesses that are looking to increase their customer base.

That is why organizations already practicing customer success today are bound to stay ahead of the curve when this finally hits the ground.

Always remember that better customer support improves customer satisfaction and that is what really drives for a successful business.

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