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10 Ways Technology Will Affect the Future of Customer Service

10 Ways Technology Will Affect the Future of Customer Service

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: 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

  • 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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Categories
Server

Top 10 Server Technology Trends for the New Decade

Top-10-Server-Technology-Trends-for-the-New-Decade

Mobility and Agility: These are the two key concepts for the new decade of computing innovation and at the epic center of this new trend lies cloud computing. Virtualization and cloud computing has changed our technology-centered lives forever.

These technologies enable us to do more communicating, learning, and more global business with less money, hardware, data loss and of course less hassle.

During this decade, everything we do in the way of technology will move to the data center, whether it is an on-premises data center or a remote cloud-architecture data center thousands of miles away.

Here are some of the top trends in the way of server technology to be considered for this new tech-driven decade.

1. Mobile Computing

These days more and more workers report to their virtual offices from remote locations, and as such, computer manufacturers must supply these on-the-go workers, with sturdier products that has the capability to connect to, and use, any available type of Internet connectivity.

Mobile users look for lightweight, sturdy and easy-to-use devices that “just work,” with no complex configuration and setup.

The agility that will come from these smart devices will be able to pull data from cloud-based applications, i.e. all your applications, data and even the operating environment (OS) will be stored safely and securely in the cloud to allow for maximum mobility.

2. Virtualization:

With the rapid growth of virtualization technology, many are predicting that by the end of this decade this trend will touch every data center in the world.

Companies like big and small, will either convert their physical infrastructures to virtual hosts or they will move to an entirely hosted virtual infrastructure. The money savings promises that this trend provides, has brought hopes to stressed budgets and will continue to do so.

3. Cloud Computing

  • Cloud-Computing

Being closely tied to virtualization and mobile computing, this is the technology that industry observers view as “marketing hype” or old technology repackaged for present-day consumption.

Technology savvy companies will try to leverage cloud computing to present their products and services to a global audience at a fraction of the cost of current offerings.

Cloud computing also protects online ventures with a guarantee that their services will never suffer an outage. Entire business infrastructures will migrate to the cloud by the end of this new decade, making every company a globally accessible one.

4. Web-based applications

The future of client/server computing is server-based applications and client and locally installed applications will become obsolete by the end of the decade. Everything will remain on a remote server. This includes client data and software as well.

5. Libraries

Digitization of printed material will be the parade song for libraries, as all but the most valuable printed manuscripts will be digitized by the end of the decade.

According to some, libraries will cease to exist, whereas others predict a digital library where, schoolchildren will see how books were physically used in the old days while using ebooks themselves.

6. Open Source Migration

A move to open source software can retrieve all your lost dollars on license fees. This is the best option for those companies that cannot afford to lose capital on licensing.

Some such open source softwares include, Linux, Apache, Tomcat, etc. This decade will prove that the open source model works much better than a proprietary software model.

7. Virtual Desktops

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI is the talk of the town nowadays as more and more businesses move away from local desktop operating systems to virtual ones housed in data centers.

This concept integrates into mobile computing, virtualization and cloud computing. Desktops will likely reside in all three locations (PC, data center, cloud) for a few more years, but the transition will become complete by the end of the decade.

This will result in lowering maintenance bills and reducing much of the user error associated with desktop operating systems.

8. Internet Everywhere

  • Internet-Everywhere

There used to be a time when the Internet was known as The Information Superhighway and predictions about how it would change our lives forever.

Well the future is here and the predictions have come true. The next step in its evolution is to have the Internet available everywhere: supermarket, service station, restaurant, bar, mall and automobile. Every piece of electronic gadgetry will have some sort of Internet connectivity.

9. Online Storage

Currently, online storage limited appeal. Many of us have portable USB hard drives, flash drives and DVD burners that act as storage devices as online storage is still not accessible to everyone.

However, the approaching mobile computing storm will require you to have access to your data on any device with which you are working. Even the most portable storage device will prove ungainly for the users who need their data without fumbling with an external hard drive and USB cable.

New devices will come bundled with an allotment of online storage space, like mobile plans these days.

10. Cloud Balancing

The various cloud models will continue to grow and smear the lines between compute consumption models. Companies will realize that these styles of compute are not based on location.

Companies will refine their TCO models finding a need for all three (public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud) consumption models across different needs with the ease of use.

Keeping a keen eye on these above-mentioned trends can boost your businesses in this new decade of computation technology.

Categories
Server

Data Center Management and Server Technology in 2020

Data Center Management and Server Technology in 2020

Trends and Observations serve two main purposes.

  1. A view into a possible state and
  2. A indication of things around us that can lead to disruptions.

As the year turned, many enterprises were looking forward to see what trends would affect the data center industry in 2020. Here are some of the trends that are worth looking into:

The customer is the King

The customer is indeed always right. Something often forgotten in the technology world although we have all heard it many times. 

It is very important to truly listen and respond to your customers with products, solutions, and services that actually solve customer problems and result in a better business outcome.

On-Premise Workloads Migrate into Cloud

Migration of enterprise IT workloads into third-party data centers that long-predicted has finally arrived. According to some, during this transition, there is a lot of opportunity for colo providers to take on a lot of workloads.

This shift was predicted with the arrival of a succession of hosting offerings. Enterprises are thinking about moving workloads off-premises.

This trend started back in 2017 and has continued into 2020, creating sustained business for IT infrastructure providers.

The cloud and co-location industries have reached a level of maturity, where it can offer compelling value, breaking down the historic resistance to moving data offsite.

The notion that in-house data centers are more secure than the cloud has become almost non-existent by a series of corporate data compromises.

On-premises facilities are aging at an accelerated rate. The financial crisis of 2008 resulted in a drastic fall in construction of these capital-intensive projects, and a growing number of companies are now facing decisions about their infrastructure.

Some workloads will head to the cloud. Others that are not cloud-ready – and may never be – will move to co-location facilities.

Memory-Centric Computing

  • Memory Centric

In 2020, we must embrace memory centric computing.  This will open up innovation on a variety of fronts on hardware and software. Devices like, FPGAs, Storage Class Memory, ASICs, GPUs, etc. are moving into the microsecond to sub-microsecond domain.

Thus we can no longer treat these devices as secondary, nor can we software define them without losing their intrinsic value. Today’s architecture is processor centric computation whereas tomorrow’s architecture will become memory centric.

Servers are not a Commodity

Commodity by definition is –

→A raw material or primary agricultural product that can be sold, such as copper coffee, a useful and/or valuable thing, such as water.

Let us think about water for example – surely we all agree that water is a basic resource and widely available in modern industrialized countries – but is it really a commodity?  Checking the shelves at any supermarket or gas station stores, would seem to indicate that is NOT the case.

There are various types; different bottles, purification differences, additives, and so on. Thus, how the commodity (water) is bottled, sold, distributed, and filtered is vastly different. Therefore, water is a commodity, but bottled water is NOT.

Now apply that thinking to servers and you will see that compute cycles are the commodity (the water) and the server is the bottling of those compute cycles.

Now that computing is ever-present in every toy, IoT device, mobile device, etc. that makes compute cycles more or less a raw material of our digital lives. 

How servers bottle up the compute; by adding Dram, IO, slots, drives, systems management, high availability, density, redundancy, efficiency, serviced, delivered, and warranted in a wrapper is how they are not a commodity.

Security Must be End-to-End

Security

2020 has seen a definite shift in terms of Security.  For example, the Dell PowerEdge 14G server family has a new cryptographic security architecture where, part of a key pair is unalterable, unique, and set in the hardware during the system fabrication process.

This method provides an indisputable root of trust embedded in the hardware that eliminates the middle-man all the way from manufacture of server to delivery to customer.

Considering today’s need, the term security seems incomplete. 2020 will see security expand to system-wide protection, integrity verification and automated remediation.

Impenetrability is always the objective; however, with the increasing complexity and sophistication of attackers, it is very likely that additional vulnerabilities will emerge.

One of the 2020 objectives will be to make sure that if someone can get into the platform, making sure they cannot obtain meaningful information or do damage.

This will lead to a more intense trust strategy between the buyer and seller based on more identity management. Identity at all level (user, device, and platform) will be a great focus and as such require a complete end-to-end trust chain.

This will likely include options based on block chain. Emerging standards where keys are embedded in the transaction layer will also be required.

Two big gains for artificial intelligence

One of Artificial Intelligence major uses will be in intrusion detection; areas where it can respond faster. It is no longer enough for a firewall to send an alert to an admin of suspicious behavior.

This is where AI comes into action; it will detect the malware and act before an admin can come back from a bathroom break.

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The other major use of AI will be to fix or correct things that might otherwise be caused by human error. Even the most cautious eyes can fail but unless programmed badly (by a human) AI cannot.