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How Customer Service Leaders Put Their Technology Budget Where It Counts

Customer Service Technology

Balancing high-quality support with managing a rapidly growing queue of requests is the struggle of every customer service team. An obvious way to achieve results good in both areas is to increase your headcount, but for many organizations, that option is not possible. Outside of that approach, something almost every team should assess that’s often far less costly than expanding your team, is making improvements to your customer service tools and processes. With strategic improvements to a few of your systems, you can increase the effectiveness of each of your existing agents and be ready to bring on new agents more quickly.

 

After working with everyone from small businesses to multinational corporations, these are the technologies we’ve seen drive the greatest results:

1) Customer Relationship Management System

A Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) stands at the heart of your customer service operations: It’s what you use to keep track of customer interactions. Every service organization needs a way to find out who their customers are and easily reference their previous interactions and purchases. In the beginning stages of a business, this system may be as simple as a spreadsheet and emails, but as an organization grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to move on to a more robust set of capabilities. Leading CRM platforms (like Microsoft Dynamics 365) have Customer Service focused capabilities than can do more than help you track and manage cases, they enforce key processes, provide task automation, track communication, provide asset management, and more.

 

According to a Nucleus Research Study, investments in CRM pay back $8.71 for every dollar spent. The improvements you make here can have a huge impact on your CS operations and have the potential to enhance the capabilities of every other technology you integrate it with.

2) Process Automation

Take some repetitive tasks off your team’s plate. At many organizations (both new and established), your efforts toward automation may be as basic as building out a library of templated emails and setting up automatic reply emails. However, the more you invest in these processes, the greater the payoff you will see. With the right technology, you can automate everything from responses to common inquiries to complex routing processes. Automating repetitive tasks ensures the accuracy of the process and consistency within your customer engagements, while also allowing representatives to focus on serving the customer rather than dealing with data entry.

 

While there are many solutions that can help automate processes, one of the more capable and flexible solutions that can be quickly applied and used with existing applications is Microsoft’s Power Automate. With connectors to SharePoint, Excel, Outlook, Dynamics 365, and many others, you can quickly identify many valuable areas to use this technology.

3) Artificial Intelligence

AI is finding an increasing number of applications in the customer service industry. Leading customer service technologies may now offer intelligent insights into call and case volume and assist agents with real-time knowledge article suggestions based on customer calls and live chats. AI tools can potentially be used to reveal your most valuable customers, the parts of your customer interactions most in need of improvement, and which clients may be most at risk of churn.

 

One of the reasons most organizations have yet to analyze the value of AI is the assumption that it is too complex or expensive. To be sure, custom-developed AI models can take a lot of time and effort to define and deploy. However, there are specific platform components that can be deployed that are pre-built for Customer Service departments that can provide low cost and quick value when applied to the right challenges.

4) Knowledge Base

Every CS person knows that a library of information about or related to your company and its products or services can be extremely valuable in supporting your customer service reps especially when you have new solutions or resources. It’s a reference for agents that in addition to being a vital training resource, can also be used to drive consistent business practices internally or to standardize information being sent to the customer.

 

Many companies have yet to expose these resources to customer-accessible locations that allow clients to self-service, further reducing the number of requests their agents need to field. This approach provides not only dual use of certain articles (many articles may need to be internal only) but, presented correctly through the right engagement channels, it decreases the number of requests coming into your CS team while still capturing the client interaction and use of the resources.

 

Forrester reports that most American customers prefer using knowledge bases and self-service options to live options, so there is a huge opportunity here to reduce the frequency of your most labor-intensive agent interactions while serving clients in their preferred format.

5) Virtual Meeting and Internal Chat Tools

If there’s one thing companies have learned in recent years, it’s the value of remote working and collaboration technology. While many customer service organizations were already well-versed in allowing employees to work from home, the right collaboration tools can do more than enable remote work; they can allow your team to thrive. Technologies for collaboration and virtual meetings can allow users to chat about open cases and collaborate on how to best support customer needs. When integrated into your other solutions (like CRM and customer portals), they make for more complete client records and smoother hand-off experiences.

Product Fit Consultation

Interested in learning more about customer service technology options? Request a free product fit consultation.

4) Knowledge Base

Every CS person knows that a library of information about or related to your company and its products or services can be extremely valuable in supporting your customer service reps especially when you have new solutions or resources. It’s a reference for agents that in addition to being a vital training resource, can also be used to drive consistent business practices internally or to standardize information being sent to the customer.

 

Many companies have yet to expose these resources to customer-accessible locations that allow clients to self-service, further reducing the number of requests their agents need to field. This approach provides not only dual use of certain articles (many articles may need to be internal only) but, presented correctly through the right engagement channels, it decreases the number of requests coming into your CS team while still capturing the client interaction and use of the resources.

 

Forrester reports that most American customers prefer using knowledge bases and self-service options to live options, so there is a huge opportunity here to reduce the frequency of your most labor-intensive agent interactions while serving clients in their preferred format.

5) Virtual Meeting and Internal Chat Tools

If there’s one thing companies have learned in recent years, it’s the value of remote working and collaboration technology. While many customer service organizations were already well-versed in allowing employees to work from home, the right collaboration tools can do more than enable remote work; they can allow your team to thrive. Technologies for collaboration and virtual meetings can allow users to chat about open cases and collaborate on how to best support customer needs. When integrated into your other solutions (like CRM and customer portals), they make for more complete client records and smoother hand-off experiences.

6) Live Chat / Chatbots

Studies have found that most customers want a company to respond in 10 minutes or less. Live chat and chatbot capabilities enable your team to deliver on customer expectations without overburdening your team with higher-cost customer interactions. If you don’t have the capacity for 24/7 live chat support, most applications will allow you to turn on and off “live” support as agents are available.

 

While there is the initial effort required to set up chatbot scenarios, once a chatbot is in place, it can answer many of your most common customer questions, freeing up your agents to focus on more complex requests. Many tools (including those offered through Microsoft’s Power Apps Virtual Agent) can be smoothly integrated into your existing client portal. Additionally, chatbots offer immediate responsiveness and options for 24/7 availability. Paired with AI capabilities, chatbots become even more powerful and have the potential to handle an even broader range of requests.

 

According to an IBM global digital customer care leader, 80% of standard inquiries can be answered by chatbots.

Bonus: Do You Provide On-site Service? Don't Forget These Technologies...

Field Service Management

Managing a team of field agents presents another level of complexity to a service organization’s operations. Modern field service technologies can now do more than simply help dispatchers and field agents to create, schedule, and complete work orders; they can also help track service activities and provide greater customer and manager visibility, identify high-performing technicians with automated surveys, and offer capabilities customers love like self-service scheduling. Additionally, having a centralized system helps standardize processes between the scheduler and field service technician reducing missed service windows.

Live Video Call Support

Your technicians may be experts in their area, but there will always be instances when they encounter an issue that they’re unfamiliar with. Live video calling (especially when integrated into a collaboration platform allows field representatives to bring in troubleshooting support from HQ and show their collaborators exactly what they’re working with, empowering each agent to serve your customers more quickly and effectively and reduce the number of on-site visits needed to complete a request. 

Need assistance planning the move for your customer service technology? Contact us to learn more about our consulting services such as technology road mapping, implementation, and migration.

About Altriva Solutions

Altriva Solutions is an award-winning business technology consulting firm. Founded on CRM and Microsoft technologies, they help companies achieve their business objectives through smart, integrated, customer-centric solutions. Their consultants take the time to understand each client’s unique processes and priorities so that they can provide not only advanced technical knowledge of Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Azure, but also strategic business recommendations honed over hundreds of projects and nearly two decades in the industry.

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