Advanced search technology is revolutionizing customer relations for organizations in all fields. This shift—along with a proliferation of wearable devices, automatic voice interactions, and predictive support technology—will mold the future of customer service as it advances over the next 25 years.

Evolving CRM Practices

Customers in the future will connect automatically (rather than call and search) to answers via voice or action through wearable devices. Those smart devices will be aware of the customers' history and past activities with various products, their related challenges, and even their state of mind (based on biometric data).

The customers' actions, combined with their "persona," will drive suggested solutions to product-related challenges they face in real time. Contextual information will be pushed to support agents via the products customers are using, which may also "know" the customers' history and preferences. So, agents will be able to automatically provide help without customers needing to take any action to request assistance. Customer service will mirror the role of a personal assistant, sitting beside the customer and offering the next best action to take.

The richness of information available from wearable devices, the Internet, and social systems, along with constant streams of information about other customers' experiences, intents and activities, will provide detailed context that will lead to highly relevant suggestions. Doing so will be made possible by advances in data hosting, and search and relevance technology, which will be embedded in every customer interaction point.

What Will Change, What Won't

Though customers are already beginning to expect brands to engage with them via social channels and forums, they will become accustomed to engagement becoming much more proactive. Increasing and enhancing engagement will become an ongoing challenge for companies. The organizations that continue to evolve and offer heightened levels of proactive customer engagement will dominate the conversation.

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What Might Customer Service Look Like in 25 Years?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Diane  Berry

Diane Berry is chief knowledge evangelist at Coveo, an advanced enterprise search provider.

LinkedIn: Diane Berry

Twitter: @dianemberry