What lies ahead: customer experience trends in 2021

2020 was a really rough year in which customer experience managers had to resort to very short-term solutions. This is perfectly understandable as the world economy as a whole went through an unprecedented turmoil and customers shifted their consumption habits dramatically. So, what’s waiting for us in terms of customer experience trends in 2021?

If history is any indication, the unique circumstances we had to face in 2020 will have a lasting effect in 2021. The rapid change brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic will likely affect customer experience professionals’ decisions in the year ahead.

So, let’s take a step back and see what challenges and opportunities lie ahead in 2021, shall we?

Customer loyalty and retention will be paramount

2020 saw a big boom in mobile app use driven by the pandemic and the global lockdowns following it. This meant there was a huge influx of new and existing users returning to their favorite apps. This is where it becomes tricky: as it’s up to 16 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than keeping an existing one, you’ll need to work on customer loyalty and retention even more in 2021.

Regardless of the business you’re in, there’s always someone waiting to snag your customers away from you. The only way to prevent this is to be proactive and engage your customers even more, like offering them loyalty points and providing valuable content. The customer experience is what’s keeping them stick around, then you’ll have to double down on it and stay on top of your game.

Omnichannel communication will dominate the field

Direct contact with customers has been in decline for some time and it will continue to decrease going into 2021. We now have a multitude of other channels available instead, such as various social media platforms. The flow of information on products is no longer controlled by the product page on the company website, but rather by social media and product review videos.

That said, maintaining a good social media presence is crucial for providing a great customer experience in 2021. You need to follow your customers wherever they go and engage them on those platforms. This is a great way to take support requests, convey company policies, advertise your new products or even advertise the improvements to your products.

Much like last year, brands will thrive on social media if they do it right. The trick is being able to monitor and manage customer comments and take every message as a support request, this means reaching out to the customers proactively before the customer reaches out to you. We’ve touched on the key benefits of having strong social media relationships with customers in our blog before, which you can find here.

◊ Tip: We all know that the social media is the perfect way for companies to increase customer loyalty. Start managing all your social media accounts from a single page today! Desk360 lets you do this with the social media integrations. Click here to get more info.

Collaboration between customer service and marketing is crucial

Another thing to look out for in terms of customer experience trends in 2021 is that your marketing and support teams need to stay in contact at all times. Say you’re running a campaign to promote your products or services. What happens if there’s a lot of unanswered comments and complaints under your social media posts? This is one of the unwanted scenarios with your brand being left alone by the support team on social media platforms.

Your customers are constantly talking about your products and services with other customers and the prospective ones are asking questions. You need to be a part of that conversation and offer a helping hand in their purchasing decisions while providing support to those who have problems. You need to be a part of the conversation in case the community support is no longer able to resolve whatever issues they might be experiencing.

◊ Tip: Desk360 allows you to manage support requests across all your teams. Speed up your workflow with Desk360 by automatically assigning support requests to the teams you form according to your specific needs.

Focusing on your tools and software for better customer communication

It’ll be more important than it has ever been to have the right tools to manage your marketing and support efforts in tandem. This means that brands will have to abandon the old siloed approach to marketing and support and unify them to provide a collaborative environment in their day-to-day.

The CRM tool that you’ll be using needs to check all the right boxes: integration with social media platforms and app stores, omnichannel support, customized FAQs, live chat and chatbot capabilities, and automated agent assignment features.

The relationship you build with your customers defines your brand, and as the saying goes: “A man is only as good as his tools”. You need the right tools for everything you do, and a good customer relationship management software is no different in preparation for the customer experience trends in 2021.

We at Desk360 are committed to adhering to the highest standards in aiding you in your customer relationship matters. Elevate your customer relationships to the next level with our feature-rich and reasonably priced solutions. Head on over to desk360.com for more details and tell us what you think. We’ll be glad to hear from you.