The technologies with the most current value to service and support organizations support assisted service, according to Gartner.
“Today, the most impactful technologies in service are ones that support reps to deliver low-effort, value-enhanced experiences in the live channel,” said Lauren Villeneuve, senior director of advisory in the Gartner Customer Service & Support practice. “These technologies are critical to continue to shift customers’ transactional issues to self-service so reps can focus on more complex issues.”
A recent Gartner survey found that the top five technologies impacting customer service include case management systems (83 percent), internal collaboration tools (82 percent), cloud-based contact center systems (79 percent), knowledge management systems (78 percent), and customer analytics dashboards (78 percent).
Customer service leaders generally saw more future value in technologies that help them understand their customers' multichannel service journeys. They named advanced voice of the customer analytics, including predictive analytics (85 percent), digital experience analytics (84 percent), and customer journey analytics (83 percent) among the technologies they expect to be the most valuable in the next two years.
Additionally, 72 percent of customer service leaders expect to deploy or pilot some kind of sentiment analysis this year, 68 percent to deploy customer journey analytics, and 65 percent to deploy digital experience analytics.
“This signals that customer service and support leaders see the value of tracking customer experience as they navigate digital and multiple channel offerings,” Villeneuve said.
Digital channel capabilities, especially chatbots and live chat, should also see significant increases in value over the next two years, Gartner found. Roughly three-fourths of leaders indicated that chatbots will be highly or very highly valuable to their organizations in two years.
“Customer service and support leaders recognize that the future lies not in simply adding more channels but in delivering a continuous multichannel experience supported by consistent knowledge content and smooth, nonrepetitive channel transitions,” Villeneuve said.
“The technology landscape in service and support is constantly evolving, and we expect it will continue to do so, particularly with the recent advent of generative AI,” Villeneuve said. “For now, leaders are continuing to find value in the technologies which have traditionally supported service and are looking toward these technological advancements to further mature the function.”