AI Chatbots and 8 Recent Customer Service Trends of 2024

With digital trends, ever-evolving, customer preferences, likings, experiences, and expectations have also taken different forms. 

From face-to-face interaction to using electronic tools like phones and mail, we humans have come a long way in terms of messaging and communication. With this expansive growth in the field of communication and customer influx, there are a variety of communication trends that are growing and changing by the day, all aimed at providing the best experience possible to the users.  

AI chatbots have become the biggest trend in customer service right now. In this article, you’ll see some recent customer service trends and how they are associated with AI chatbots.

Chatbots Enhance Customer Service

Customer service refers to the assistance and guidance provided to the customer by a business or a firm that provides a product or service. This is critical to the success of a company as it boosts brand credibility and customer loyalty. 

As times change and new techniques emerge, customers want businesses to be updated based on recent trends and provide support in a better and more efficient way compared to conventional methods. Businesses can automate their processes and create plans and strategies to provide a better customer experience and increase customer satisfaction. 

There are a variety of customer service trends to follow to deliver the best customer experience such as providing personalized support and automating tasks. And, all the customer service trends have one thing in common: the advent of AI and chatbots, which can elevate the customer experience and satisfaction.

AI conversational technology has been dominating the online space as the most preferred form of communication in recent times, along with virtual assistants and live agents. 

And with conversational AI, understanding what most customers want to help you design, plan, and strategize vital communication with your customers. 

Top Customer Service Trends in Recent Times

Customer service is one of the most important factors for any business. Being updated with the ever-changing customer trends helps you ride the tide and stay ahead of the competition. 

The Growth and Usage of Chatbots Will Keep Increasing

According to Statista, the growth of the AI chatbot market is predicted to be around 1.25 billion USD by the end of 2025 and is estimated to keep growing. With the growth of Artificial Intelligence, chatbots that use machine learning techniques like Natural Language Processing and Natural Language Understanding have become a preferred source of customer communication. Chatbots have proven to be more than just a messaging app. 

They can analyze and understand customer needs in advance, meet their expectations, respond to queries on time, provide personalized responses, multilingual support, and automate repetitive tasks. 

From varied sectors like eCommerce or banking to providing a plethora of benefits to both businesses and consumers, AI chatbots have become a preferred choice of customer communication in the ongoing search to improve customer service efficiently.

Customers Want Personalized Solutions

Customers might have different support requests and each query might need a different approach. It is important to analyze their needs and provide an in-depth solution that satisfies their needs specifically rather than providing a generalized answer to queries. 

Chatbots can help provide unique solutions and even product suggestions based on customer preferences and data collected from them through various means. They can track and monitor user behavior by analyzing products viewed, purchase history, previous support cases, and offer key solutions. Chatbots can also collect additional information via polls, surveys, and forms.

All these factors will enable the chatbot and the customer support team to provide a better customer experience.

Automation of Tasks

Most businesses and firms are finding ways and methods to automate repetitive tasks by using a variety of methods. 

As with customer service, most tasks are performed multiple times. Automating these can reduce the manual effort taken to complete mundane tasks, lessen the time taken, and reduce the chances of errors while increasing accuracy. This efficiency in the absence of a human provides a significant way to elevate the customer experience while freeing up the business to focus more on the complex tasks that require human intervention. 

Using chatbots, you can automate workflows such as making reservations or booking appointments, paying bills, tracking orders, sending and receiving mail, or finding a live agent to solve complex complaints.

Customers Expect the Choice of Self-Service

Recent technologies have delivered easy access to solve user queries. This access and ways to self-service have been an easier, quick, and useful alternative to posing questions and waiting for an answer or connecting with a support agent. 

Here, chatbots provide an easy way for self-service by rapidly responding to user questions and ways to solve them. By making use of commonly asked questions or FAQs, chatbots can provide the user with a repository of information that can help identify the problem and arrive at a solution without wasting any time. Well-developed smart AI chatbots can even understand user intent and provide answers to their questions using a video tutorial or walkthrough to perform a diagnosis or troubleshoot in case of complex scenarios. 

In the worst-case scenario, they can also contact a live agent for in-depth support to unique queries. This can result in immediate problem-solving by saving time and increasing conversions while elevating customer satisfaction. 

Make Use of Omni-Channel Support

With the recent growth of social media platforms and messaging apps, gone are the days of using only one channel to solve user queries. The concept of omnichannel support greatly helps the user choose their preferred support channel to solve their queries, and a business can monitor any given channel, all from one place. 

Not only does it enable the user to pose questions and get support, but omnichannel support also helps to streamline customer data from multiple platforms and consolidate it. This data in turn will be helpful to businesses to provide the customer with better support by formulating strategies based on customer expectations and your ability to map their journey. 

Aim at Being Mobile Friendly

As of 2023, almost half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices, and there are more than 6.92 billion active smartphone users.

Mobile phones find their use in a variety of ways. Since they’ve become mainstream, implementing/constructing applications to deliver customer support that are mobile-friendly plays an increasingly important role in online customer service.

Being mobile-friendly provides ease of access and multiple ways to engage and interact with your customers. Any user can instantly connect with your chatbot or live agent and get their complaints resolved in a matter of seconds. 

Work on the UI and UX part of Customer Service

An optimized and intuitive user interface (UI) helps with a positive user experience (UX). If the UI is lacking, people could find it difficult to navigate through customer support to get their problems solved, and might even bounce out without getting them clarified. The UI and UX metrics can bridge the communication between the business and customers and deliver an easy user-friendly experience to the end user.

Focusing on an optimal UI and UX provides a better-personalized experience, ease of usability, and a sense of satisfaction. This will make the customer journey more memorable and increase user engagement with your customer service, thereby greatly reducing the bounce rate. 

Additionally, there are a variety of UI and UX rules and disciplines to help you design your chatbot that will facilitate the user journey and deliver a better customer experience compared to one with a bad interface. 

Related Reads:

AI Chatbot in Customer Service: 5 Benefits

How can eCommerce Chatbots Improve Customer Service?

7 Ways – How to Gain Customer Insights in E-commerce 

12 Ways to Boost Customer Loyalty in E-Commerce

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the top customer service trends of 2024?

Recent customer service trends of 2024 will focus more on providing personalized services to the users, automation of tasks, being mobile friendly, emphasizing the usage of chatbots to simplify tasks, making use of omnichannel support, and working on the UI and UX part to elevate the customer experience.

What are some new technological trends that add to improved customer service?

Chatbots and other AI technologies, the use of machine learning, Robotic Process Automation, and Quantum Computing are some new technological trends that add to customer service. They provide ease of usage, and better functionalities and prove to be more efficient for the user compared to conventional methods of customer service.

What might be the future of customer service trends?

The future customer service trends will focus more on automation and self-service, demand acceleration of your digital streams of business, keep an eye on real-time data analytics, and the use of social media. 

Chatbots Will Continue to Stay in Trend

All the trends above, do culminate at a certain point: customer service. The satisfaction of a customer has always been an integral factor in the growth and success of a business. Consequently, finding methods to increase customer satisfaction and provide a seamless customer experience would help your brand on the business front. 

Customer base, expectations, and requirements are ever-changing factors that affect your business. Customers want instant replies, get their questions answered, and want convenience at every turn. They also expect trust, transparency, and commitment from businesses and firms. 

Customer service trends will continue to impact your business and digital technologies will play a significant role in shaping them. 

Understanding the customer service trends and reflecting on the metrics and methods in your business ensures you listen to your customers. Giving the customers what they want will create a long-term loyal customer base and help you stay on top of the competition.