It's never been more important — or more difficult — to build a great customer experience.
Over the past few years, I’ve seen service teams pivot operating models, go hybrid, and embrace all sorts of emerging technology — all while managing increased volumes of queries.
To help you stay on top of the changing service field, I’m diving into the data from our 2024 Service Trends Report, our survey of 1,500+ customer service leaders, to outline all the new and ongoing trends shaping the industry in 2024.
The State of Customer Service [Data-Backed Shifts in 2024]
1. Artificial intelligence will innovate service teams.
Until recently, service teams leveraged AI and automation-fueled tools like HubSpot Service Hub to create workflows that would keep customers engaged, automate administrative tasks, and — for the more advanced teams — launch chatbots to field simple service questions on live chat, email, and other channels.
Now, with more advanced tools like generative AI, artificial intelligence is accessible and affordable to teams that once thought of it as a high-priced future technology. In fact, 85% of service leaders told us that AI will completely transform the experience customers get with their company. It helps improve response times, CSAT, and decreases the money spent on customer service.
As HubSpot's CEO, Yamini Rangan puts it, “SMBs don't typically have the time, resources or the level of AI expertise that larger companies do. But with Gen AI, SMBs now can leverage powerful technology to improve both efficiency and effectiveness. If used thoughtfully, SMBs can reach more customers, serve customers with even more insights and with unprecedented relevance.”
“Service professionals can use Gen AI to anticipate customer needs, suggest resolutions, and offer proactive support,” Rangan adds. “...AI won’t replace go-to-market teams - it will guide them to drive better outcomes.”
Still thinking AI is just a fad or a technology that will lose steam once we pass the buzzword phase? Think again.
Our survey found that 77% of service teams are using AI, and 79% of service pros using AI find it effective.
So … why is AI worth the hype?
I could write a long list of the benefits AI can bring service teams, but I’ll narrow it down to a few key points that are significant because of the direct impact on the customer experience:
- 92% of survey respondents say AI improves time to resolution
- Using AI tools improves key KPIs like CSAT and NPS
- Agents can help make communication with customers more personalized
- AI gives reps time back to focus on solving more complex issues and the creative aspects of their role
- AI is highly effective at routing service requests to the right agent and prioritizing them in terms of urgency
Pro Tip: Dive deeper into AI and its impacts on the service field in our free 2024 State of Service Trends Report.
The State of Customer Service Report
Unlock essential strategies for exceeding customer expectations and driving business growth in a competitive market.
- Exclusive insights from worldwide CRM leaders
- Analysis of modern customer behaviors
- Closer look at the AI opportunity in CRM
- Strategies for staying agile in 2024 and beyond
Download Free
All fields are required.
2. Retention remains top-of-mind.
Retention is, and always will be, something service teams want to maintain and increase, especially since 95% of consumers say that customer service impacts their brand loyalty.
Given this, I wasn’t surprised to find that service leaders say retention is the most important measure of the customer experience and that improving retention is the top goal in improving people's experience with their company.
The top three factors that contribute to higher customer retention and CLV (customer lifetime value), according to the NICE study:
- Businesses have professional agents — 29%
- Consumers can access self-service online — 22%
- Customers easily get service using the digital channel of their choice — 21%
While retaining customers through downgrades or customer resources might not feel as impactful as upgrading in the moment, it's important to remember companies with defined retention strategies have been linked to solid ROI and overall growth.
3. Customer service is getting more social.
The 2024 rerun of our Consumer Trends Survey found that 17% of consumers have gotten customer service over DMs in the past three months. The channel is even more popular among Millennials, with 30% saying they’ve done the same.
Customers who reached out over DM likely got a reply since 70% of social media marketers say their company offers customer service via social media, and 70% have a dedicated customer service rep responsible for responding to those queries.
I have to mention that this is a significant change from survey results of just last year. In 2023, 43% of companies offering service through DMs had a dedicated rep responding to messages, making this year a 62% YoY change.
This is a positive increase, as it means businesses are aware of what consumers are doing and responding accordingly, and speaking to customer desires can only positively impact their experience.
4. Customers have increasingly demanding expectations.
The #2 challenge service reps are struggling with this year is adapting to increasingly demanding customer expectations. Teams need to be constantly working to meet customer needs, whether it’s a desire for more personalized service, self-service options, and expecting immediate ticket resolution.
Unfortunately, a consistent challenge that reps face is having the time to deliver on those expectations, especially considering that 82% of service pros say customers expect their requests to be resolved immediately, with a desired timeline of less than three hours.
“Since the pressure on customer service is growing, and the team's morale can be low, the managers should exude confidence and lead their teams through any obstacle. Don’t forget to publicly share any success your team achieved — be the Kris to your Kardashians,” advises Nina Novikova, head of customer support at Reply.io.
Luckily, service teams are using tech like AI and automation to adapt to time pressures, and it pays off — 92% of survey respondents say their response times improved.
5. Shrinking service tech stacks will boost ROI.
Throughout the last three years, one thing became apparent:
Despite how connected we are to our computers, tablets, phones, and the world-wide-web, a lot of companies were buried in tech tools that didn‘t integrate, company silos, and data that didn’t paint a whole picture of the business landscape. This, in turn, caused missteps that could potentially lose customers.
HubSpot called this era “The Crisis of Disconnection.”
Service teams have caught on to the fact that streamlined and all-in-one software strategies can help reconnect them to other departments and their customers.
And they’ll reap the benefits of this, as companies with united data and tools perform better than those that don’t:
- Leaders who say their service team’s data is integrated with the tools they use are 119% more likely to say their customer service strategy was effective.
- Leaders who say their service team’s tools are interconnected are 130% more likely to say their customer service strategy was very effective.
- Leaders with a single source of truth are 48% more likely to say their customer service strategy was very effective.
Now, let’s dive into some customer experience-specific trends.
Customer Experience (CX) Report
1. AI-powered chatbots are the first point of contact.
AI-powered chatbots are the most effective customer service channel.
This makes sense to me. Chatbots have always been popular in customer service, but machine learning has boosted their effectiveness. The chatbots customers speak to are now AI-powered and can bring a more human and personalized touch to conversations, which is a stark difference from the more robotic-sounding messages that were once the norm.
A majority of respondents (55%) say these AI-powered chatbots are effective and that customers even prefer self-service channels, like a chatbot, when seeking customer service.
This means that your AI-powered chatbots are your first opportunity to provide the excellent experience your customers are looking for. So, how good your bots are at answering customer questions, bringing fast resolutions, and keeping up a conversational style will significantly impact customer sentiment.
2. Privacy, data security, and transparency is a forethought.
A majority of consumers told us they’re concerned about how companies use their data. They want full control over how their data is used, and 71% agree that whether they trust a company determines whether they share their personal data. A whopping 50% say they decline to have their data tracked.
Since the data you get about your customers helps you drive an excellent experience, especially one that is personalized, this might seem a bit concerning. One cut corner to, say, save time, can risk a data leak, and one single data leak risks losing customer trust and loyalty and never being able to build it back.
Not to worry, as you can still easily adapt to customers’ desires for data security and still offer the satisfying experience they crave by investing in data security measures and being transparent about what those measures are.
With any practices you put in place, I recommend being clear in your explanations of how they work so consumers understand and can opt-in (or opt-out) if they want to.
Privacy and security are especially important with AI. The general consumer, me included, has a baseline knowledge of the mechanics of AI and how it works. A lack of understanding can lead to confusion, which can lead to mistrust. If you use AI tools, make it clear how you’re using them and what the tools do, especially if they’re customer-facing.
Customers who see you’re proactive about protecting their data are more likely to feel comfortable being a customer, which directly contributes to a satisfying customer experience.
3. Agents and AI are teammates.
The true reality of the AI boom is that individual agents and teams won’t lose their jobs to AI—they’ll be propelled by it. AI will empower teams and help them meet consumer demands that contribute to an excellent CX.
For example, AI-powered chatbots will analyze chat conversations in real time and use predictive analytics to surface the correct responses for agents to give or point to the best resource for answering the specific query, which boosts efficiency and lowers time to resolution.
77% of service teams are using AI and getting excellent results from it. 92% say it improves their response time, improves CSAT (86%), and is instrumental in helping their business meet the needs of the modern consumer.
Teams adopting it report that AI resolves 11-30% of their support volume. For typical customer service tasks, leaders are more likely to say that they should be done by human-assisted AI, so I expect usage to continue to grow throughout the year.
If you’re hesitant or don’t know where to start, I recommend trying out a simple application: using AI to sort through and classify your incoming tickets before you even see them. It can handle low-touch requests with the business data you’ve given it and route pressing issues to the human agents best suited to bring a solution.
4. Re-unifying teams.
I mentioned above that customer experience teams are heavily investing in unifying the tools and data they use to get a well-rounded picture of the customer to better meet their needs.
For similar reasons, teams are also working to improve alignment between customer success teams and other departments. Being aligned gives a full view of the customer and makes it easier to solve for and anticipate specific needs.
For example, if the marketing department notices an uptick in customer complaints about sizing. They can pass that information off to support teams, who can then initiate proactive support measures and create FAQ articles and blurbs to include in product pages that help customers pick the correct size every time.
It doesn’t surprise me that improving alignment between departments is the strategy receiving the most investment in 2024. At companies where service, sales, and marketing teams are already aligned, performance is reportedly higher:
- Leaders who say their service team is aligned with their sales team are 76% more likely to say their customer service strategy was effective in 2023.
- Leaders who say service and marketing are highly aligned are 69% more likely to say that their customer service strategy was effective in 2023.
The State of Customer Service Report
Unlock essential strategies for exceeding customer expectations and driving business growth in a competitive market.
- Exclusive insights from worldwide CRM leaders
- Analysis of modern customer behaviors
- Closer look at the AI opportunity in CRM
- Strategies for staying agile in 2024 and beyond
Download Free
All fields are required.
Recommendations for Service Teams
1. Stay connected to your customers and other teams.
Siloes, poor data, switching between many tools, and other crises of disconnection can negatively impact you, your customer, and your company's ROI.
Be sure to know the signs of a critical disconnection, and then leverage the right tools and resources to help you stay or get on track.
“Organizations need to be able to report on these findings and answer questions like, ‘What do customer interactions with our support reps tell us about the health of our customer?’ and, ‘How can we leverage service data to identify risk early on or growth in a customer?’” says Jessica Aguilar, senior customer success manager at HubSpot.
Aguilar notes that there's a lot to glean from these interactions. Oftentimes, bloated tech stacks or misconfigured integrations with support tools can present roadblocks to harnessing this data.
“You can build out your Support pipelines through Service Hub in HubSpot to have your service efforts live in one place,” she says. “Then, teams like marketing, sales, and service not only have more visibility on their efforts but can effectively build out reporting to better understand their customers and act accordingly."
2. Leverage AI and automation to streamline tasks.
Aside from keeping connected with your customers and team, CX is another top priority of service professionals. (I dove into the most recent CX trends a bit before this).
However, it takes time to build excellent and highly connected experiences. (And, as I mentioned, time is one thing reps can't get enough of.) To navigate many of these problems, I recommend continuing to invest in emerging AI or automation tools like:
- Automated ticketing systems that eliminate time spent filtering and organizing service queries
- Knowledge bases, chatbots, and other resources that help customers answer their own questions.
- CRM software to help streamline customer management and relationship-building processes.
With any of those tools, I have no doubt that service professionals will be able to streamline tasks and focus on bigger-picture projects, like breaking down company silos and building better customer experiences.
3. Prioritize retention and relationships.
78% of reps agree that customers expect more personalized experiences than ever before, and consumers are more loyal to brands that offer those experiences and value their opinions.
Unfortunately, teams might be struggling to meet that changing expectation, as most consumers only “somewhat agree” that the content they see from brands is personalized to their interests.
Here’s what Novikova shared: “We are heavily focused on retention, and the constant cooperation between product and customer service teams is the key,” Novikova says. “By sharing insights and perspectives, we make sure the client is heard, and the customer service teams are aware of all the product strategies. Thus, we can stay ahead of the client’s questions.”
So, bring together your CS, marketing, and sales departments to break data silos and develop unparalleled CX.
4. Focus on proactive behaviors, not reactive ones.
As a consumer, I love proactive support.
It’s not that I expect support reps to call me and check in. Mostly, I expect to be able to find resources to help me with my problems as soon as I need them. As a rep, this means maybe you work to create knowledge-base articles based on FAQs that are readily available when customers need help.
It can also look like initiating an email sequence during onboarding that focuses on helping the new customer succeed with your product based on their unique use case.
“Customers don‘t know what they don’t know and lean on businesses and account managers or customer success managers to tell them where to get started,” says Michael Renahan, Senior Manager, Customer Success at HubSpot. "That said, a strong customer success team focuses on proactive behaviors, not reactive.”
Renahan suggests that customer success teams create a guided experience through proactive calls, emails, or in-app experiences. This will drive the best long-term results for your company.
“Customers buy software because they want to solve a pain point. That pain point, however, is just the beginning of their journey. Success adoption starts with solving for pain, then expanding into opportunity,” he says.
62% of service reps told us they’re increasing their investments in offering proactive/predictive customer support this year — why not join the ranks?
5. Track and share your successes.
The best way to justify more investment from business leaders is to show that your team is helping them grow their customer base and increase steady revenue. Whenever possible, present your key projects, strategies, and customer experience metrics.
If you're a leader, I recommend sharing your and your team’s results with decision-makers on your company’s broader leadership team.
If you’re a rep or agent, it’s a best practice to share your accomplishments with your manager, colleagues, or internal communications to ensure the wider company knows how you’re successfully retaining, gaining, and delighting loyal customers.
How Companies Can Solve for the Customer in 2024
Whether you‘re a leader or a service professional aiming to level up your work, tools like HubSpot’s Service Hub and CRM can keep your team and your customers connected and more able to take on the changing customer service landscape. Learn more about these tools by clicking the banner below.
Editor's note: This article was originally published March 2022 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.
