Smart Devices, Social Media to Drive Connected Customers in 2013

London – New analytics solutions, multichannel metrics, and better collaboration tools will be crucial in 2013, as enterprises feel the pressure to understand and pre-empt the needs from the always-connected customer, according to new research from business technology consultant Ovum, which advises that vendors will need to step up and add these capabilities fast, or else risk losing business.

As part of its 2013 Trends to Watch series, Ovum explored the important changes in the customer experience and interaction market, detailing how technologies are evolving to meet new consumer demands, providing recommendations for both enterprises and vendors.

Call Center Response to Social Media
According to Ovum’s report, social media response teams will move into the contact center, driving the need for better social media management tools, and the global analyst firm forecasts high growth (21 percent CAGR) for social media monitoring within the customer service function in the next five years. Mobile self-service will become more intelligent, customers will have the ability to request a callback from within a mobile application, and it will become easier to transfer a query from a self-service application to voice, chat, or email.

Traditionally siloed applications such as performance management, business intelligence, and customer feedback will be merged into voice-of-the-customer (VOC) analytics suites that help enterprises view and compare data across different stages of the customer lifecycle. Many enterprises will have a mixture of cloud- and premise-based customer service solutions, although, for most companies, core automated call distribution (ACD) functionality is likely to remain on-premise for the foreseeable future because of existing investments and mentality.