Eight effects of technology on the service industry

When done right, information technology (IT) can significantly improve the customer service experience.

No one can deny it: service is a human business. However, technology can improve service quality and even take on certain tasks. In particular, the technologies that enable Digital Transformations can have a major impact on service performance and customer experience.

Here are eight ways information technology (IT) is changing the service concept:

Search

When customers need help, their first instinct is to search online. Sellers must make sure that online company and product information is easily found and optimized for search, so the most relevant results appear first. Ideally, this information is on the seller’s website and prompts visitors to go there.

Chat bots

Most vendor websites offer the option to chat online. However, users often do not chat with a human service representative, but with a software program called a “chatbot”. Simple chatbots use a series of programmed instructions and word matching systems to recognize questions and give appropriate answers. More advanced chatbots use artificial intelligence to understand the meaning of a sentence and learn from question and answer sessions. Theoretically, a chatbot can manage an unlimited number of simultaneous conversations, respond faster than a human can, and deal with difficult customers more patiently.

Cloud

Cloud computing makes an important contribution to digital transformation. There are many cloud-based applications for IT service delivery tasks, such as Customer Relationship Management, Help Desk, Remote Network Management, and others. Service delivery often requires some form of collaboration between a support engineer and the customer. The cloud provides a convenient solution for document sharing, sharing log files, storing historical data and other common tasks.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Despite its potential, the use of AR in the service industry remains limited. For example, with AR-enabled glasses, a remote specialist can see the same thing a field engineer sees on site. It can provide the remote specialist field engineer with instructions reflected in the field engineer’s glasses. Another possibility is to use the camera smartphone or tablet to scan a picture, barcode or QR code. AR software will recognize this image and display the real-time image on the screen, enhancing it with the information in a database.

Virtual Reality (VR)

This technology is still being developed, but much progress has been made in the last few years. Depending on the application, VR can require significant computing power and bandwidth, making it not (yet) suitable for use over longer distances. However, it can help an engineer perform certain tasks without owning the actual products. In this way, the entire data center can be virtualized, making operations more efficient.

Mobile

Almost everyone spends time on their smartphones, so customers can use their phones to communicate. That’s why your website needs to be mobile friendly and mobile customer service app might not be a bad idea. Using an application may be the preferred mode of communication, especially in IT services where there is a lot of interaction between IT-knowledgeable engineers. An application also allows you to collect information about the user, which can help you customize the user experience.

Social

People spend two hours every day on social media, every three hours they spend on a smartphone. So customers will want to communicate with you via social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp. Many companies provide “social support” with varying degrees of success. It is very important to use social media to provide service and support if you only integrate with other channels and back up with sufficient resources, avoiding disturbing your customers.

IoT

Millions of sensors and receivers connected to the Internet and facilitate real-time remote monitoring. In the traditional understanding of operation, an engineer has to go to the system to record a measurement and transmit this information to a control center. With IoT, the control center saves time and money and improves the accuracy and quality of the process by recording information directly and in real time. For example, with smart metrics, consumers are not required to record and report gas or electricity usage displayed in a unit. Instead, the utility does this remotely and tells the consumer via an online dashboard, thereby enhancing the customer’s experience. It constantly renews its Servista Services and invests in R&D more than any other service organization. We are always looking for ways to improve the customer experience using the latest technologies.