Welcome back to our 5-part series on the Future of Mobile and Social Customer Service! In the age of social media, millennials, and e-commerce, leveraging social/mobile features for customer engagement has never been more important.

In Part 1, How mobile and social media can become your new 1–800 number, we discussed the top new customer service functionalities across social media.

In this post, we will give our predictions on 5 future of customer service features that will enhance your customer experience.

1. Facebook Messenger to become the next WeChat for customer service:

You don't need to read a Gartner report to know that WeChat has been a game-changer for Asian businesses. Whether speaking with a customer service agent through different communication channels (e.g. chat/video), paying bills, purchasing goods, or gaining loyalty points through special offers, customers can use WeChat as a “one-stop-shop” for each business they interact with.

Look for Facebook Messenger to continue to add similar features in the near future.

Example: Service/Shopping on China’s JD.com e-commerce site — all within the WeChat app

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2. WhatsApp and SMS to mirror Facebook Messenger:

• Leveraging the WhatsApp revolution: With over 1 billion monthly active users, Facebook’s WhatsApp platform is a powerful frontline service channel that many brands will explore to reach their non-US customers. Eventually, when WhatsApp opens its platform to developers, look for it to emulate all of the features that Facebook Messenger already has.
• Text Messages get a makeover: SMS upgrades to Google’s Rich Communications System (RCS) and Apple’s iMessage are great news for brands. Expect decision-making teams to enhance their call centers and contact centers by using text messages for customer touchpoints-- for example, sending videos, FAQs, and other service-related information.
  

3. More use of video service and screen sharing in real time:

• Live video: Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Periscope are already offering better customer experiences through live-video options. With many customers now seeking genuine interactions with human agents, look for companies to use this feature to offer more personalization within service.
• Screen Sharing: Companies with more technical service questions have already started utilizing screen sharing with service reps through mobile apps and we see this trend continuing via social channels.
  
  

Troubleshooting complex and technical questions have long been a pain point of customer service teams. Companies looking to help customers in these areas will be able to greatly increase customer satisfaction from the use of these options.

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4. Social customer service to become the new marketing:

The data goldmine: Social customer service provides valuable data for companies and support teams to improve customer support and drive additional up and cross-sale opportunities.

We expect to see more companies leveraging new technology, such as machine learning and visual recognition to assist in the following:

• Uncovering granular insights on their customers
• Anticipating and meeting customers' needs
• Understanding customer relationships at various points in the customer journey
• Setting appropriate customer expectations
• Providing targeted offers to increase sales conversion

Example: Salesforce’s new AI powered Einstein system uses visual recognition to identify the Dunkin’ Donuts logo in a customer tweet. The brand now has the opportunity to drive customer conversion to an app download on smartphones and other mobile devices.

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5. The balancing act of AI/Machine Learning:

One of the hot customer service trends is around bots/machine learning. Here are two use cases we feel customer-centric brands will heavily explore:

• Solving transactional questions: Several airlines have already started embracing knowledge base chatbots for transactional interactions (e.g., rescheduling tickets)
• Automatic tagging of conversations across channels: Machine learning will allow companies with omnichannel customer service operations to have automated, yet flexible tagging processes across their social channels. This will eliminate manual work, ensure consistency, and give brands the ability to take action on trending issues and product feedback

There are many different ways to use artificial intelligence/Machine learning, but finding the right balance of self-service/human interaction is critical to creating a great customer service experience.

To summarize, here are our predictions on 5 future service features that will enhance your customer experience and the digital transformation of your brand:

1. Facebook Messenger to become the next WeChat for customer service interactions
2. WhatsApp and SMS to mirror Facebook Messenger in service features
3. Boom in live video service and screen sharing
4. Social customer service to become a key marketing channel
5. Tapping into AI/Machine Learning for customer care

In our next post, Digital Customer Service Champions — Brands Leading the Way, we’ll highlight a few companies championing mobile and social customer service.

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Do you have any other take on best customer service future features that we should add to our predictions? Let us know in the comments!

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