Brands need to prepare for a hectic holiday season. 

This year, the supply chain crisis means products will be slower to hit the shelves and reach customer homes, which will create an urgent need for better communication tools for e-commerce brands.

To manage their customer interactions, brands are investing in real-time technology. Utilizing technology that allows brands to analyze customer feedback and customer data provides them with the necessary information to make meaningful touchpoints and build a solid CX strategy. With advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning, there are countless tech offerings. However, it's challenging to navigate which solutions will make the most significant impact on ROI.

Tech trend #1: Embrace digital experiences for customer support in the cloud 

• Businesses are moving away from basic tools like Gmail or Outlook. Instead, they are turning to more specialized software & apps like Zendesk and Gorgias that can centralize customer inquiries and responses in one place. 
• Cloud-based tools can bring together customer questions sent by text, social media, email, and chat.
• Businesses can integrate tools specifically helpful for CX in the cloud, including setting automatic reminders in your CRM and email when a customer inquiry hasn't received a response. You can't do that in Gmail.

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Tech trend #2: Empower customers to serve themselves

• Brands are working to solve problems before a request even goes to customer service agents. Customer experience management tools that help customers resolve their issues on their own — called self-service tools — are becoming a mainstay of customer engagement.
• Companies are building online hubs, sometimes called "knowledge bases," where they feature FAQs, guides, and tutorials all in the same place.
• Companies like ReturnLogic are taking a self-service approach to one of the most expensive customer service problems: returns. 
• Others are turning to automation. According to Gartner, 1 in 4 customer service teams already use AI to improve contact centers and employee experience efficiency.

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Tech trend #3: Invest in analytics

• Businesses want to understand who their customers are and what they're thinking. Digital data analytics and sentiment analysis tools will be among the CX technologies to see the most significant increase in use next year, according to a September 2021 report from the research firm Gartner. 
• That's because predictive analytics lets brands understand and predict their customer needs.
• Chatdesk Trends offers automatic tagging, which codes customer complaints into categories. That tells brands what they can do to resolve problems proactively. If a new pattern of complaints arises, automatic tagging will help catch it. CX teams need to follow these metrics and continue to make optimizations to improve retention and customer satisfaction.

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Trend #4: Try flexible customer service teams 

• Customer service companies are experiencing a historic hiring crunch. One solution is to embrace flexible teams. Chatdesk Teams handles all the hiring, training, and scheduling for support agents for brands. CX is highly correlated to customer loyalty; Chatdesk teams enable brands to improve customer relationships and drive sales.

Delivering a personalized customer experience has become essential, especially in the current state of the digital shopping experience. CX technology empowers brands to meet customers where they are and deliver an experience that encourages brand loyalty and drives ROI. Schedule a demo here to learn more about how Chatdesk Teams can help you drive sales this holiday season!

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