Recent data forecasts by market research and advisory firm Gartner provided a range of insights onto the potential market shifts we may see between 2021 and 2025.
Digital transformation for service organisations initially focused on websites for desktop users but shifted to enterprise-native mobile app experiences with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets.
According to Gartner, by 2025, 80% of customer service organisations will have abandoned their native mobile app strategy and shift the focus of their digital transformation toward messaging to deliver a better customer experience.
Despite investment and promotion, many service organisations failed to see adequate customer adoption of their service apps.
As a result, it appears that service organisations will retire their native mobile app experiences in favour of messaging.
“Messaging channels such as SMS and third-party messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WeChat and WhatsApp have been widely embraced in the global market, making them ideal for service organisations,” said Philip Jenkins, senior director analyst in the Gartner Customer Service & Support practice.
“By transitioning to messaging platforms, customer service and support leaders will reduce dependency on native mobile app experiences, reduce cost, increase digital and self-service effectiveness, and achieve a persistent experience for customer engagement.”
Other Gartner customer service and support predictions for 2021 and beyond include:
- 40% of customer service organisations will become de facto leaders in digital customer engagement resulting in them becoming a profit centre by 2025.
- 10% of customer service organisations will revamp hierarchical staffing models to create huddle groups by 2025.
- Proactive customer engagement interactions will outnumber reactive customer engagement interactions by 2025.
Learn more about these forecasts in the report 2021 CRM Customer Service and Support.