Brand reputation is hard-earned, but make no mistake, businesses that rest on their laurels and fail to focus on customer service will see it fade faster than it took to build it up. Brand reputation management hinges on knowing customer expectations and taking action. Keeping a finger on the pulse of customer service trends in 2025 is crucial to serving your market’s needs and making sure your customer service is prepared to deliver them.
Based on insights gleaned from a recent PissedConsumer.com survey and other customer service statistics, let’s look into some customer service trends of the moment and talk about how your business can work with them.
1. Your customers expect a response
A notable 58.3 percent of surveyed consumers share that they have had zero response from a company after contacting them for help. This is a wildly reckless approach to customer care, for it not only neglects the customers’ needs, but it tarnishes reputation and passes up a great opportunity to show the customer that you can and want to help.
The issue isn’t just one facing the customer service call center either. Evading difficult conversations by failing to address negative reviews makes a brand look aloof and dismissive of customer concerns and valid criticism. According to a recent local consumer review survey, 89 percent of respondents feel that businesses should respond to all types of customer reviews - good, bad or bizarre.
Among current customer service trends, this one is a huge problem for consumers. Neglecting to engage with the customer promptly is a course toward lost customer trust and reputational damage.
The correct approach
An adequately trained customer service representative will respond courteously and in an orderly and empathetic fashion, whereas automated responses to customer requests will make sure that the customer knows they have been heard, and if an immediate response isn’t supplied, they can be assured one is on its way.
Nearly 80 percent of customer service agents feel that AI assistance is improving their capabilities. A well-planned mix of AI-enabled automation and the traditional, skilled customer service teams will help bring down response times, ensure all enquiries are answered and free up resources to monitor and respond to all social media and online review feedback.
2. Consumers want their preferred method of contact
Convenience is the gateway to a good customer experience, yet while AI chatbots and associated tools are being lauded for their impact on the CX environment, the Voice of the Customer (VoC) tells us that the traditional tried-and-tested methods are still the most favored.
Phone and email continue to be the top two means of communication for the consumer, with nearly 65 percent choosing them over other means of contacting customer service. Whereas the alternative that’s poised to replace them, the AI chatbot, is less well-received - 18 percent of surveyed consumers say they use it, but only 1 percent prefer it.
Why is this the case? Well, some see it as getting straight to the point; they may feel their issue is best explained in their own words and not in answering a series of pre-written questions. The flexibility and collaboration in reaching a resolution via a human ear are also credited with quick, satisfactory outcomes, often achieved through a personalized approach that is unique to a deft human call center agent.
However, provision is only half of the solution then, effective support through the chosen channels is necessary to fulfil customer expectations.
The correct approach
Support needs to be prompt and relevant to the customer’s given circumstances. In case of an email request, an automated acknowledgement of receipt or a choice of topic-related templates is fine, but a follow-up of greater substance is crucial.
Ensure that the preferred method of contact is adequately supported and resourced. This means sufficient staffing to bring down waiting times and high-quality scenarios and knowledge base training for staff, so that cases can be closed swiftly and to the satisfaction of the customer.
3. Taking the initiative wins favor with customers
Many consumers feel that, in parallel with the progressing automation of customer service functions, they are being made to do more; to work harder to get satisfactory outcomes from a company’s customer support. One of the recent studies has found that 54 percent of consumers have felt frustrated by the time they have invested (or they may say wasted) in getting customer support to address their issue.
The schism here is that, despite companies acquiring and retaining more and more customer data, many customers feel that it is not being used for their benefit. With 63 percent of consumers saying that they expect a brand to understand their individual needs, a problematic gap becomes evident.
The correct approach
How to improve customer service with this in mind? Keep a close eye on customer feedback across online reviews and social media. Collate up-to-date customer service data and apply it to your customer service approach and strategy. Understand what difficulties people encounter when interacting with your area of business, so you can reliably anticipate complications and devise readily accessible solutions – don’t make the customer do the legwork in search of their solutions, have the answers ready.
A reputation that is earned will likely last
The ability to take customer support to the customer, wherever they choose to reach out, will define the customer service experience in the coming years. Achieving this means knowing where your customers are, what difficulties they are likely to encounter, and being present to provide fuss-free, solution-focused support that gives consumers the answers they seek and the customer experience that instills a lasting, positive perception of your brand.
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