Gartner has revealed that customer service leaders will prioritize customer journey analytics, self-service, and generative-AI-powered agent-assist in 2024.
In doing so, the research firm shared the results of a survey of 246 customer service and support leaders conducted in October last year.
Commenting on the findings, Kim Hedlin, Senior Principal of Research in the Gartner Customer Service & Support Practice, stated: “Advances in GenAI (generative AI) and shifting customer preferences are pushing service and support leaders to reimagine what’s possible for their organization in 2024.
Leaders are focused on how they can leverage technology to accomplish their top priorities, including improving customer experience and optimizing their operations.
Each priority seemingly blends into the next. Indeed, service operations may use customer journey analytics to spot customer experience pain points that increase contact volumes.
From there, they can remove some of those pain points with targeted self-service applications.
When that’s not possible, they may improve upon the pain points with improved agent guidance.
While Gartner stopped short of this observation – in its press release, at least – it added more color to each priority, as shared below.
1. Leaders Invest in Journey Analytics to Understand Customer Experience Holistically
Within the next 18 months, 56 percent of service leaders will invest in the customer journey analytics market, finds Gartner.
The technology allows brands to analyze all their customer conversations, surfacing intent, sentiment, and attitudinal data.
Sharing his thoughts on this statistic, J.J. Moncus, Principal of Research in the Gartner Customer Service & Support Practice, noted: “Customer service and support leaders are using CJA to gain a more holistic understanding of what customers need.
Customers’ and executive leaders’ expectations for service interactions will only continue to rise. Service and support leaders need to identify and understand significant customer touchpoints in order to deliver a better experience.
Interestingly, Gartner’s survey suggests that – of those who will invest in customer journey analytics – 45 percent will do so for the first time.
2. Shifts in Customer Preferences Push Leaders to Prepare for the Future of Self-Service
According to Gartner, "many" support leaders will experiment with new self-service tools in 2024 to meet “the growing preference” for self-service amongst younger customers.
