The customer service experience is one of the most important aspects of a sales-driven business. When consumers have a good one, they are more likely to purchase again and to refer friends and family. This is all in addition to establishing a quality reputation as a business that takes care of those that work with them. Customer experience is different from good customer service, in any case.

Going into the New Year, businesses need to understand trends shifting their competition’s business and how consumers and clients engage with their vendors. In addition, with the landscape of customer service changing so much over the past few years, client expectations and the goals of the businesses that serve them are also changing. Many of these trends are responses to the noticeable economic and social changes happening worldwide, while others have remained consistent over time.

Customer service is a complex process. Software tools can help businesses simplify this process, and can also help improve the customer experience by improving client perceptions during interactions to settle questions or concerns. This improves customer satisfaction, and in turn, makes consumers more open to making repeat purchases. Such software tools vary in feature sets, but their general purpose is to make the ticket-handling process more efficient.

Small businesses may be used to handling customer concerns as they come by simply taking calls or complaints on the spot. However, as businesses and their clientele both grow, this kind of impromptu system becomes unviable. Too many complaints come through too many channels, requiring businesses to find a better solution. If not, they will almost certainly contend with low customer satisfaction and potential legal issues.

Customer service (CS) seems like a simple enough concept on the surface. And yet, the practices and preparation required—to provide a truly unique customer experience and create loyal clients—take a greater depth of understanding and experience to get things right. This is especially true for meeting the needs of businesses, which are naturally more complex and comprehensive than those of individual consumers.

Your customer experience is your business growth driver. Unfortunately, the gap between what companies think they’re delivering and what customers believe is wide; 87% of companies believe their customer experience is excellent, but only 11% of customers agree. So, if you use your customer experience as a growth strategy, you must address your customer service management system first.

Integrations are critical to a strong customer experience because they help your software connect and become a unified service platform that shows a full customer journey. This can provide insight that helps you continuously improve.