What are the major trends that are evolving in customer service, what do you need to do to keep up, and why? Shep Hyken interviews Keith Pearce, VP Product Marketing, Salesforce Service Cloud. Shep and Keith will discuss the motivation behind businesses doubling down on customer service as customer expectations evolve in the always-on, on-demand environment. First Up: Shep Hyken’s opening comments focus on Salesforce’s State of Service Research Report (https://www.salesforce.com/form/pdf/2017-state-of-service.jsp), which shows that connected customers are going to reshape the service industry. Customer service and the customer experience are going to completely dominate the competitive nature of business. According to the report, 85% of business executives believe that customer experience is a key competitive differentiator. Further, empowered customers expect their customer service to be personalized. Finally, 69% of consumers and 82% of business buyers say that personalized customer care has a major or moderate impact on their loyalty toward companies. Featured Interview: Shep begins his interview with Keith Pearce asserting that as products and services become more commoditized, customer service is the only sustainable differentiator that most companies have. Pearce states that we are all mobile-driven first. Increasingly, we see more and more consumers using mobile messaging. Not just SMS, but mobile messaging apps like Facebook Messenger. Companies need to be present on those apps. We are moving to conversational service, to provide service where the customers are. Top Takeaways: • Artificial intelligence (AI) rises to the top. Service leaders are looking to leverage AI to provide a more intelligent, personalized and conversational form of service. • It’s not just about the customer service department anymore. If a company is going to be a customer service and customer experience leader, it needs to break down the departments it established to form the enterprise. It needs to communicate and collaborate across the company to provide a great customer experience. • Companies will realize that service is not just something they have to do, instead it is a competitive differentiator, and it’s strategic. This is good news for anyone in the service industry, because it is about to go through a major disruption. About: Keith Pearce is responsible for marketing strategy, vision and execution in his role as Vice President of Marketing for Salesforce Service Cloud. He brings more than 20 years of experience in the customer service, call center management and cloud industries. Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, best-selling author and your host of Amazing Business Radio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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