thumb|upright=1.2|A [[Department of Motor Vehicles|DMV clerk helps a customer with paperwork.]]

Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those who buy or use its products or services, either in person or remotely. Customer service is often practiced in a way that reflects the strategies and values of a firm, and levels vary according to the industry. Good quality customer service is usually measured through customer retention. Successful customer service interactions are dependent on employees "who can adjust themselves to the personality of the customer".

Customer service in some cases is part of the firm's intangible assets and can differentiate it from others in the industry. One good customer service experience can change the entire perception a customer holds towards the organization. It is expected that AI-based chatbots will significantly impact customer service and call centre roles and will increase productivity substantially. Many organisations have already adopted AI chatbots to improve their customer service experience.

The evolution in the service industry has identified the needs of consumers. Companies usually create policies or standards to guide their personnel to follow their particular service package. A service package is a combination of tangible and intangible characteristics a firm uses to take care of its clients.

Customer support

Customer support is a range of consumer services to assist customers in making cost-effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product.

Automation and productivity increase

Customer service may be provided in person (e.g. sales / service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, websites, and apps. An advantage of automation is that it can provide service 24 hours a day which can complement face-to-face customer service. AI can learn through interaction to give a personalized service. The exchange the Internet of Things (IoT) facilitates within devices, lets us transfer data when we need it, where we need it. Each gadget catches the information it needs while it maintains communication with other devices. This is also done through advances in hardware and software technology. Another form of automated customer service is touch-tone phone, which usually involves IVR (Interactive Voice Response) a main menu and the use of a keypad as options (e.g. "Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish").

thumb|170px|An [[automated online assistant with avatar providing automated customer service on a web page]]

Examples of customer service by artificial means are automated online assistants that can be seen as avatars on websites,

Metrics

The two primary methods of gathering feedback are customer surveys and Net Promoter Score measurement, used for calculating the loyalty that exists between a provider and a consumer.

Instant feedback

Many outfits have implemented feedback loops that allow them to capture feedback at the point of experience. For example, National Express in the UK has invited passengers to send text messages while riding the bus. This has been shown to be useful, as it allows companies to improve their customer service before the customer defects, thus making it far more likely that the customer will return next time.

See also

  • Automated attendant
  • Customer experience management
  • Customer relationship management
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Customer Service Assurance
  • Customer service representative
  • Customer service training
  • Demand chain
  • Interactive voice response
  • Live support software
  • Privacy policy
  • Professional services automation
  • Public Services
  • Sales
  • Sales process engineering
  • Sales territory
  • Service climate
  • Service system
  • Social skills
  • Support automation
  • Technical support
  • Help desk software

References

Further reading

  • Krishnan, C., Gupta, A., Gupta, A., Singh, G. (2022). Impact of Artificial Intelligence-Based Chatbots on Customer Engagement and Business Growth. In: Hong, TP., Serrano-Estrada, L., Saxena, A., Biswas, A. (eds) Deep Learning for Social Media Data Analytics. Studies in Big Data, vol 113. Springer, Cham.
  • Adam, M., Wessel, M. & Benlian, A. AI-based chatbots in customer service and their effects on user compliance. Electron Markets 31, 427–445 (2021).
  • Hardalov, M., Koychev, I., Nakov, P. (2018). Towards Automated Customer Support. In: Agre, G., van Genabith, J., Declerck, T. (eds) Artificial Intelligence: Methodology, Systems, and Applications. AIMSA 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11089. Springer, Cham.
  • Roberts, C. and Maier, T. (2024), "The evolution of service toward automated customer assistance: there is a difference", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 36 No. 6, pp. 1914-1925.
  • Suendermann, D., Liscombe, J., Pieraccini, R., Evanini, K. (2010). “How am I Doing?”: A New Framework to Effectively Measure the Performance of Automated Customer Care Contact Centers. In: Neustein, A. (eds) Advances in Speech Recognition. Springer, Boston, MA.