Next Generation

Customer Service
5 Trends shaping the
future of customer
care in 2020
June 2020
Brochure / report title goes here |
 Section title goes here

Contents
Introduction 4

Trend 1 – Future of Work 5

Trend 2 – Elevate the Human Experience 9

Trend 3 – Digital to the Core 11

Trend 4 – Cyber threats are everywhere 12

Trend 5 – Digital Center of Excellence 14

Contact us! 15

2
 Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

As products and services become

more commoditized, delivering great
customer experiences at every step of
the customer journey has become the
differentiating factor between success
and failure.

Historically, only large corporations have

been able to invest tens or hundreds of
millions of dollars into (legacy) IT systems
to support their customers journey.
With today’s emergence of mature cloud
technologies, embedded with the latest
trends such as AI, these technologies are
now at the fingertips of every company.

What are the trends shaping the future

of customer care and how should you
organize yourself to make an impact that
matters to your customers?

3
Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

Introduction

It doesn’t seem long ago that everyone was talking about ‘omni-channel’ as
the holy grail of customer service. Organisations that had invested in providing
multiple engagement channels to their customer were, and still are, making further
investments in integrating those channels, allowing customers to move seamlessly
between them. However…

Time is moving on processes, such as supply chain, finance,

and concepts like ‘omni-presence’ will and manufacturing. Real-time data 2020 –
become the new normal in the ‘20’s, AI needs to be available to provide real-time
is disrupting current customer service analytics and insights.
The Future is Now
tools and the workforce is changing with
This point of view will introduce
new generations entering the market. New technologies like next gen ERP cloud
the five predominant trends
What can we expect in this ever-changing systems, API-led middleware, blockchain,
shaping today’s service delivery
world and how do we capitalize on these and microservices are transforming the
opportunities, going beyond simply
opportunities? traditional IT backend to a high-speed
providing the right channels
IT backbone, enabling customer facing
to your customers.
Trend 1 – Future of Work applications in a whole new way.
It’s not just technology that is
Talent is hard to find and hard to keep –
changing the scene in 2020; it’s
especially in a customer service center Trend 4 – Cyber risks are everywhere
about elevating the human
environment. With a higher level of GDPR, privacy, and cyber security
experience of not only your
automation, we ask more and more of our discussions happen all around us.
customers, but also your employees.
talent, while at the same time Chatbots Facebook scandals, ransomware attacks,
It’s about connecting to the core of
strike fear into our workforce who know customer data loss, and cyber-attacks are
your organization and setting up
they could be replaced any moment. daily news. With more and more customer
for success, by mitigating risks
data gathered through loyalty programs
and continuously investing in
Trend 2 – Elevate the Human and Big-Data or AI analytics, cyber risks
your customer journey to keep
Experience can’t be overlooked!
surprising your customers.
Having a premium product is important,
but having a premium digital experience Trend 5 – Digital Center of Excellence
around your product – from orientation, Move from waterfall projects, agile, and
to buy and to service – is becoming scaled agile to a complete Digital Center of
even more significant. A premium digital Excellence IT delivery approach. Think big,
experience is a key enabler to removing start small, fail quick, scale fast. Start with
any barriers to gaining and keeping a loyal the customer of tomorrow in mind, design
customer base of your brand. It can unlock the future cross-department customer
new business models and offer seamless experience, and set your organization up
and pro-active customer service to truly for constant change in an agile and adaptive
elevate the human experience. manner by adopting DevSecOps and Secure
by Design best practices.
Trend 3 – Digital to the Core
Any well-designed customer journey is
only as good as the data feeding into it.
A successful customer journey greatly
depends on the execution of your primary

4
 Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

Trend 1 – Future of Work

With the changing (digital) landscape in the world of service, future employees need to
adapt their skillsets to fit the new requirements coming from customer needs. Where
the traditional employee was focused on performing processes for clients, the future
skills of the employee should focus on resolving issues on the first try and providing
insights to customers.4

What does the future worker look like? In addition to these new ways of
The future service worker requires a diverse communicating with customers, there
and distinct set of skills to serve the new is also a need for service workers with a
digital customers’ needs. This also requires deeper understanding of the products their
new tools to service the new customers as company is offering, and who the customers
best as possible. of that company are. Customers expect
more knowledge from service agents than
In the past, service agents in traditional call can be found online or on a company’s
centers mainly spoke to their customers on website. This also shows the need to recruit
the phone. This arena is developing into a and train employees with more in-depth
more text-based way of assisting customers knowledge of the product to service
and interacting with them. Therefore, the customers’ needs.5
future service worker requires a higher
skill in the written language. With the Where is the future worker located?
increasingly specific nature of questions The typical contact center of today is
from customers, knowledge templates won’t a physical one, where agents talk to
be able to solve every question from the customers on the phone or via other
customer. channels. But due to employee demand
and advancing technologies, this physical
The focus on written communication with contact center will transform to a more
customers also comes from the rise of social remote one in the coming years.6
media channels within customer service.
The service workers of the future need to One of the reasons for this shift is the
understand the impact a conversation with addition of more channels for the contact
a customer can have on their company. With center agent to communicate with the
social media channels such as Facebook customer. These channels help agents take
and Twitter, a response from a service agent care of more interactions at the same time.
to a customer can go viral in seconds. This This results in fewer agents needed in a
can have enormous consequences for contact center to handle the same amount
the brand image of the company a service of interactions with customers.
agent is working for. With these social media
channels comes another challenge in the Another reason for the transformation
world of customer service. There are more of contact centres is the investment in
and more ways of communicating with your remote workforces by companies. Thanks
customer, which can help increase efficiency to accessible technology (e.g. cloud), central
in responding to customers. However, databases and remote contact centers,
there is also a challenge for the service service employees can help customers
worker, who needs to manage multiple from any location.6
conversations or social messages at the
same time with different sentiment.

4. Deloitte, Delivering the Digital Contact Centre 5. Deloitte, Delivering the Digital Contact Centre
6. Deloitte, Global Contact Centre Survey, 2019

5
Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

Trend 2 – Elevate the Human Experience

From Digital Experience to “Elevating the Human Experience”. Great experiences will
build connections; strong connections create loyalty; loyalty drives business results.
It is no longer enough to create a nice customer after-sales service journey; you
must rethink your customers’ full end-to-end experience in order to become “omni-
present”.

Human Touch If a customer is browsing online but doesn’t in-complete order and wait for the customer
In a tech-driven world, it’s the human touch complete a (service) transaction, AI-powered to complain, you should be reaching out
that makes a business stand out from the technology is able to recognize this situation proactively and helping the customer obtain
rest. That’s why when you make customer and offer a webchat or co-browsing session. the best possible service.
experience a priority, the results will show If the customer doesn’t show up for an in-
in the end. store appointment, the store doesn’t always AI tooling is of utmost importance to
have the luxury of calling the customer back, support the omni-presence experience
AI omni-presence but the contact center would be able to view in order to not only identify the situation,
Developing your contact center to support this information and proactively reach out but also to effectively reach out to the
digital channels is an essential first step to the customer see what else can be done customer in a (partially) automated
in the journey to redefining the contact to help. manner. For example, with the help of a
center’s role in customer service. The virtual assistant you could aim to increase
contact center needs to play a more If you’re about to deliver online orders customer satisfaction without increasing
strategic role in the customer experience. and your supply chain identifies an issue your operational costs.
with stock levels, instead of delivering an
To effectively manage the omni-channel
experience, the contact center must be at Figure 1. AI mni-presence status anno 2019. Source: Deloitte Global Contact Center
the heart of understanding that experience. Survey 2019
It is no longer enough to just measure the
quality and satisfaction of your customer
interactions – the full end-to-end experience
needs to be monitored, measured, and
coordinated.

The contact center should play a unique role

in defining and then proactively managing
the end-to-end customer journey between
channels to manage the overall journey.
Many contact centers are now rebranding
themselves as customer engagement
centers, reflecting not just the additional
channels, but the two-way nature of contact.
Contact centers are well-positioned to see
these channel interactions and pro-actively
act upon any anomalies.

6
Brochure / report title goes here |
 Section title goes here

7
Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

New interaction channels

We’ve all been looking into adding new interaction channels into the mix, such as social
media, chat, and messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. While it is
already challenging enough to really embed these into your channel mix from a single CRM
backbone, even more complex channels are now on the rise!

The big tech companies such as Google, Apple, and Amazon are investing heavily into
their digital voice assistants you find in your smartphone and smart home speakers. This
is not just a change from written text to spoken voice, but a fundamental shift in who is
controlling the customer experience.

Your own channels controlled by your own processes, systems, and technology are no
longer the prime focus, but the way virtual assistants act is. Customers will no longer
interact directly with your brand but with voice-controlled assistants and the technology
behind them. Digital service and knowledge might become a commodity placed behind the
voice assistant. Customers might just place an order and the assistant will figure out which
(mix of) companies delivers it the fastest and the cheapest. Through traditional websites
it used to be more visually recognizable which brand and company is behind a certain
service; with voice that’s no longer the case.
New digital interaction channels are on the
rise, phone will decrease significantly in the
next few years Your own channels controlled by your own processes,
systems and technology are no longer of prime focus,
but the way virtual assistants act is.
New business models
With new interaction channels supported by being digital at the core (see Trend 2), new
business models are on the rise. For many years, examples such as fly-by-the-hour instead
of just buying an engine are well known, and with modern day technology this is now within
reach of any company. Not just a paper service model, but a true tech-supported new
business model!

With more centralized CRM data intelligence, Sales linked to Service, connected devices
providing real-time data and expanding into Field Services, “X-by-the-hour” can now
become a reality and be proactively managed instead of looking back after the fact
and hoping for a profitable service. With the right AI tools in place you can predict the
Fly-by-the-hour business model
profitability of new contracts and the impact on the volume on your customer engagement
center and field force.

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each

other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”
– Jeff Bezos | CEO Amazon.com

8
 Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

Operating Model of the Future WhatsApp, and IoT. Focus on channel shift Tier 1 & 2 – case resolution
One of the more fundamental questions using technologies such as ‘asynchronous’ Some organizations are crowdsourcing
you will need to answer is how to setup messaging can help move 30% to 40% of the answers to the more ‘functional’
your organization for success. Aside from your telephone contact onto more efficient customer enquiries through their own
answering the true strategic business channels. Asynchronous messaging customer base, allowing their highly
question on “where to play”, resulting describes a conversation where the trained and experienced agents to focus
in, for example, key focus on customer interacting parties are not necessarily on the ‘moments that matter’. Examples
satisfaction versus low cost (which is committed to the conversation at the same of achieving about 90% resolution rate
fundamentally difficult to achieve both), it is time. Rather they respond at a time that is through their social forum customer service
important to (re)consider how you organize convenient for them. Aside from a personal model are out there! model are out there!
your customer engagement center. Which time-efficiency gain, messaging can be up to
channels do you want to open for which of twice as efficient as voice. Tier 3 – back office processing
your customers, which tiers are relevant Robotic automation is helping deliver a
for your business goals and to what extent Tier 0 – self-service significant workload reduction, giving hours
do you aim to support the tiers on multiple Self-service and call deflection are being back to the business. One transformation
levels with tooling and automation? given a new lease on life by technologies for the field scheduling process for a water
such as chatbots, which provide a company reduced the workload from 720
Customer channels conversational interface for customers to minutes a day down to 8.
Next to traditional channels such as find the information and resolution they
phone and email, new channels are need. However, few companies have actually
becoming more and more mainstream as been able to fully deploy these technologies.
many companies experiment with Chat,

Fully established Established Emerging Nascent Technology Focused Human Focused

9
Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

Trend 3 – Digital to the Core

In order to elevate the human experience, digital should be considered a key

component of your organization’s foundation. Anno 2020 digital is no longer a
department within your organization; digital is at the very core of it and being digital
requires being open to re-examining and re-evaluating business as usual.

What is digital at the core? Why do we need digital to the core? in the book Digital to the Core published
Being digital comprises being closely by Gartner as: (i) resolution revolution, (ii)
attuned to how customer decision journeys compound uncertainty and (iii) boundary
are evolving. In order to truly understand blurring (Figure 3).2 Resolution revolution
your customers, you must have a holistic allows us to accurately measure and
understanding of their expectations and precisely control things and events;
behavior inside and outside your business, compound uncertainty requires that
as well as cross-industry. Having a full and leaders assess the tipping points of
integrated view of your customers, their technology culture and regulation; and
desires and their needs are essential in boundary blurring occurs when the digital
delivering service that will distinguish you and physical worlds merge and alters
from your competitors. industries as we know them. These three
forces drive the three different levels on
Simultaneously, an amazingly designed which an organization ought to be led:
and realized customer journey is only (i) remap your industry, (ii) remodel your
as good as the data provided to it and enterprise and (iii) remake yourself. Taken
depends greatly on the execution of your together this argument explains how digital
primary processes. Firstly, data quality (or is really to the core of your organisation,
There is a need to move towards a new
the lack thereof) greatly impacts customer affecting the way businesses are led and
“service journey” paradigm or journey-
experience. Input data is often inconsistent, organized.
focused innovation, where agencies deliver
incomplete or misinterpreted. According to
services not by the conveniences of how
research done by Quadient1 organizations
they are organized but around the “jobs to
use on average 36 different data sources,
be done”.2 Delivering high quality service
with little integration between them. As
nowadays is about consumers-centrism,
a result, up to 88% of available customer
a trend seen throughout all industries. To
data is ignored. Secondly, the primary
establish that, organizations ought to be
processes of organizations are rooted into
digital to the core. The primary disruptive
the core of the organization. The way your
forces driving this digital era are identified
supply chain, finance, and manufacturing
processes are designed directly determines
the value of the digital outcomes. In order “Digital to the core is not about
to guarantee high quality digital results, turning existing paper forms into
real-time data needs to be available and online web forms, but asking
real-time analytics and insights need to be whether that form is even necessary
provided. Being truly digital is thus going in the first place”
further than offering nicely automated
tools, as it requires high quality data and the Kok Ping Soon
correct understanding of how to apply the Chief Executive of the Government
knowledge drawn from this data. Technology Agency of Singapore

1.Labrie, E. Data quality (or the lack thereof) and its 2. Raskind, M. & Waller, G. Digital to the Core. 2015,
influence on your CX. 2018, Quadient. Gartner, INC.

10
 Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

How do we become digital to the core? for integrations or interaction with other ever-better user experience, as the user
Being digital to the core is not about the systems. As digital to the core requires may log in to this single platform and ‘switch’
digitization and automation of some, or communication between all different between the different legacy systems
even all, of your existing processes. A systems, data stream in- and outputs, these without even noticing. The importance
flashy website or shiny app is insufficient to legacy systems now form major limitations of excellent user experience is again
become digital to the core. A challenge faced to the interoperability and agility in this highlighted when discussing the necessity
by many organizations aiming to become data-fueled and digital day and age. Several to focus on customer journey. In the end,
digital to the core are the many ICT systems strategies have been proposed to overcome digital to the core will provide the best digital
in place which are often not integrated these limitations with overarching platforms. outcomes and therefore best customer
with one another. These systems are built Such platforms are designed to act on the experience. The key is to be genuinely
monolithically and are designed to meet limitations of legacy systems by enabling digital, rather than solely automate your
their own purpose, with little to no space extremely rapid data exchange and an processes..

11
Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

Trend 4 – Cyber threats are everywhere

As we are rapidly moving towards an increasingly digital world, aiming to deliver

the best possible service, great risks evolve. A high level of customer centric and
personalized service can only be achieved by collecting and using your customers’
data. However, this data collection does not go without consequences.

The value of data the Cambridge Analytica scandal, individuals Prevention over cure
Data is of huge value to all sorts of tend to have increased attention to the data Ransomware is on the lookout and risks
companies, which is the reason many they share and who they give permission appear to be literally everywhere. The
service providers don’t charge money, to use and save their data. Nevertheless, more data we collect, the bigger the risk
but they charge “data”. Customers might we are often dependent on the ethically of a breach. Recent examples show that
perceive services like email providers, free responsible behavior and integrity of even universities are becoming a target
mobile messaging apps and social media companies. More often than one would like, for blackmailing. The goal here remains to
as “free”, while in fact the collection of your data is sold to third parties for marketing obtain their data. Even though risks will
data is their business model. Data is not purposes even though the owner of the always be present and never fully disappear,
only of great value to these companies to data did not give consent. Even if the choice they can be mitigated. To do so, do not
be used for trainings, data, and effective was expressed not to allow cookies, there cut corners on your IT systems as proper
marketing purposes, but the value of data is still no option offered not to have your investment will pay off. Furthermore, it
is also proven by its monetary value on the personal data saved and used for training is advisable to consult an expert. In the
black market. On the Dark Web all kinds of purposes. Governments are implementing case of cloud solutions, ensure your cloud
personal data can be sold, with patient data all sorts of policies and laws to protect is secured optimally by meeting the set
having the highest value of all data types.8 individuals’ personal data, but the problem standards. Furthermore, IT systems are
remains that most people do not know evolving, as should the security systems
Usually, the biggest damage that can be when and how their data will be used. surrounding them. Every new API end
done by a data breach is the loss of brand Providing transparency and clarity is key in endpoint requires optimal safety to prevent
image, both for big organizations and this matter. hacking or a data breach.
individuals. Since the infamous example of

8. Czeschik, Christina. (2018). Black Market Value of

Patient Data

12
 Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

With technology
becoming increasingly
complex, it is required
to build deeper
competencies within
your digital department,
continuously be on
the lookout for new
disruptors, and foster a
culture of collaboration
and innovation while
tearing organizational
walls down.

“Think big, start small,

fail quickly, scale fast”

13
Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

Trend 5 – Digital Center of Excellence

The concept of a center of excellence has been around for many years. It has been
used in different industries for different aims. The main purpose of a digital center of
excellence is to share knowledge, innovate, and push the status quo of your company.
These lessons learned and developed capabilities can then be shared with other parts
of the organisation.9

As a result of sharing knowledge from the center of excellence In the field of customer service, the future of the center of excellence
amongst other parts of the organization, companies can optimize is one that focuses on the adaptability of the company. The center
processes and dispose of redundant systems or tools. The center of of excellence of the future looks towards improving more than just
excellence concept helps these companies to look beyond their “day- the technological aspect of companies, but also focuses on strategic
to-day” activities and stimulate growth by delivering unique solutions vision, change management, and vendor management.
and improvements to their organization.
These are just glimpses of the potential that a Center of Excellence
Center of excellence teams are moving away from waterfall style has in order to enable the future of customer care.
projects and moving to a scaled agile approach as their way of
working. With scaled agile, teams deliver work in shorter periods
and review the next period’s to determine if it’s still relevant. This
helps these teams to deliver a broader scope than just technological
delivery, and allow the teams to adapt fast.

9. Marciniak, R. (2012). Center of Excellence as a next step for shared service

center. Journal of International Scientific Publication: Economy & Business, ISSN,
1313-2555. 

14
 Next Generation Customer Service | 5 Trends shaping the future of customer care in 2020

Contact us!

Peter van Tilburg

Partner – Digital Customer
Tel: +31 (0)88 288 8063
Email: [email protected]

Jeroen Panken
Sr. Manager – Digital Customer
Tel: +31 (0)88 288 4079
Email: [email protected]

Rogier Berger
Consultant – Digital Customer
Tel: +31 (0)88 288 0917
Email: [email protected]

Mirte van de Louw

Analyst – Digital Customer
Tel: +31 (0)88 288 8911
Email: [email protected]

15
Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited ("DTTL"), its
global network of member firms and their related entities. DTTL (also referred
to as "Deloitte Global") and each of its member firms are legally separate and
independent entities. DTTL does not provide services to clients. Please see www.
deloitte.nl/about to learn more.

Deloitte is a leading global provider of audit and assurance, consulting, financial

advisory, risk advisory, tax and related services. Our network of member firms in
more than 150 countries and territories serves four out of five Fortune Global
500® companies. Learn how Deloitte’s approximately 286,000 people make an
impact that matters at www.deloitte.nl.

This communication contains general information only, and none of Deloitte

Touche Tohmatsu Limited, its member firms or their related entities (collectively,
the “Deloitte network”) is, by means of this communication, rendering professional
advice or services. Before making any decision or taking any action that may
affect your finances or your business, you should consult a qualified professional
adviser. No entity in the Deloitte network shall be responsible for any loss
whatsoever sustained by any person who relies on this communication.

© 2020 Deloitte The Netherlands

Designed by CoRe Creative Services. RITM0433846