Technology is evolving faster than ever. At home, at the office, on the road, and pretty much everywhere else, the ever-increasing interconnectivity of devices and services is becoming an integral part of our everyday lives.
Frost and Sullivan predict that by 2020, each person will own an average of over 5 connected devices. Looking at this globally, Ericsson expects there will be a total of around 28 billion connected devices by 2021, with nearly 16 billion of these being IoT devices.
With so many connected devices in use, manufacturers, providers, and distributors are discovering that one of their primary challenges is keeping them all running smoothly. In other words, companies need to deliver immediate, effective support at scale, and they need to do it now.
Customer expectations also require companies to update their service operations. The Internet is not only connecting devices, it’s also connecting people, uniting customers online as a force to be reckoned with. Customers around the world are exchanging information about companies: pricing, the quality of their products and services, and the experiences they’re providing through their customer service channels.
This flow of information is causing a shift in the marketplace.
Over the past few years, the market has become consumer-centric. Consumers have “anytime, anywhere” access to a vast selection of products and services in the palms of their hands; they also have instant access to all the information they need whenever they are about to make a purchase. This information puts the consumer in a position of power like never before; it also puts pressure on businesses to deliver the best products at the best prices, and the best service.
While price and quality play a significant role in the decision-making process, service is gradually catching up with these factors in importance. More and more consumers expect business to provide on-demand support and resolve issues anytime at any touch point. Some research claims that by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator .
It’s clear that the ability to scale support while providing a top-quality customer experience will differentiate the winners from the losers. The winners stand to gain valuable benefits. Those who fail to deliver a better customer experience, however, stand to lose a lot: based on Accenture report well over half of US consumers have switched service providers due to poor customer service experiences.
Facing these two massive tides reshaping the marketplace, in the next few years companies will turn to technology, looking for solutions that will help them better serve customers and provide better support for the connected devices that consumers are growing increasingly dependent on.
Support of Things (SoT) companies deliver innovative technologies that empower companies to face the challenges involved in delivering quality service and support at scale across IoT devices and functionalities. For a quick and fun visual introduction to the concept of SoT, the challenges of IoT support, and a solution to meet those challenges, check out our new video!
TechSee is an SoT company providing an intelligent visual engagement platform that delivers a unified view of customer issues and devices across customer service systems.
