At a time when people have near instant internet access and expect quick results, it\u2019s imperative to provide easily accessible, concise educational resources for your customers. Their time is valuable and when a problem arises, they want to find a quick solution, ideally without having to pick up the phone, fire off an email or open a chat support window in an attempt to contact someone from your help desk. It\u2019s no wonder Gartner<\/a> includes self-service in its list of top three customer experience projects. Empower your customers to help themselves. Ensure FAQs, instructions, videos, release notes etc. are up to date, easy to read and featured prominently on your site.<\/p>\n Clearbit<\/a> provides excellent resources for its customers. Piggy-backing off the idea of self-serve help, the availability of public forums and community groups enable greater customer success. Your customers can communicate with others in similar situations to find out what worked best for them. Often times hearing a solution or suggestion from a peer seems more legitimate than hearing it from the company that sold you the product. Why? Because your peers have no skin in the game and will be completely honest about what worked and what didn\u2019t. Worried about customers sharing pain points or complaints? Don’t be! A forum or community group consolidates complaints into one place, making it easier for your team to identify real problems for your users, whether they\u2019re reporting them to you or not. At the same time, it highlights power-users, provides them an organic platform to speak about your product and enables you to further maintain the relationship by keeping them engaged. <\/p>\n 4. Video content will be king of kings<\/strong><\/p>\n As mentioned briefly in the introduction, 2015 really put content on a pedestal. Companies realized the importance of providing valuable, non sales-pitch information for current and potential customers. In 2016, video will become a much larger percentage of that content. In their B2B Marketing report<\/a>, Regalix reveals that 78% of survey respondents identify video as the most leveraged type of content. An even crazier statistic is that Cisco predicts<\/a> by 2017, video will account for nearly 70% of all consumer internet traffic. What this means is videos that provide easy fixes, industry tidbits or instructional content will no longer be best practice, they will be the standard. <\/p>\n![\"Screen_Shot_2015-12-08_at_2.18.55_PM\"](\"http:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screen_Shot_2015-12-08_at_2.18.55_PM-300x179.png\")
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\n2. Connecting customers<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Screen_Shot_2015-12-08_at_2.47.08_PM\"](\"http:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screen_Shot_2015-12-08_at_2.47.08_PM-300x134.png\")
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\nHubspot<\/a> enables its users, around the country, to meet and discuss the software
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\n3. Personal and authentic attention
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\nProviding personal and authentic attention to your customers will become table stakes in 2016. Companies like Amazon and Netflix have exposed consumers to the power of personalization. Because of this, consumers are becoming used to that level of personalization and service, in turn raising their expectations for all interactions, regardless if the company is B2B or B2C. It\u2019s no secret companies are collecting data on their customers. The easiest and most rewarding way to use that information responsibly? By personalizing your interactions with them and ultimately, building a trusting relationship<\/a>. Use the data you have to remember important details in past conversations or to predict issues a customer might have with a new feature release. This level of personalization leads to an increase in authentic interactions. Customers will come to expect and demand this authenticity for future interactions.<\/p>\n