Customer care is everywhere; trends in customer service and customer care might vary depending upon the field of business and the location of the consumer. Why is it important to understand customer service trends? It’s vital for businesses to keep up to date on changes in the customer care industry and understand trends based on industry and location in order to provide the highest quality support when customers need help with a product or service. Although these trends vary depending upon the given industry and location of a consumer, there are trends that apply to all types of customer service everywhere.

Let’s take a moment to go over some examples of customer service trends that are dependent upon industry or location before going into detail on the subject of general customer service trends. One major industry that requires customer service is the retail shopping industry. Retail shopping consists of all products sold to consumers. As you can imagine, this is a huge industry. The trend to buy products in-store has shifted to buying things online; meanwhile, the trend to service customer needs has shifted to help customers online as well. The shift took place when retailers realized that some customers would feel more at ease speaking to representatives on their website via a pop-up chat-box.

Location is an important factor when considering what trends of customer service to follow. If a business is relying on physical stores (brick and mortar locations), the actual location will have a high impact on the level of customer service that is required to please the consumer. Stores in large cities tend to have a larger online appearance than stores in small towns. This is another example of how customer care is trending towards having an online presence. If a city is known for having plenty of tech companies, like San Francisco, having an online presence is nearly a requirement.

There are more general trends to speak of that involve the internet as a means of relaying care to the customer. Apart from the growing desire to have communications through a company website play a major role in customer relations, businesses who utilize social media platforms are also feeding into the growing urge to serve customers digitally. Having a website for a company isn’t enough today. A business that wants to show how much it cares about creating conversations with customers’ needs to have a social media presence that is easy to find.

The old ways of being polite and calming customers with kind words haven’t went anywhere. Showing how valuable a customer’s time is and how their views are understandable goes a long way, even among websites, social media pages, and phone calls.