A new report from Gartner shows that a majority of customer service and support leaders favor a value-added customer service strategy to grow their business in 2022, representing a significant shift from the once-prevalent mindset that customer service was an onerous cost center.

In a survey of 170 customer service and support leaders conducted from August to September this year, 64% of the respondents said the most important task for them next year and their top priority is to “grow the business.” And for growth to take place, businesses must advocate and practice a strategy in which customers feel they are valued, the leaders say.

“Business growth as a goal is well-aligned with the idea of value-added customer service that creates more value for the customer beyond simply resolving their issue,” said Brad Fager, a research director at Gartner. Adding value in customer service interactions can lead to new revenue streams, while also protecting existing ones, Fager noted.

The “value” mindset is a departure from attitudes in the past that historically viewed customer service as a cost center with the main purpose of customer retention. That view, however, is now considered outdated in favor of friendly and active engagement, a position that resonates all the way to the C-suite and the boardroom, customer service experts profess in agreement. The new thinking is borne out by the results in the survey: up to 82% of organizations either already possess or plan to implement a value enhancement strategy, Gartner pointed out.

For organizations intending to implement strategies that create value for the customer, Gartner identified two approaches: 1) look for patterns throughout one’s customer base to find groups in need of, or more open to, accepting added value; and 2) mine customer data and then flag any individual customers who may need to obtain more value.

Other Trends

Other notable trends in Gartner’s survey results include a more pronounced effort among service and support leaders in adopting customer self-service options, and the prioritization of effective knowledge management systems over remote workforce planning.

As for the first trend, leaders continue to staunchly advocate the increasing adoption of self-service channels on digital and self-service topics. However, Gartner is advising to look beyond simply improving self-service offerings in 2022 and instead consider customer journeys in a holistic manner, with the journey for customers starting as soon as they go on search engines to look for what they need.

Optimizing the customer site navigation and transitions across channels presents an untapped opportunity of significance for customer service, Gartner noted. Leaders should also design the customer navigation experience on websites to be one that gently steers them toward self-service solutions, at the same time making sure to introduce assisted service at strategic points in the journey if customers require help. On the second trend, Gartner said service leaders are indicating they plan to focus less on the arguments for operating a remote workforce, instead devoting more attention toward deploying effective knowledge management systems to enable more productive workflows for their staff. Leaders should prioritize people and processes ahead of tech solutions, especially in the early stages of building knowledge management, Gartner offered in its remarks.