Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses using Customer Care saw less of a negative impact than most other sectors of the tech economy and its value propositions were generally enhanced during the pandemic. As Customer Care have matured in the marketplace, so too have its technologies, practices and its staff. This makes the trends in Customer Care today relatively clear, as what used to be and what is now considered a challenge or an opportunity has drastically altered. With the help of the TSIA’s State of Managed Services 2021 research report, here we detail 9 of them.
1. Value Realization
Customer Care has pivoted from caring about product differentiation to value realization and business outcomes. Customers have an expectation of value for the product or service delivered, and delivering on that expectation leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. Value realization captures the outcomes that are achieved from customers, both quantitive & qualitative, to drive further optimization and customer success.
2. Purchasing Managed XaaS
Purchasing managed XaaS, service-led solutions, as opposed to owning technology assets, is becoming more common. Most companies that either manufacture or supply technology to customers view services as “attach” offers, but the market has made a major shift toward services-led solutions. These are managed XaaS solutions, which have grown in representation from 6% of revenue to over 30% since 2016, while on-site Customer Care practices have been slowing down. Managed XaaS offers are a major growth driver in Customer Care.
3. Services Versus Product
The revenue ratio between products and services has rapidly turned around in 10 years, and there is now a major shift towards services-led solutions: Managed solutions. Technology has been sold based on features, functions and price for years, but now customers want their suppliers to share the risk of deployment and rollout, demanding more resources.
Lah, Thomas. January 2021. “The State of the Technology Industry 2021: The Haves and the Have Nots.” TSIA.
4. Software Development
More software development methodologies (like Agile, Scrum DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering, DevOps) are being used in services businesses. These also help the supplier to share in the risks of deployment and rollouts.
5. Security
As the risk of cyberattacks becomes more and more prevalent, MSPs are becoming more important in terms of helping to secure IT infrastructures. With their ability to provide 24/7 monitoring, and to help clients to optimize their security measures and keep up with regulations, Customer Care will be an obvious way for organizations to turn.
6. AIOps
It is predicted that by 2024, 30% of business leaders will rely on AI in IT operations (AIOps) platforms for automated insights to drive business-related decisions, as compared to less than 3% in 2021. Developing such advanced delivery capabilities is important to businesses, as a way for them to deepen relationships with customers via vertical expertise and outcome-based solutions.
7. OpEx
Customers are increasingly demanding OpEx consumption models, to help them to fulfill the promise of their technologies.
8. Revving Versus Retooling
During the pandemic, organizations were basing their decisions on how the markets they served were doing financially. Consequently there was a shift towards “revving”, where sales and marketing focus on increasing sales while demand spikes, or “retooling”, where internal capabilities are shored up when demand is down.
9. New Roles
Changes in the functions Customer Care fulfills require new roles. To see which jobs are open in our Customer Care team, including the Site Reliability Engineer, see our website, and catch us next month for more Customer Care insights.
Want to know more about how Codit’s Managed Services team can help?
Contact Enza
Customer Care General Manager