There are basic rules of customer service that will never change, staying courteous, friendly and professional will be as important in 200 years as it is today. But what is changing are the ways customers reach out and their expectations for your company. This is in major part played by the role of smartphones and tablets, enabling the customer to contact and check up in an instant wherever they are. Your business must get ready to follow your customers into this new service era, or run the risk of losing them to a rival company who is prepared and up to the play with these new rules of service.

1 – Your prospective customers have options now, in the click of a button they can compare prices, research and investigate. Be sure to give great information, competitive deals and easy interactions with your company on all media platforms as there is a very good chance they have already made up their mind about what they need before picking up the phone. Throwing up any barriers will simply have your customer clicking away to another company.

2 – Gone are the days where you could deal with complaints or queries the next business day. Your new customer not only expects to be able to reach you on the phone, they will be contacting you by Facebook, twitter and email. What’s more, they want a near immediate answer. You must regularly check your social media to respond promptly.

3 – They want accuracy and speed. If a customer gets in contact regarding a previous interaction, they expect you to have made notes and be able to assist with little to no repetition. They don’t want to hash out the same information to multiple people. With modern note logging technology, you should be able to access a comprehensive service history for each customer.

New technology has changed customer service forever, but instead of lamenting days gone by embrace your customers new expectations and you will soon see how easy it is to provide quality service that gets results.