One of the top trends for the customer service industry in 2013 is the rise of mobile technology, according to Principal Analyst for Forrester Research, Inc., Kate Leggett. Until just recently, mobile was seen as a tool for sales, marketing, and eCommerce departments. However, mobile will become an important strategy for customer service departments as well in order to create an end-to-end customer experience.

Service organizations have two groups to consider as they develop these strategies: the customer and their agents. Enabling both groups to be efficient has become table stakes in the new mobile era.

Below, we’ll reveal what the Service Cloud team is developing to support this shift in the way customer service is done:

• Co-browsing: Agents can guide customers on mobile devices via any web browser. For example, a customer is viewing his credit card statement via his mobile device and sees a mistake; rather than exiting the app to find a contact number, he can easily initiate a co-browse with an agent to review the issue together.

• Communities: Provide your customers a single destination to find and answer questions via self-service, peers, or community experts. In the process, you’ve saved an expensive phone calls and encouraging customer advocates to share their wisdom

• Chat: The ability to chat instantly live with an agent from any mobile device means your customer engagement is available anywhere, anytime.
   
• Touch: It’s not just your customers that are becoming more mobile - your own agents are too. Stay ahead of the mobile trend by enabling agents to resolve cases on the go with an Amazon Kindle, Android device, iPad, or iPhone.

By 2014, there will be an estimated 1.8 billion mobile devices in the hands of consumers. While traditional channels like phone and email are still a critical component to every support organization, oftentimes these don’t provide the quick resolutions for the customer. As our mobile devices become an extension of us, mobile customer service is table stakes for all organizations.