The 2017 CRM Service Elite Customer Companies

As today’s customers get more tech savvy and less forgiving of subpar customer experiences, companies have to stay on top of trends and be open to new support channels and technologies. This year’s Service Elite companies have embraced customer service’s fresher options—chat, text messaging, virtual agents—and reaped the benefits: leaner, more cost-effective operations, stronger growth, and more satisfied customers.

NCR Silver, a provider of cloud-based point-of-sale systems for restaurants, paid a visit to Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference and saw a demo of a chat support tool. Why not try it, the company thought. The answer was delivered the day chat was deployed, when a quarter of customer inquiries were handled through the tool.

Text messaging provider OwnerListens had a different quandary—not whether to embrace a newer support method but how to effectively text-enable customers’ existing landlines. Thanks to Zang’s cloud communications platform, it got that functionality at a reasonable price and has used the platform to build smart apps that enable video, chat, and document sharing capabilities.

Finally, Salt River Project, which provides water and electricity to 1 million customers in central Arizona, found its call center swamped during hot summer months. With the aid of Interactions’ virtual agent technology, the utility’s virtual “Rosie and Ramon”agents were born, leading to a marked increase in call containment.

Congratulations to our three Service Elite winners, which have all made the leap into the future of customer service, and stuck the landing.

Below are the 2017 CRM Service Elite presented in alphabetical order:

NCR Silver

OwnerListens

Salt River Project