Digital customer service and support can be thought of as any service interaction that starts from a screen. This market consists of applications that enable customer service and support to engage customers through their preferred digital channels, managing persistent dialogues. Digital first solutions treat those dialogues as the atomic unit of interaction, rather than defining it as a channel contact (e.g., an email or a call). This allows for channels and modalities (like voice, text or gestures) to become attributes of an interaction that can be flexibly and seamlessly used as appropriate. These vendors are broadening their offerings, which is bringing them into direct competition with adjacent markets. The most significant collisions are with the CCaaS and CEC spaces.
The social customer service market comprises applications that support social media as a component of an overall customer service strategy. Gartner classifies an application provider as a social customer service vendor if it supports customer service in one or two specific types of function: External communities: Often referred to as peer-to-peer communities, this software enables customers and partners to blog, post, rate products/services and construct ideas, as well as support peer interactions and offer incentives for loyalty. Social media engagement: Going beyond just monitoring social media for brand mentions, these applications are capable of responding to constituents on popular social networks and have case management.