Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

With concerns about a worldwide recession, it’s no surprise that shoppers are in a bit of a slump. But there’s some encouraging news: consumers across the globe are estimated to spend.301 trillion more on retail goods in 2022 over the previous year and digital spending is expected to total.717 billion worldwide. “Consumer staying power may be waning but it's showing few signs of breaking”, Tim Quinlan, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, told Reuters.

Data security is no longer just a nice-to-have for messaging and live chat. Data breaches are becoming common, and in an environment where mindfulness about privacy is at an all-time high, businesses risk serious damage if they fail to keep up. This privacy focus also arrives at a time when customer demands for immediacy are also peaking. Live chat solutions are designed to provide fast communications, but can they also do it while securing business and customer privacy? It seems like an oxymoron.

There’s a ton of data that is created with every support request serviced in your help desk. Every ticket comes with its set of vital time-based metrics, ticket tags, and customer ratings. When you multiply that by the average number of tickets your business receives on a daily basis, what you have is a treasure trove of insights hidden within your help desk system.

Support demand is rapidly and continuously increasing and few businesses are prepared to address the rising needs of their customers. According to TeamSupport’s State of Support report for 2022, overall support demand is rising at an average rate of 11%. That means your support team is getting more emails, more requests, more everything. Chances are that your support team is already getting hammered by the sheer volume of customer issues, not to mention the potential for complexity.

Current headlines predict a global recession on almost a daily basis, leaving us to wonder whether and when it will finally arrive – and if it does, how deep the recession will be and how long it will last. It’s unsettling but we’re no strangers to uncertainty. If anything, we’ve learned over the past few years that we should both expect and prepare for change. After all, many things are still in a state of flux.

CEOs are getting nervous. According to a quarterly survey of business leaders conducted by the Conference Board, 98% of US-based CEOs say they are preparing for an economic recession over the next 12 to 18 months. European leaders are even more fearful – 99% believe a recession is imminent. “CEOs are now preparing for near-inevitable recessions in both the US and Europe”, Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., Vice Chairman of the Business Council and Trustee of the Conference Board said.