Businesses have learned huge lessons from the crisis that paralyzed most of the world's top economic powerhouses. Because of this, they are now maximizing the efficiency of their sales and marketing activities to spur growth. Customer service is obviously at the top of the heap and anytime soon, service-oriented organizations like outsourced inbound call centers will witness a new set of customer service trends that businesses will eventually adopt. What trends should hard-working businesses anticipate via their support center this year? Here are a few of them:

TREND 1: Unique company culture. Companies have been aligning their overall objectives with their customers. Customers no longer view organizations as a far-fetched entity but a community of people they can connect with.

TREND 2: Rise of social media. Social media's emergence over the last 2 years has been unprecedented. Customers do not just talk - they engage and build communities. Marketers believe that social networking will continue to expand in the coming months. While human interaction is critical in driving success, human engagement (social media) is equally important in ensuring success. With consumers updating status on Facebook or posting tweets on Twitter to express their feedback on products, businesses can utilize this channel to respond and resolve issues quickly.

TREND 3: Empowered customers. Because of social media, customers are now reaching out to other customers. It is the kind of setting when the customer throws a question, another customer answers, then everyone shares ideas. Customer service will soon be dealing with "customer communities."

TREND 4: Call centers learning from customers. There will be more organizations featuring customer feedback and reports individualized to a call center-customer interaction so they can learn from customers.

TREND 5: Personalized customer service. Real-time analytics can help companies match their agents with customers. There are trends in which agents are matched with customers from different income groups.

Business owners should get back on their feet to learn the new developments, and the role of call centers has never been more pronounced. Call centers can now put together the strongest inbound call center, help desk call center or telephone answering service in meeting the challenges ahead. They are in fact transcending beyond taking calls. They hold the key in establishing a much stronger relationship between the client and consumers.