While it has been around for many years, live web chat is definitely an underused channel by companies. Despite the fact that more and more people are using chat channels such as instant messaging or Skype, companies have shied away from deploying it, particularly for customer service. Mainly this is down to the perceived cost of chat, as it requires a real agent to answer questions online. T...
If you work in customer service, you’ve got to feel a bit of sympathy for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) after the customer service disaster that befell it this month. A European outage gradually turned into global disruption, leaving countless users with delayed or non-existent access to email, text and the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service. The problem lasted several...
The Virgin brand is known for doing things differently and for putting the customer first, whichever market it is operating in. So last week’s news that the UK government has sold Northern Rock to Virgin Money could potentially have a big impact on the banking market.Northern Rock will be rebranded as Virgin Money, with the company pledging to increase the number of branches it has and to ad...
Next year’s London Olympics will put the UK in the spotlight. Millions of visitors are expected to come to the country, providing a much needed boost to the economy. And provided they enjoy the experience many of these tourists could turn into regular visitors, coming back year after year for holidays across the country. Outside the spectacle of the games themselves, what will make the ...
It has just been announced that the former owners of Britain's last circus elephant are to be prosecuted for animal cruelty – and customer service software has played its part in helping secure a better future for Anne the elephant.When footage of Anne being beaten and kicked emerged on YouTube in March 2011, The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) received hun...
Telecoms companies have historically had a poor reputation for customer service, something that our own research unfortunately verifies. Previously with little difference between service levels amongst telcos, customers didn’t have much choice, so there was little incentive to invest.However this is changing as new entrants and technologies disrupt the traditional telecoms market. On the bac...
Last week’s IT problems at HSBC demonstrate how quickly a customer service issue can develop in the age of social media. On Friday afternoon the bank suffered an IT outage on its mainframe which affected online banking, ATM and some customers using debit cards in stores. While the problems lasted just over 2 hours, Friday afternoons are amongst the busiest time for banks, with HSBC’s 1...
New research demonstrates wide variations between online buying behaviour across the globe. The survey, from Pitney Bowes, asked 10,000 consumers from 10 countries about their online shopping habits and preferences and uncovered some interesting differences.Overall 93% of consumers had shopped online, 49% in the last 30 days, showing the mass market appeal of ecommerce around the world. In the UK,...
If you needed a reminder of the importance of customer service to the bottom line, this week’s £2 million fine for utility npower for mishandling customer complaints demonstrates the financial cost of poor customer service processes. The punishment, levied by energy regulator Ofgem, follows a £2.5 million fine for British Gas in July 2011 for similar issues. In its judgement...
The increasing use of mobile phones for a wide range of activities beyond voice calls is being extensively written about at the moment. A report from the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) and Cap Gemini, for example, has found that the proportion of mobile based online shopping in the UK has jumped by more than 800 per cent over the past year. Over the same period in the US the mobile ...