The Christmas shopping season was bruising for some retailers, with high street names such as Hawkins’ Bazaar, La Senza and Black’s Leisure all plunging into bankruptcy. Overall sales were up by just 2.2% on December 2010 according to the British Retail Consortium, while e-commerce continued its rise, with online sales up by 30% compared to the previous year.One of the key trends highl...
We’ve talked a lot in the past about the emerging importance of social media to customer service and how companies across all industries need to incorporate networks such as Facebook and Twitterinto their strategy. Businesses must understand the opportunities and threats that social media brings to customer service and then put in place the systems to listen and act on what their custom...
With 2012 now firmly upon us, what will it bring for customer service? The combination of the ongoing recession, increased reliance on the internet and the continuing growth of social media are the three major challenges that customer service needs to address.Here are Eptica’s views on how these trends will impact customer service in the year ahead:The recession Clearly there is no immediate...
Given how close we are to Christmas Day, we thought it would be a good idea to scrutinise the customer service practices of Father Christmas himself. While this might risk us not getting any presents here at Eptica, what lessons can those running customer service departments learn from the man in red?We’re rated Father Christmas against some common customer service benchmarks to see how he d...
Surveys show that the current recession is increasing debt amongst Britons. Research shows that nearly half (46%) of the population have some sort of non-mortgage debt or arrears, with those aged between 25-34 struggling most with their finances.Against this backdrop what is interesting is that more and more people want to be able to manage their debts, and repay money online or via mobile devices...
Delivering consistent, accurate and fast information to customers, across multiple channels, is at the heart of excellent customer service. The results are double - not only are customers happier as their query is dealt with more quickly, without needing to call back, but operational efficiency is increased, as queries are dealt with first time, faster and with a consistent approach.The quest to b...
Customer service is a serious business – do it right and it delivers increased sales and customer satisfaction. Do it wrong and it can destroy a brand in the eyes of customers. However there is definitely a lighter side to the profession, as the Top 20 Funniest Customer Service stories of 2012 shows. Collected by Henley Business School for CDC Software and appearing in mycustomer.com they de...
The Christmas shopping season is now in full swing across the UK and competition between retailers has never been fiercer.This is particularly true in the electrical and computing sectors, where consumers have a huge choice of online and offline outlets to buy from. Electrical products are also becoming more complex and converged – for example smart, internet-connected TVs are expected to be...
Most organisations today have a multi-channel strategy, allowing customers to contact them by email, phone, the web, branch and increasingly social media. Ensuring that you can respond to them via the channel of their choice is a key part of delivering high levels of customer service. After all, if you begin a conversation on email you don’t want to be forced to call the contact centre ...
Delivering excellent customer service is a central part of business today, whatever industry you are in. While sectors such as retail may be very visible when it comes to customer service initiatives, improving service can deliver huge benefits in other, more traditional, sectors such as insurance.The perfect example of this is Ageas Insurance Solutions (AIS), one of the UK’s leading persona...