Despite the rising importance of customer service on both sides of the Atlantic, the UK is widely seen as lagging the United States when it comes to the experience that companies deliver. This is backed up by damning new consumer research commissioned by fixed-fee UK estate agent YOPA. It found that: 80% of Britons are frequently enraged by poor customer service...
We hear a lot about the impact of millennials on customer service, and how they are driving change in customer service. We asked guest author and millennial Chloe Hacquard for her perspective.Millennials expect five things as standard from customer service:1. Being on social media and responding as fast as possibleIf there is an issue, the company concerned is already in a bad position. And, if at...
The rise of digital channels is radically changing how businesses operate and interact with customers, increasing competition and driving transformation of their operations. The insurance industry is the perfect example – it is moving from a model where customer interactions are by phone or letter to one that is overwhelmingly driven by digital conversations. Competition is...
Knowing your customers is at the heart of designing and delivering the right experience to engage with them successfully. So, McKinsey’s recent US Customer Sentiment Survey should be required reading for anyone involved in customer experience. First run in 2008 and based on a representative sample of consumers, it tracks how people feel about their financial prospects and...
Delivering a seamless, high quality customer experience is extremely complex. It has to cover multiple channels, involve the whole company and also key partners, for example logistics companies for retailers, in a way that is invisible to the consumer, minimizing the amount of effort that they need to put into their purchase or interaction.Over time it has become even harder as new chann...
Businesses understand that improving the customer experience has a direct impact on revenue generation. Happier customers are more loyal, will spend more and recommend your company to their friends.Business success depends on a wide variety of factors and it can be hard to isolate customer experience in dollar figures.
Last month’s Gartner Customer Strategies & Technologies Summit provided a perfect opportunity to review where the customer experience market currently is – and to look forward at the next challenges and opportunities for companies. One of the key points raised is that while senior managers now understand the importance of customer experience, many are unsure...
We live in a world where time is of the essence, and everyone is trying to cram more and more into their lives. This has a major impact on the customer experience – consumers increasingly choose companies that value their time and minimize the effort they need to put in when making a purchase or finding out information. For example, online consumers don’t want to break...
Delivering the right customer experience isn’t just about systems and processes – it is also about how the consumer feels during, and at the end of, the journey. For example, it is quite possible that a company could solve a consumer’s issue, but that the customer needs to expend so much effort to achieve it, or that the process feels so complex, that they are...
The internet has transformed the way we buy our holidays and flights, with the majority of people now booking all or part of their travel online. Digital channels have also driven up the level of competition in the sector, putting downward pressure on prices as transparency increases. At the same time with so many options to choose from online, customers are more discerning about where they take..