Agent Knowledge Base

Why improving email performance is vital for customer service success

Published on: January 23, 2015
Author: Pauline Ashenden - Demand Generation Manager

Delivering superior customer service is an increasing challenge for all. Companies need to cover more and more channels while meeting continually growing demands from consumers, often with no corresponding increase in budgets. No wonder that the temptation can be to re-allocate scarce resources away from traditional channels such as email in order to focus more heavily on the likes of social media...

Extending customer service across the enterprise

Published on: January 16, 2015
Author: Robin Tandon

Organisations today understand that customer service is everyone’s job and cannot be solely left to agents in the contact centre. However, in a multichannel world consumer expectations are high – they want to receive consistent, personalised service no matter how they make contact and certainly don’t want to have to repeat themselves when they move between channels. Customers don...

5 Customer Experience lessons of Christmas 2014

Published on: January 09, 2015
Author: Lloyd Buxton

For retailers, the peak Christmas trading period is fundamental to their revenues. However it is also the most competitive time, with everyone looking to increase their share of the £36.5 billion Britons were expected to spend on Christmas shopping. Add in that every year consumers are demanding more, and you can see how difficult it is to deliver the right experience to customers across eve...

What does 2015 hold for customer experience?

Published on: January 07, 2015
Author: Pauline Ashenden - Demand Generation Manager

The New Year always bring a plethora of predictions as companies and analysts look at what is likely to happen in the next twelve months across the customer experience market.

The benefits of integrating customer service with the back office

Published on: December 08, 2014
Author: Steve Nattress

Back office activities may be unglamorous, but they are vital. Whether ensuring that customers receive the right paperwork, taking payments, making amendments to accounts or organising the dispatch of products, failures lead to frustrated and angry customers, and additional strain on the contact centre.From a customer point of view, requests to the back office appear simple and straightforward. Ex...

Maintaining customer service levels at the busiest times of the year

Published on: November 28, 2014
Author: Pauline Ashenden - Demand Generation Manager

One of the most frustrating experiences for consumers is calling a company with a query and being met with a recorded message saying 'we are experiencing high call volumes at present, please hang up and try later'. Frustration can boil over into anger if they receive the same message on numerous occasions, particularly if it includes the advice to check the company website for information ...

Moving on from desktop email

Published on: November 26, 2014
Author: Dharmesh Ghedia

With 144.8 billion emails sent every day, it continues to be a vital channel for customer service. Indeed, the rise of mobile devices, which allow consumers to quickly email wherever they are, means that the number of messages companies receive is actually growing.With many midsize organisations receiving over quarter of a million emails every year, coping with email customer service can be a stru...

Keeping agent morale high at peak times

Published on: November 07, 2014
Author: Anne-Merete Jensen - Senior Business Consultant

As we move into the busiest part of the year for many contact centres, keeping staff morale high is even more crucial for delivering fast, efficient service. At the same time, contact centres are taking on extra staff to cope with demand, all of whom need to be motivated and trained to be ambassadors for your brand.Together, these factors add to the pressure on contact centre operations. How can y...

How close are we to the omnichannel future?

Published on: November 05, 2014
Author: Lloyd Buxton - Business Development

Customer service is continually evolving. Driven by customer needs and channel expansion the original telephone-only call centres have added new contact methods, such as email, chat and social media, to become multichannel customer engagement centres. However the biggest shift is still ongoing – from a silo-based channel by channel approach to a more integrated, seamless and consistent omnic...

Overcoming the basic customer service pitfalls with technology

Published on: October 29, 2014
Author: Dharmesh Ghedia

I recently read a really interesting blog by Thomas Laird that looks at some of the underlying reasons that companies struggle with customer service. What struck me was how many of these issues could be solved with well-implemented technology to support agents doing their jobs.Here’s a précis of Thomas’s five points, along with my comments on where technology adds value.1 . Who runs y...

Pages