Local authorities across the UK are under constant pressure to increase efficiency and productivity, while delivering a high quality experience to the public. Birmingham City Council (BCC) is a prime example of an authority that is successfully transforming how it delivers customer experience.
As we come to the end of a busy 2017 it is a good time to review the year, and in particular to look at the most important developments in customer experience over the last 12 months. What were the hot topics and what were the major changes in the market? Based on the topics covered in the Eptica blog that received the most interest, we’ve put together a top 7 posts from across 2017.
The run up to Christmas is both the busiest time of year for most brands and the most stressful for consumers. So it is no surprise that consumers become more demanding of the brands that they deal with during this time. How can they cope?
We live in the age of the connected consumer. Everyone understands the huge amount of time people spend on their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets – there is even a term (Nomophobia), describing the increased anxiety we feel when we are away from our mobile. What does this mean for customer experience and customer service?
We all know that today it’s vital to put customers at the heart of your business. However, there are many companies that believe in this principle, but struggle to successfully ‘live it’ in practice, day-in, day-out. How do you become more customer centric?
Customer experience is becoming the primary differentiator for brands, whatever industry they are operating in. At a time when competition is ever-increasing, the experience that consumers receive is central to attracting and retaining their business, and therefore to the company bottom line. It has never been easier to switch supplier – and consumers are happy to vote with their feet.
Thanks to the rise of digital channels, brands now possess large amounts of personal data on their customers. Protecting this sensitive information is obviously vital, and will become even more important thanks to the EU's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Given its ability to deliver real-time, two way customer conversations, it is no surprise that chat has become a key channel for consumers looking to interact with brands. Yet, while chat’s time has come, there is a growing gap between the experience that brands provide and consumer expectations.
Do you really know what your customers think of the experience your business is delivering? At this year’s Gartner Customer Experience & Technologies Summit , analyst Ed Thompson explained that there is often a wide gap between what consumers expect and what companies are delivering, while outlining 10 steps to improving CX.
Text analytics is at the heart of successfully using Artificial Intelligence in customer experience, with Natural Language Processing (NLP) used to extract meaning from written messages. How does it work and how do you benefit from it?