Talk of Big Data is everywhere, but it is increasingly moving beyond the hype cycle to deliver real results to businesses. To start with, let’s define what Big Data actually is, given there are multiple descriptions in the market. According to Gartner, Big Data is “high volume, high velocity, and/or high variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced...
From the contact centre to the web and mobile, technology is central to how organisations interact with their customers to deliver an enhanced experience. Consequently it seems hard to believe that the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software market is now over 20 years old. The appetite for CRM software remains as healthy as ever. According to Gartner it is growing at an impressive 13.7% g...
Every business understands that today’s customers are demanding more – and are happy to move to the competition if they don’t receive what they are looking for. However, breaking these demands down into specific areas can be difficult, so those involved with customer experience should take a look at a recent Forbes blog post by customer service expert Micah Solomon as it gives mo...
There are lots of stories about companies that have delighted their customers. Take Sainsbury’s renaming its Tiger Bread based on feedback from a three year old girl that it looked more Giraffe-like or US restaurant Morton’s Steakhouse delivering a meal to an arriving passenger who tweeted, asking to be met by a porterhouse at Newark Airport.Examples like this are undoubtedly good PR a...
The first secure ecommerce transaction took place 20 years ago when a lucky shopper paid $12.48 plus shipping to buy Sting’s album, Ten Summoner’s Tales, from NetMarket. From these small beginnings online sales have grown to hit £93 billion in the UK last year, according to IMRG, and are expected to top £100 billion in 2014.How we shop today is radically different to 1994, ...
In increasingly competitive markets, customers look for experiences that match their expectations and needs. Essentially this means that as consumers continue to become more savvy at researching and comparing brands, companies need to realise that when it comes to customer experience, they need to create a brand promise and deliver on it. After all we live in a world filled with technology-empower...
All organisations understand that customers go on a journey when they interact with them. However, this is rarely a straightforward trip, but more of an expedition with twists and turns, ups and downs, spanning many channels.Along this journey, Jeff Toister, the author of Service Failure: The Real Reasons Employees Struggle with Customer Service and What You Can Do About It – identifies thre...
When interacting with organisations, customers value convenience, speed and consistency above all. Self-service systems deliver in all three of these areas, which is leading to their widespread adoption on the web. But self-service isn’t stopping there. Advances in speech recognition and voice to text technology mean that companies are beginning to look beyond websites to applying self-servi...
Customer satisfaction with UK companies is worsening. That’s the stark headline finding from the latest Institute of Customer Service (ICS) UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI).Researched every six months, the Index fell in July 2014 for the third consecutive time, with over half of organisations seeing a drop of at least one point in their ratings. Satisfaction levels fell in 12 out of th...
Delivering the right service, products and overall experience has always been central to building a successful business. Companies know that retaining existing customers is far cheaper than winning new ones, and have built systems and processes to ensure that they can provide what customers want cost-effectively.This trend has been accelerated by two key factors. The recent recession made consumer...