The immediacy and reach of Twitter means it has become a vital channel for customer service. According to Nielsen, nearly half of US consumers use social media to ask questions and Twitter’s own analysis shows that tweets to major brands have increased 2.5 times over the past two years. That makes over 4.5 million tweets every month sent to B2C companies.Consumers value...
In competitive markets, customer service is often the most important differentiator. This is especially true if companies are selling similar products, at similar prices – and for service businesses such as utilities and financial services where there is no physical product to create a differentiation. When customer service is the main source of competitive advantage, it’s essential to...
When customer service first rose to prominence within organisations it was straightforward to define. It was a physical department, normally including a call centre, that dealt with all incoming customer communications (mainly via telephone and letter), and provided help and support. As the number of channels used by customers began to expand, the web, email...
Over the last ten years, customers have become increasingly more demanding in terms of the service that they expect from companies. At the same time, and as part of the same trend, governments have acted to make it easier and more straightforward to complain, particularly in industries such as telecoms, utilities and finance. They have set up new regulators and ombudsmen...
Across the globe, companies are under increasing pressure to deliver a superior customer experience if they want to win and retain consumer loyalty. This is especially true in Asia-Pacific, with customers demanding better and faster service, across more and more channels, than ever before. Customer experience links directly to sales – according to Frost & Sullivan, over 6 in 10 consumers...
In a fast-moving and ultra-competitive market such as retail, companies are continually looking to differentiate themselves from rivals. To achieve this they are increasingly embarking on digital transformation programs, moving to a multichannel approach that is more efficient and flexible, while delivering a better customer experience...
Recent Forrester research pointed out the importance of understanding customer emotion and creating empathy with consumers if brands are going to deliver a successful customer experience. This was backed up by Eptica’s study ‘The Power of Linguistics: Consumers vs. Agents: Can the Gap be closed?’, which found that nearly a third (31%) of consumers...
Twenty years ago, the majority of banking was carried out face-to-face through an extensive branch network and most consumers remained with the same bank for much of their lives.Three factors have dramatically changed this. Firstly, new channels such as the internet have transformed how consumers interact with their banks, while increasing the range of services that they can carry out themsel...
Many studies show that people are much more emotional and less rational than we like to think. Research by Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, indicates that we have an intuitive, emotional side and a rational side when we are making decisions – and the rational side is less influential. Similarly, Steve Peters, a high profile sports psychiatrist and author...
Between different countries and demographic groups there is an enormous variation in which channels consumers prefer to use to contact organizations, particularly for customer service. In this multichannel world, companies need to offer all relevant channels, but also have to understand which best fits their requirements of their key demographic groups, so they ensure they deliver superior service...