We’re used to stories of doom and gloom on the high street. The combination of the internet, out of town superstores and the recent recession have decimated the number and range of shops available in town centres, with many long-standing retail chains going into receivership.However a new report from the University of Southampton’s Retail Research Group points to major, positive change...
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...
In most sectors, the customer journey is growing in complexity, spanning interactions across multiple channels with customers interweaving digital interactions with physical (in-store or branch) experiences. Customer service and the customer experience needs to evolve in order to stay on top of these changes.Previously a lot of information people might have needed before a purchase was delivered f...
Social media has radically changed the relationship between customers and companies, tilting the balance of power towards the consumer. Poor experiences can now be transmitted around the world in seconds, hurting brand reputation and potential revenues.US cable company Comcast is the latest business to find itself in the global spotlight, after a simple request from a customer to cancel his i...
Figures released this week by the Energy Ombudsman show that complaints against energy companies in the UK are at their highest ever level. They more than doubled, from 10,598 in the first six months of 2013 to 22,671 in the same period of 2014. 84% of complaints related to billing and this news follows previous large fines for misselling for a number of utilities.Driven by a desire to open up the...
Contact centre agents are at the front line of providing customer service, acting as the public face of an organisation. It is therefore critical to give them the training, tools and information they need to deliver a superior and joined-up customer experience.However, as they have often grown in a channel-based, ad hoc manner, many contact centres struggle to integrate information from different ...
Last month Amazon turned twenty. In 1994 founder Jeff Bezos left his job, drove to Seattle and set up the business in his garage. Originally going to be called Cadabra (as in Abracadabra), the name changed to Amazon after fears that people would mishear it as “cadaver”. It now offers over 230 million separate items for sale in the US alone and had 2013 revenues of $74.5 billion.Amazon ...
The UK retail landscape has changed radically in the last ten years. The rise of the internet, new competition, increasingly demanding consumers and the slowdown caused by the recession have triggered the demise of many long-standing players, transforming the sector.How are the UK’s top retailers coping with these challenges? To find out, the Eptica Multichannel Customer Experience Study eva...
In recent years, the consumer insurance market has changed out of all recognition. New channels such as the internet have transformed the landscape. Indeed, according to the Financial Conduct Authority, almost half of all internet users have researched motor insurance on price comparison websites, with 4 out of 5 of them going on to buy policies through them.Customer loyalty is a thing of the past...