E-commerce

Chat converts into cash for charities

Published on: August 10, 2012
Author: Epticablog

Web chat has been around for a while. However, despite this it has yet to really achieve mass market uptake. This is due to a number of factors. As it uses real agents to answer queries cost is perceived as high, while there has been confusion between live chat and over hyped pre-programmed chatbots. Finally, companies have worried that customers will be annoyed by pop-up chat windows appearing wh...

Segmenting the digital shopper

Published on: July 13, 2012
Author: Epticablog

Successful retailers understand that knowing your customer is a key part of delivering a tailored experience. In the offline world that can be quite straightforward – you can see the people coming into your shop, ask them questions about their needs and provide the right answers and products.Online it is more difficult – while you can look at the customer journey, it can be hard to bui...

Jingle bells sound for retail customer service

Published on: July 04, 2012
Author: Epticablog

christmas 2007 (Photo credit: paparutzi) It seems strange to be talking about Christmas in mid-summer, but plans for the festive season are well under way at most retailers. Decisions about key products are being currently made and programmes of store refurbishments are happening now as companies seek to be ready for their busiest time of the year. Current poor economic conditions really do ...

Googling customer service

Published on: June 13, 2012
Author: Epticablog

When it comes to online retail, customers are obviously looking to buy products as cheaply as they can. However price is not the only factor, with a myriad of research studies demonstrating that customer service and the overall experience have a significant impact on where people buy online.A lot of this comes down to trust – customers want to be reassured that their order is going to be dis...

Why retailers shouldn’t ignore social media commerce

Published on: May 03, 2012
Author: Epticablog

When Facebook launched its e-commerce platform, a huge number of high profile retailers opened virtual stores on the social media network. Since then many of these have closed amidst poor customer take-up – for example recent research found that just 2% of French consumers would buy through Facebook. However new retailers are still opening F-commerce stores and niche boutiques are recording ...

How to future proof retail customer service

Published on: April 27, 2012
Author: Epticablog

Competition in retail has never been harder – and the pace of change is ever accelerating. Just as traditional bricks and mortar shops have evolved to have a web presence, they are now faced with the challenge of integrating other new channels, such as social commerce and mobile into their strategies.While social commerce is still in its infancy, customers are increasingly looking to interac...

Retail squeeze puts customer service centre stage

Published on: March 23, 2012
Author: Epticablog

The current recession is claiming more victims amongst hard-pressed retailers, with Game the latest company to file for administration. And new figures show that it is not just bricks and mortar retailers that are suffering, as UK ecommerce growth is also slowing. While UK shoppers spent £5.4 billion online in February 2012, this was the weakest growth since January 2010, with sales only cli...

Tesco, pricing and the iPad

Published on: March 20, 2012
Author: Epticablog

The launch of the new Apple iPad has dominated many sections of the media over the last week as retailers and rivals have tried to capitalise on the buzz around the launch.However an unfortunate pricing error has led to the wrong sort of headlines for Tesco. A misplaced decimal point saw the retailer advertise the new iPad 3 for £49.99, rather than £499, on its website. As news spread ...

Father Christmas and customer service

Published on: December 21, 2011
Author: Epticablog

Given how close we are to Christmas Day, we thought it would be a good idea to scrutinise the customer service practices of Father Christmas himself. While this might risk us not getting any presents here at Eptica, what lessons can those running customer service departments learn from the man in red?We’re rated Father Christmas against some common customer service benchmarks to see how he d...

Online shopping around the world

Published on: November 07, 2011
Author: Epticablog

New research demonstrates wide variations between online buying behaviour across the globe. The survey, from Pitney Bowes, asked 10,000 consumers from 10 countries about their online shopping habits and preferences and uncovered some interesting differences.Overall 93% of consumers had shopped online, 49% in the last 30 days, showing the mass market appeal of ecommerce around the world. In the UK,...

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