As every retailer knows, a good Christmas can make the difference between success and failure. This is particularly true in the UK, with research from ING finding that Britons are the most generous present purchasers in the world, and expect to spend an average of £294 (US$446) on gifts this Christmas. By contrast American shoppers are aiming to spend £250 ($38...
Thanks to the internet, retail is a global industry, with companies now facing competition from peers around the world. As we’ve discussed before, this means that a focus on the customer is vital – with businesses needing to understand what consumers want and provide them with a tailored experience that meets their exact requirements. At the same time as the internet has...
As we approach the holiday shopping season, retailers are getting ready for their busiest time of the year. So at Eptica we thought it would be a good time to look at how they perform when it comes to the customer experience. The 2015 Eptica Retail Customer Experience Study therefore evaluated 500 U.S. retailers, in 15 sectors, on their ability to provide answers to 10 questions...
In a more and more complex world, consumers are asking an increasing number of questions – and want fast, accurate answers, whatever channel they use to make contact on. Delivering consistent, accurate and compliant answers is at the heart of delivering the excellent customer service that they require, meaning that knowledge management has moved center stage...
Consumers are sending an increasing number of questions to companies, across more and more channels. This rising volume of customer interactions, covering everything from questions about products and post-sales queries, to complaints and positive feedback, threatens to overwhelm many organizations.The numbers are vast. Over 1 million people view tweets about customer service...
Recent research from charity Citizens Advice found major differences between how UK utilities handle customer service. The top performing utility (SSE) received just 47 complaints per 100,000 customers, yet another had 944 – over 20 times more. A further four companies had over 400 complaints per 100,000, within the three months between April and June 2015.
In the past contact centers were often viewed as a cost center, meaning that the primary goal of companies was to run them as efficiently as possible while still responding to customers competently. As companies are becoming more customer-centric, this is approach is changing. Now businesses realize that they need to use the customer experience as a differentiating factor if they want...
The supermarket sector is one of the most competitive sectors in the UK. A combination of new entrants, aggressive price cutting and changing shopping habits is affecting all food and drink retailers, from the largest to the smallest. As well as moving to discounters, consumers are increasingly looking for convenience alongside price, choice and quality by choosing to shop...
Customer service teams are currently faced with multiple challenges. Consumers are asking an increasing number of questions and are demanding faster service, across more and more channels. At the same time budgets for coping with this growing volume of interactions are often flat or even shrinking. So how can companies deliver faster service to more queries, while improving efficiency?
The spread of digital customer service channels, from email and chat to social media, can provide organizations with significant benefits. According to McKinsey, if done well it boosts customer satisfaction by 33% while reducing contact center call volume, and generating savings of 25-30%. However, the complexity of multiple digital channels and increasingly...