The continuing bad news from the UK retail sector, with sales growth slowing and more than one in ten high street shops vacant means retailers need to focus clearly on customer service if they are to successfully compete in a challenging market.Nowhere is this competition more intense than in the fashion sector, with sales of clothing and footwear actually declining in July. However one brig...
Delivering consistently high levels of customer service is a constant balancing act comparing resources against demand. While it can be relatively easy to deal with a small number of customers, when your sales increase you have to be able to scale customer service to cope.This is particularly true when your product or service moves from just being used by savvy early adopters who are happy to work...
UK banks are currently announcing their financial results for the first six months of the year, and lower profits caused by continued economic uncertainty are seeing further job cuts across the sector.Given this backdrop, it is a good time to look at how banks rate for customer service. The last ten years has seen a move away from branch based banking to people accessing their accounts and buying ...
In current economic conditions, finding new sources of revenue is a key area of focus for organisations. Most companies realise that, now more than ever, customer service is central to protecting sales and delivering increased turnover, so have focused on this area.Delivering good service obviously prevents customer churn and attracts new sales through word of mouth and social media recommendation...
With schools having broken up, the summer holiday season is now very much upon us. And with customers now having a bewildering range of destinations and providers to choose from (yak trekking in Mongolia anyone?) and an enormous range of user generated reviews, the pressure is on travel companies to deliver the highest levels of customer service.So, it is interesting to see how travel companies fa...
Given the current budget pressures on the public sector, there is a major move to outsource services to try to deliver better value for citizens. Whether for central or local government, areas such as IT, payroll, cleaning and waste collection are now being provided by private companies with this trend set to intensify.This affects customer service in two ways – firstly, customer contact is ...
The growth of social media over the past few years has been phenomenal, providing completely new ways of communicating for both consumers and brands. By giving everyone a voice it opens up a fresh customer service channel that companies need to embrace.Whether you like it or not consumers will be talking about your company and its products –and you need to join the conversation. So how are t...
When it comes to delivering excellent customer service any organisation that deals with the public can cut response times and improve performance if they invest in the right technology.A great example of this is Eptica customer, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). The world’s oldest and largest animal welfare charity is using Eptica’s leading web custome...
Last weekend the British arm of banking giant Santander became the latest company to announce plans to return its international contact centres to the UK. The aim is to improve customer service, after previous poor performance was highlighted by the industry ombudsman.This is obviously good news for the 500 new UK staff taken on to handle the estimated 1.5 million calls that will now be &lsq...
The Institute of Customer Service (ICS) has just published its latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI). Every six months the ICS surveys 26,000 UK adults and asks them questions about their experiences with UK organisations across all channels.Given Eptica recently completed its own research into online customer service it is fascinating to compare the two surveys. Here are the finding...