It is widely acknowledged that the UK is the largest online market in Europe – hitting £44 billion in 2010, and expected to reach £51 billion this year. However other countries are growing as fast, if not faster, with the entire European population turning to email and web channels. Forty per cent of EU consumers bought goods and services over the Internet in 2010, with sal...
The advent of faster ways of connecting to the web means that it is now about much more than text. People are accessing an expanding amount of video content, as shown by the phenomenal growth of sites such as YouTube, which currently receives 3 billion hits per day and adds 48 hours of content every minute.Video consequently has huge potential for delivering customer service. If a picture is...
Failing to answer customer service queries has an obvious impact on an organisation – customers and prospects get upset and vote with their wallets, leading to a loss of sales and a dent to the brand. Nowadays more and more consumers also broadcast their concerns on social media, generating further impact on company reputation.What is less well-explored is the other consequence of customer s...
As we head into the summer, everyone’s thoughts turn to holidays. However a combination of trouble in many Middle Eastern countries, strikes and protests in Greece, and planned tube strikes in London threaten to potentially derail many holiday plans.Of course the vast majority of travel bookings will be unaffected by these issues, but it is vital that holiday companies provide real reassuran...
A large number of UK companies are still failing badly when it comes to online customer service. That’s the headline finding of a major new report – The 2011 Eptica UK Multichannel Customer Service Study, which found a chasm between the best and worst performers in delivering service to consumers.The study surveyed 100 leading UK organisations in multiple sectors, analysing their abili...
New research has found that more than three times as many Indians use social media for customer service compared to the UK and US. In the study, by analysts Ovum, nearly four in ten Indian consumers had embraced social media to raise customer service queries – in contrast, only 12 per cent of UK and US consumers have done so. Indian consumers both used it positively (to promote good se...
Understanding what your customers want is critical to company success. If you don’t offer the right products or services they will obviously head off elsewhere, hitting sales and ultimately hurting your company. But ensuring that the feedback you get is accurate and usable can be difficult. Just look at the fiasco when Coca Cola tried to change its formula – while customers liked the f...
While smartphones have been around for several years, their usage is now dramatically increasing, driven by the likes of Apple and Google’s Android operating system. Recent figures from analysts Canalys found that 101 million smartphones were shipped in Q1 2011, up 83% from previous figures.So what does this mean for customer service strategy? With more and more customers using smartphones t...
It has been a year since a cloud of volcanic ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland spread across Europe, causing unprecedented disruption to flights. The bad news is that a new cloud, this time from the Grimsvotn volcano, is heading to the UK as we speak.The worry for both passengers and the aviation industry is that last year’s widespread disruption could be repeated. In 20...
It is an obvious thing to say, but companies need to make it as simple as possible for potential customers to buy their products or services. For example retailers with limited or confusing opening hours wouldn’t survive long nor would travel agents that didn’t give a clear price.The same is true when it comes to customer service – providing a clear, straightforward and consisten...