In tough times, customer service can be the best way of giving companies a competitive advantage. That was the theme of this year’s Institute of Customer Service (ICS) Conference, which took place yesterday at the London Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square. Speakers from government, including Norman Lamb MP, minister for employment relations, consumer and postal affairs, joined companies such...
Social media opens up a whole new way of communicating with customers. However companies need to understand that it is fundamentally different to other channels. Social media is much more of a two way conversation and, as it is held in public, the world can see the results. So while many companies have moved onto social media and are using it for customer service, what is vital is how engaged...
Telecoms companies have historically had a poor reputation for customer service, something that our own research unfortunately verifies. Previously with little difference between service levels amongst telcos, customers didn’t have much choice, so there was little incentive to invest.However this is changing as new entrants and technologies disrupt the traditional telecoms market. On the bac...
If you work in customer service, you’ve got to feel a bit of sympathy for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) after the customer service disaster that befell it this month. A European outage gradually turned into global disruption, leaving countless users with delayed or non-existent access to email, text and the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service. The problem lasted several...
Two things used to be true about the telecoms sector – prices were always falling and companies across the market had a reputation for poor customer service. The news that BT is increasing call charges by up to 5% - its second rise this year - shows that even in a competitive market such as the UK, prices are now escalating, driven by inflation.So, if phone bills are rising has there b...
The internet has fundamentally changed how humans operate. The fact that we can access information and services at the click of our mouse has reduced our willingness to be patient or to wait for responses. If consumers can’t immediately find the information they are looking for on your web page they are likely to surf over to the competition – so ensuring you can combat this growing im...
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...
Businesses and individuals send and receive millions of emails every day. Yet when it comes to email customer service, companies seem to see it as a low priority in terms of speed and quality of service, either failing to answer queries or taking an age to respond.That’s what Eptica’s research into email customer service with 100 top UK companies found. The 2011 Eptica UK Multichannel ...
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...
Recent research from OFCOM has highlighted the number of complaints customers have with telecoms companies. The regulator itself receives an average of 450 complaints every day, covering everything from mis-selling to billing errors. And this figure obviously doesn’t cover complaints made to telecoms companies themselves that don’t get escalated to OFCOM.Given the fast moving and compl...