Apple

Chat overtakes text – what it means for customer service

Published on: May 01, 2013
Author: Epticablog

Figures released this week show that for the first time more messages were sent through instant messaging chat apps (such as WhatsApp) than SMS text. The research, from analysts Informa, found that 19 billion messages were sent per day in 2012 on chat apps, compared to 17.6 billion texts. And this gap will widen substantially. Informa believe that chat apps will generate 50 billion daily messages ...

Lifting the gloom on the High Street

Published on: February 21, 2013
Author: Epticablog

Amidst all the bad news on the high street there is one bright spot when it comes to physical retailing – the shopping centre. Despite national figures that show 1 in 7 British shops are currently unoccupied, there is major growth in high end shopping centres that act as destinations for consumers. In fact rents are rising by 5-6% in larger centres with very few shops left empty and multiple...

Measuring brands on social customer service

Published on: February 01, 2013
Author: Epticablog

The need for customer service teams to embrace social media is growing, as more and more consumers use the likes of Twitter and Facebook to ask questions, complain and share their experiences of brands. In our own research we’ve seen that more and more UK companies are now making social media part of their strategy. The 2012 Eptica Multichannel Customer Experience Study found that 70% and 64...

The death of HMV and the online customer experience

Published on: January 16, 2013
Author: Epticablog

This has not been a good week for the High Street, with iconic music retailer HMV joining camera group Jessops in administration. It also marks a watershed moment when it comes to physical music and DVD retailing - after the disappearance of Zavvi and Woolworths, and Virgin France closing across the channel there are no longer any standalone chains of shops where you can pop in and pick up the lat...

Apple’s Customer Service Genius Manual

Published on: September 05, 2012
Author: Epticablog

The move to ecommerce coupled with the recession means that many physical shops are struggling to stay afloat. However Apple is one business that is bucking the trend – opening more Apple Stores around the world and increasing sales through a combination of cool technology, informed staff and training sessions that teach you how to get the best out of your Apple product.So how does Apple do ...

Could voice-controlled mobile customer service be the future?

Published on: August 01, 2012
Author: Epticablog

News is emerging that Nuance, which supplies speech recognition technology to the Apple iPhone’s Siri voice activated personal assistant, is introducing a voice-controlled mobile helpdesk assistant. Full details have not yet been released, but it’s thought this will be a natural speech recognition system for companies looking to automate their customer service departments.While Nuance&...

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 ...

Spare a thought for BlackBerry customer service

Published on: October 25, 2011
Author: Epticablog

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...

Bitter Apple?

Published on: August 11, 2011
Author: Epticablog

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...

Customer service? There’s an app for that

Published on: July 25, 2011
Author: Epticablog

Last week Apple announced record quarterly results, with revenues of nearly $30 billion. The figures include sales of 9.2 million iPads, triple the number sold a year ago. Apple also revealed that 47% of Global Fortune 500 companies were testing the tablet ahead of potential adoption.Clearly, the iPad in particular and tablet computers in general are here to stay. So what does this mean for custom...

Pages