Companies and their CEOs understand that the world is changing rapidly when it comes to winning, satisfying and retaining customers. Consumers are now more demanding than ever before, across a greater number of channels, and they increasingly focus on the experience they receive when deciding which companies to buy from.
Customer behavior has changed more in the last twenty years than in the previous twenty centuries! When the internet arrived, many thought that digitalization would remove the need for physical contact. However, in reality, this hasn’t been the case - consumers evolved, adopting technology to become autonomous, but didn’t abandon the real world...
The latest Institute of Customer Service (ICS) UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) has a positive message for everyone involved in customer service. Overall, consumer satisfaction has risen to 77.8, up 0.8 compared to January 2016, marking the fourth straight improvement in results. Satisfaction is at its highest since July 2013...
The original aim of customer service was relatively transactional – a consumer made a query, an answer was provided by the company, the customer was satisfied and the interaction was completed. However, in today’s competitive markets this is no longer enough to win and retain customer loyalty....
As we move into 2017, now is a good time to review last year and use the insight to plan for the future. What were the big trends and how will they evolve moving forward? To help we’ve analyzed all 100+ posts published on the Eptica blog in 2016, and picked a top ten, based on a combination of readership and industry feedback.
Providing consistent accurate information when responding to queries is one of the key elements of good customer service. This is particularly important within regulated sectors such as insurance where - to avoid risk and ensure compliance - you need to be able to demonstrate that you provided customers with the same, approved information however they made contact.
This Christmas over £24 billion will be spent online on presents and gifts. And while some of these packages will be picked up instore through Click and Collect services, the vast majority will be delivered by the post and couriers. This last leg of the ecommerce customer experience has always been hard for retailers to control.
Christmas is a stressful time. It is stressful for consumers buying last minute presents or chasing up a missing delivery, but it is also stressful for the staff in stores and contact centers with the many customer enquiries that follow the season. The number of queries companies receive is enormous, and every single one matters to the consumer that sent it
There are multiple factors that feed into the customer experience. At a basic level companies need to deliver the information that consumers want, as quickly, accurately and consistently as possible. However, to drive loyalty you need to go beyond that, as Forrester Research, points out in a new report...
Whether it is to add capacity in specific areas, helping expansion into new markets or bringing down costs, outsourcing is a central part of customer service. According to the Everest Group, nearly a quarter of contact center activities across the globe are outsourced, meaning the market is worth $75-78 billion every year.