Customer experience

Marrying the physical and virtual customer experience: the ‘new normal’

Published on: July 23, 2014
Author: Pauline Ashenden - Demand Generation Manager

In most sectors, the customer journey is growing in complexity, spanning interactions across multiple channels with customers interweaving digital interactions with physical (in-store or branch) experiences. Customer service and the customer experience needs to evolve in order to stay on top of these changes.Previously a lot of information people might have needed before a purchase was delivered f...

The viral impact of poor customer service

Published on: July 18, 2014
Author: Pauline Ashenden - Demand Generation Manager

Social media has radically changed the relationship between customers and companies, tilting the balance of power towards the consumer. Poor experiences can now be transmitted around the world in seconds, hurting brand reputation and potential revenues.US cable company Comcast is the latest business to find itself in the global spotlight, after a simple request from a customer to cancel his i...

A Shock to the System?

Published on: July 16, 2014
Author: Lloyd Buxton - Business Development

Figures released this week by the Energy Ombudsman show that complaints against energy companies in the UK are at their highest ever level. They more than doubled, from 10,598 in the first six months of 2013 to 22,671 in the same period of 2014. 84% of complaints related to billing and this news follows previous large fines for misselling for a number of utilities.Driven by a desire to open up the...

The importance of the agent user experience to delivering customer engagement

Published on: July 07, 2014
Author: Robin Tandon - Senior Product Marketing Director

Contact centre agents are at the front line of providing customer service, acting as the public face of an organisation. It is therefore critical to give them the training, tools and information they need to deliver a superior and joined-up customer experience.However, as they have often grown in a channel-based, ad hoc manner, many contact centres struggle to integrate information from different ...

5 impacts that Amazon has had on customer experience

Published on: July 04, 2014
Author: Pauline Ashenden - Demand Generation Manager

Last month Amazon turned twenty. In 1994 founder Jeff Bezos left his job, drove to Seattle and set up the business in his garage. Originally going to be called Cadabra (as in Abracadabra), the name changed to Amazon after fears that people would mishear it as “cadaver”. It now offers over 230 million separate items for sale in the US alone and had 2013 revenues of $74.5 billion.Amazon ...

Delivering patchy performance - UK retailers and customer service

Published on: July 02, 2014
Author: Lloyd Buxton - Business Development

The UK retail landscape has changed radically in the last ten years. The rise of the internet, new competition, increasingly demanding consumers and the slowdown caused by the recession have triggered the demise of many long-standing players, transforming the sector.How are the UK’s top retailers coping with these challenges? To find out, the Eptica Multichannel Customer Experience Study eva...

Building loyalty within the insurance sector: it’s not all about price

Published on: June 27, 2014
Author: Pauline Ashenden - Demand Generation Manager

In recent years, the consumer insurance market has changed out of all recognition. New channels such as the internet have transformed the landscape. Indeed, according to the Financial Conduct Authority, almost half of all internet users have researched motor insurance on price comparison websites, with 4 out of 5 of them going on to buy policies through them.Customer loyalty is a thing of the past...

Five projects to deliver Customer Engagement

Published on: June 25, 2014
Author: Robin Tandon - Senior Product Marketing Director

Engaging with customers is one of the key challenges facing businesses today. Building and maintaining strong relationships across multiple devices and channels requires a combination of reactive and proactive processes in order to meet the needs of demanding customers.Gartner has talked extensively about the Customer Engagement Center (CEC), the replacement for the Contact Centre that it believes...

The UK insurance customer experience – struggling to deliver?

Published on: June 20, 2014
Author: Pauline Ashenden - Demand Generation Manager

Insurers in the UK are under unprecedented pressure. Margins have been slashed by the rise of the internet and price comparison sites, competition is growing, customer loyalty is at an all-time low and claim costs and regulation are both increasing.Against this backdrop,the balance of power is shifting overwhelmingly in favour of consumers. They expect more, for less – and want answers faste...

Customer service – at the touch of a button

Published on: June 18, 2014
Author: Robin Tandon - Senior Product Marketing Director

As part of its latest research into the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market, Gartner identified the Internet of Things as the latest factor driving the increasing importance of CRM. Cheaper sensors coupled with the prevalence of Wi-Fi and broadband networks opens up new possibilities for customer engagement using previously ‘dumb’ electronics.At this year’s Mobile World...

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