Today’s consumers want the freedom and flexibility to make contact using whichever channel they choose – and get a fast, helpful response to their query. They also want to be able to seamlessly move channels during the course of a conversation, without having to repeat themselves...
Companies understand that meeting customer needs is central to business success. But it can be more difficult to find out what consumers value most when it comes to the overall experience – and what drives them to switch to rivals. New research from the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) therefore provides some vital insight - read on to find out more...
Customer experience (CX) is moving rapidly towards the top of the CEO agenda as businesses realize its importance to the bottom line. This move is being driven by a change in the relationship between customers and companies – with increased competition, digital disruption and the rise of social media, the balance of power has shifted towards the consumer.....
While it is widely considered a mature channel, email is becoming more, not less important when it comes to customer service. Consumers value its ease of use and full audit trail, while the rise of mobile makes it even faster and simpler to contact companies using email. Expectations are high – customers demand fast, high quality responses that answer their questions. This puts a strain on...
Forrester has just published its 2016 US Customer Experience Index, providing an update on the state of CX across multiple sectors. Based on consumer research into how customer experience strengthens loyalty, it shows both individual company scores and how the wider economy is performing. Looking through the research, I can see four key trends for CX and customer service professionals...
Over the past month I’ve focused on the importance of knowledge management within customer service, looking at the challenges that need to be overcome, and the skills that a knowledge manager needs to succeed.In this post I’m going to look at the end result – the benefits that leading organizations have achieved by centralizing knowledge and making it available to their agents...
Imagine having a conversation in a pitch black room. You can’t see the person you are talking to and their tone of voice shows no emotion at all. You can’t tell if they are happy, angry or sad, or even why they are talking to you. You might as well be talking to a robot. Building empathy – or even understanding them clearly – is almost impossible.Sound far-fetched? For most...
Chat is amongst the fastest growing channels for customer service. This is because it delivers major benefits to both consumers and companies. Consumers love its ease of use and ability it gives them to hold real-time conversations with brands, and therefore get faster responses to their queries. Companies like the fact that is more efficient than the telephone, as agents can simultaneously chat
Everyone knows that we live in a multichannel world, but how is this impacting companies on the ground? New research by contact center analysts, Contact Babel, in the US and the UK highlights how consumer usage of channels is changing and the pressure it is putting on organizations.The study, which is based on surveys of contact center managers, suggests that:The volume of interactions for many
In my previous blog I outlined how important knowledge is to successfully deliver customer service and how to overcome the challenges of creating a centralized, multichannel knowledge base.Ensuring that knowledge powers your customer service isn’t just about technology – and certainly doesn’t stop when your knowledge base goes live. You need to make knowledge a strategic priority