For the majority of us, buying something that we really want gives us an emotional buzz. Whether it is a car, TV, clothes or even something as small as a book or new headphones, getting our hands on a new purchase makes us happy. Consequently, companies across all industries try extremely hard to make the buying process as simple, straightforward and engaging as possible. As we know...
Retail is one of the most competitive sectors in the economy. Transformed by the internet, new entrants and ever more demanding consumers, retailers cannot afford to rest on their laurels.Customers are pushing retailers to innovate and deliver new services, improved experiences at lower prices. Loyalty is a thing of the past, with consumers are now able to choose from an enormous range...
At heart, humans are social beings. This has a major impact on every interaction we have with the people around us. Think of the most basic transactions – the ones you remember most are those where you either had an extremely positive or negative emotional experience. Take visiting the grocery store, if the cashier was extremely helpful, asked about your day and took time to show that...
Forrester recently reported that 69% of people still want to contact companies through email. However, UK brands are struggling to cope with the emails they receive, with performance overall worsening according to the latest Eptica Multichannel Customer Experience Study.Email volumes are increasing year-on-year, and in some sectors (such as retail), email makes up30% of...
The conversational, open nature of Twitter easily lends itself to customer service – in fact, the social network itself claims that tweets to major brands have increased by 2.5 times over the past two years, and that 80% of some company’s inbound social media customer service requests come through Twitter.However, resourcing customer service over Twitter can be difficult...
Over the past five years Eptica has regularly evaluated the multichannel customer experience offered by 100 of the UK’s biggest brands, across ten sectors. To do this we’ve posed as prospective customers, testing how easy it is to find information and answers to the routine questions that consumers might ask every day on the web and via email, chat and social media.Since we began,...
When asked why they choose to do business with a particular organization, consumers give a variety of reasons, from price and simplicity of the buying process, to simply having the product that they want in stock. However, one factor that is common to all purchasing decisions is trust. Here are 4 ways a company can build trust with consumers.
Customer experience is important to every industry, but particularly vital for retail. Fierce competition, exacerbated by the rise of ecommerce, means it is increasingly important for retail companies to differentiate themselves. And with many stores often selling the same products, customer experience is a more appealing way of differentiating than competing on price...
Research shows that 82% of consumers say they’ll switch to a rival if a mistake made at one of these touchpoints* is not addressed. It is easy to see why businesses focus on making every interaction as seamless and high quality as possible.However, a new report by consultants McKinsey points out the downsides of focusing solely on individual touchpoints rather than also...
For the majority of consumers digital channels, such as the web and email, are now the default method of researching and buying insurance. This is driving major change in the market, as forward-looking businesses invest in the digital customer experience.