This month, Facebook is ten years old and has celebrated its birthday by hitting 1.23 billion active users and delivering 2013 revenues of $7.87 billion. While it was no means the first social network (and won’t be the last) it has radically changed not just how people interact with each other, but more importantly how they engage with brands, particularly when it comes to customer service.B...
There’s widespread agreement that customer satisfaction is vital to every organisation. A Gartner poll found that 80% of executives thought it was more important than three years ago, with 95% seeing it as the key way of differentiating from competitors. Where there’s less togetherness is how you measure the customer experience. For example, many of the traditional metrics used...
At Eptica, our growth has always been driven by innovation that helps companies deliver customer service more efficiently, deepen engagement and increase satisfaction. So we’re delighted to announce record revenues for 2013, with our turnover breaking the $10m barrier for the first time, by hitting $10.6m. With an annual growth rate of 18%, we’re outperforming the overall software mark...
Showing the importance of technology to the banking customer experience, IT issues caused problems for some Lloyds Banking Group customers trying to use their debit cards on Sunday. The group, which also includes TSB, Bank of Scotland and Halifax, has 30 million customers across the UK, although only a minority were affected by the glitch, which lasted 3 hours.Lloyds has since confirmed that the p...
Offering an excellent Customer Experience (CX) is a key goal for today’s organisations. It has the potential to deliver tangible benefits such as better customer loyalty and a more efficient path to acquiring new customers. But how far down the road are companies to delivering excellence in this area and what differentiates those doing it well from the others?IT industry analyst Forres...
New figures show that retail sales in December increased at the fastest rate for nine years. Statistics from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) found that sales in December were up 5.3% on 2012, and 2.6% greater than November 2013. 12% of sales were through the online channel. Separate research from the IMRG-CapGemini eRetail Sales Index show that UK shoppers spent £91 billion online in...
Analyst group Forrester has just released its 2014 predictions for customer service. It lists 12 trends that companies should be paying attention to, if they want to engage with customers and deliver the right experience for them in the year ahead.These trends are organised into four topics:1. Deliver pain free customer service Covering areas such as omnichannel, mobile and stand...
2014 promises to be a pivotal year for the UK insurance sector. Competition has never been greater, particularly when it comes to motor, household and travel insurance. More and more people are buying their policies through price comparison sites, rather than direct or via brokers, bringing down margins. Loyalty is at an all time low – 38% of UK motor insurance customers switched provider at...
Recent poor weather on both sides of the Atlantic has caused widespread disruption, with flooding in the UK and subzero temperatures in the US continuing to make the front pages. Many people have been forced to leave their homes or had to live without heating or power.The weather has also had a major impact on travel, with trains cancelled and flights delayed or re-routed. Back in early December, ...
1st January 2014 saw a major change in the utility sector, as new Ofgem regulations came into force. Designed to create a clearer market, suppliers are now limited to offering eight tariffs to customers (four each for electricity and gas), which will be structured more simply. The aim is to make it easier to compare prices from different suppliers and therefore encourage switching to ensure consum...