Think like a customer and value their time if you want to win and retain their business. These are the headline findings of recent research from Forrester, which looked at changing customer expectations and channel preferences.
Eptica recently released the 2015 Multichannel Customer Experience Study, looking at the state of customer service provided by leading UK brands across the web, email, Twitter and chat channels. We’ve already discussed the topline findings of the Study in a previous blog, and this week I’d like to focus on the email channel, and how this has changed over time.Despit...
Digital channels bring new opportunities and challenges to retail businesses. Unlike in a physical shop it can be difficult to predict demand, making it more complex to ensure that you can scale to meet customer needs. Fail to deliver the right experience and consumers will simply move elsewhere, reducing sales and impacting profits.This is particularly true at Christmas. It may be the busiest tim...
No retailer needs reminding that Christmas is the busiest time of the year, and a strong peak trading period can make the difference between success and failure for a business. There is therefore a real focus on ensuring that the shopping experience is as seamless as possible in order to drive sales. A key part of this is providing consumers with the information they need clearly and quickly, thro...
With 144.8 billion emails sent every day, it continues to be a vital channel for customer service. Indeed, the rise of mobile devices, which allow consumers to quickly email wherever they are, means that the number of messages companies receive is actually growing.With many midsize organisations receiving over quarter of a million emails every year, coping with email customer service can be a stru...
Congratulations to Eptica customer Vivastreet, which recently won its category, Classifieds, in the Voted Customer Service of the Year Award (Élu Service Client de l’Année 2015*). Vivastreet operates a network of free, classified ads sites around the world, with the award being given for the performance of its French site (www.vivastreet.com).This is the eighth year that the awards have be...
It may surprise people that this year marks the 32nd birthday of email, with the original copyright on a program to send and receive emails granted in 1982. That is seven years before Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web while working at CERN. Over the last 30+ years email has changed the way we communicate at work and play with 114.8 billion emails now sent on a daily basis. And this...
Every business understands that today’s customers are demanding more – and are happy to move to the competition if they don’t receive what they are looking for. However, breaking these demands down into specific areas can be difficult, so those involved with customer experience should take a look at a recent Forbes blog post by customer service expert Micah Solomon as it gives mo...
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 number of channels through which customers expect to reach you is ever-increasing. In many ways this is a positive step as it provides greater opportunity to engage with customers, solve their problems and understand their needs and motivations. However, as hard-pressed contact centre teams already know, managing the growth in channels can add to complexity and cost.‘Old’ channels ...