Email has been a mainstay of customer service since its inception, providing a digital alternative to the telephone for consumers. Despite the growth of other digital channels, such as social media and chat, it continues to thrive – 69% of people still want to contact companies through email, according to Forrester. In some sectors (such as retail), ...
Housing demographics are changing across the world, driven by longer lives and the increasing cost of getting onto the property ladder. In the United States 4 out of 5 households don’t fit the traditional mold of two parents and pre-college kids, with a growing number containing multiple generations, such as grandparents or boomerang children that have left, then returned home...
Recruiting and retaining high quality customer service staff is one of the cornerstones of keeping consumers happy and loyal. Even with the rise of self-service options, for the majority of channels (email, social media, chat, phone, face to face) the experience created by the people you employ is crucial to the success or failure of the customer relationship. Gartner predicts...
Health insurance is a rapidly growing market across Asia Pacific. The rise of a more affluent middle class and gaps in public healthcare mean that more and more people are now looking to private health insurers to provide for their needs.How consumers research and buy insurance policies, and then interact with insurers, is also changing fast, moving to a digital and multichannel world. Today, ...
Communications technology is now central to everyone’s lives. Whereas twenty years ago most people just had a fixed telephone line, today consumers rely on a combination of mobile phones, broadband, and wireless data, to communicate with the world, work remotely and stay in touch with loved ones. As the importance of telecoms has grown, so has the significance of the customer service...
Last week UK government body HMRC said that it would spend an additional £45m to improve customer service for taxpayers. The money will be used to employ 3,000 more customer-facing staff, with a further 2,000 existing employees moved temporarily to help with the forthcoming tax credits deadline. The investment follows figures which showed that over a quarter (27.5%) ...
The reputation of banks with consumers has suffered a dramatic fall in recent years. Branch closures, misselling cases such as those around PPI and, of course, the part that banks played in the financial crisis have all contributed to low consumer trust in the sector. At the same time the UK government has made it much easier for consumers to switch providers, attracting new entrants to the m...
In today’s multichannel world, providing service through the channels that customers want has never been more vital. Obviously you need to deliver a consistent experience across every channel, but with resources tight, how you split agent time can be a juggling act.So it is important to understand what channels your customers are likely to use most. There are a number of factors to take into...
In a previous post I looked at the biggest frustrations amongst UK consumers when they dealt with brands through digital channels such as email or social media. Research carried out by Epticahighlighted that a lack of understanding and a failure to acknowledge their feelings were not just holding back engagement, but actively causing consumers to switch supplier.The E...
The rise of internet and digital channels has radically changed how people research and buy insurance. It’s now extremely simple for consumers to shop around and get online quotes before renewing their policies – especially since the rise of price comparison websites.