Given that we’re less than a week from the big day, we’ve spent some time looking at the customer service practices of Father Christmas himself. While this might risk us not getting any presents here at Eptica, what lessons can those running customer service departments learn from the man in red?We’re rated Father Christmas against some common customer service benchmarks to see h...
Guest post by Dominic Tavassoli, VP Product Management, Eptica Picture the scene: you wake up one morning to find that your lovingly crafted company Facebook page is covered – horrors – in questions. Not the sort you wanted, such as “I love your brand, where can I buy more stuff?” but actual customer service questions and complaints! What do you do? Try to answer them yours...
The Christmas shopping season is in full swing. We’ve had Mega Monday (where online orders reached an estimated £10,000 per second), and overall Christmas ecommerce is expected to exceed £4.6 billion, despite the recession.Festive sales are vital to hard-pressed retailers. Given the overall economic picture and the importance of Christmas, those companies that fail to generate re...
Today, customer service is a global industry. Consumers all across the world are demanding faster responses to their questions – and increasingly the power of the internet and technology means that the answers can come from contact centre agents located in different countries.Africa is a growing location for contact centres due to its skilled workforce with multiple languages and strong ties...
When it comes to customer service the focus is normally on the web, email, social media and telephone channels. However it is vital not to overlook the importance of face to face customer service. After all, a huge number of consumers interact with businesses in this way – whether buying something in a high street shop, depositing money at a bank or when having a meal or popping down the pub...
As we approach the end of 2012 we’re firmly into the awards season as the customer service industry highlights good practice across the sector. As part of this Eptica customer the NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) has already been honoured at both the CCA and North East Contact Centre Association Awards.Amidst all the good news, there is inevitably a spotlight on those that are not p...
Today, the customer really is king. The combination of ever increasing competition and greater customer expectation mean you need to deliver higher and higher levels of service, whatever sector you operate in.And, to be fair, most organisations understand the importance of customer service but many are failing to deliver what consumers actually want. This could be down to a lack of budget, not lis...
Excellent customer service combines great people and strong processes, underpinned with the right technology. Experience shows that it is vital that these three elements are balanced – after all the best people can’t do their jobs if their IT doesn’t provide them with accurate and up to date information that meets their needs.Unfortunately we’ve all heard stories of well-in...
Guest blog by Steve Hurst of the Customer Engagement Network.When we launched the Customer Engagement Network over three years ago in the wake of the banking crisis and economic global meltdown it was because we had a vision for the future.That vision was that organisations would be facing a perfect storm – with the elements of that storm being the greater need for customer retention strateg...
It is fair to say that the rise of social media worries many organisations. It provides a very public way for customers to communicate with you and to complain. And unlike traditional channels such as email and phone, what customers say (and how you respond) is visible to the entire world. This, and the widespread belief that social media is solely used for negative comments mean some companies ha...