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Five tips for improving management of customer complaints

Published on: November 02, 2011
Author: Epticablog

If you needed a reminder of the importance of customer service to the bottom line, this week’s £2 million fine for utility npower for mishandling customer complaints demonstrates the financial cost of poor customer service processes. The punishment, levied by energy regulator Ofgem, follows a £2.5 million fine for British Gas in July 2011 for similar issues. In its judgement...

Eptica Awards celebrate customer service success

Published on: October 18, 2011
Author: Epticablog

Eptica’s International Customer Service Summit highlighted customer service excellence through the second annual Eptica Customer Service Innovation awards.  Dixons, AirAsia and Ageas were amongst the companies to receive awards for service transformation based around Eptica’s multichannel customer interaction management software. Winners achieved outstanding results in the ca...

The customer is always right – particularly on social media

Published on: October 05, 2011
Author: Epticablog

The internet has been buzzing this week about a major customer service failure by Australian fashion retailer Gasp. The story started when bride-to-be Keira O’Neill visited the Gasp store in Melbourne. After trying on a wedding dress and resisting the hard sell of the shop assistant he was apparently rude to her and her friends. Unsurprisingly Keira complained, politely, by email to the...

Why customer service mustn’t stop in a recession

Published on: August 25, 2011
Author: Epticablog

In a recession companies look to cut costs wherever they can – and unfortunately customer service is often a target. After all, if there are fewer customers to service then surely you don’t need to invest as much in looking after them?The folly of this attitude is shown by some recent international research from American Express, neatly summarised in this infographic on the Get Satisfa...

Dedicated follower of fashion……….

Published on: August 23, 2011
Author: Epticablog

 The continuing bad news from the UK retail sector, with sales growth slowing and more than one in ten high street shops vacant means retailers need to focus clearly on customer service if they are to successfully compete in a challenging market.Nowhere is this competition more intense than in the fashion sector, with sales of clothing and footwear actually declining in July. However one brig...

Leaving on a jet plane…….

Published on: July 29, 2011
Author: Epticablog

With schools having broken up, the summer holiday season is now very much upon us. And with customers now having a bewildering range of destinations and providers to choose from (yak trekking in Mongolia anyone?) and an enormous range of user generated reviews, the pressure is on travel companies to deliver the highest levels of customer service.So, it is interesting to see how travel companies fa...

Are you linking social media with customer service?

Published on: July 21, 2011
Author: Epticablog

The growth of social media over the past few years has been phenomenal, providing completely new ways of communicating for both consumers and brands. By giving everyone a voice it opens up a fresh customer service channel that companies need to embrace.Whether you like it or not consumers will be talking about your company and its products –and you need to join the conversation. So how are t...

Strike!

Published on: June 24, 2011
Author: Epticablog

As we head into the summer, everyone’s thoughts turn to holidays. However a combination of trouble in many Middle Eastern countries, strikes and protests in Greece, and planned tube strikes in London threaten to potentially derail many holiday plans.Of course the vast majority of travel bookings will be unaffected by these issues, but it is vital that holiday companies provide real reassuran...

Email customer service – why does it need to be so hard?

Published on: June 22, 2011
Author: Epticablog

Businesses and individuals send and receive millions of emails every day. Yet when it comes to email customer service, companies seem to see it as a low priority in terms of speed and quality of service, either failing to answer queries or taking an age to respond.That’s what Eptica’s research into email customer service with 100 top UK companies found. The 2011 Eptica UK Multichannel ...

Don’t write off Facebook for customer service

Published on: June 16, 2011
Author: Epticablog

 Recent figures on Facebook usage seem to suggest that user growth is slowing – or even declining – in some Western countries. While this may be true, the percentage of the UK online population that are still signed up to the site is an enormous 58 per cent – hardly small. Therefore as a channel for consumer interaction it still needs to be part of every organisation’s...

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