At heart, humans are social beings. This has a major impact on every interaction we have with the people around us. Think of the most basic transactions – the ones you remember most are those where you either had an extremely positive or negative emotional experience. Take visiting the grocery store, if the cashier was extremely helpful, asked about your day and took time to show that...
Research shows that 82% of consumers say they’ll switch to a rival if a mistake made at one of these touchpoints* is not addressed. It is easy to see why businesses focus on making every interaction as seamless and high quality as possible.However, a new report by consultants McKinsey points out the downsides of focusing solely on individual touchpoints rather than also...
Since the days of coaching inns, providers of accommodation have had to focus on delivering the right customer experience to their guests. Constant competition and travelers sharing their feedback with those they encountered meant that inns could quickly gain a good reputation – or lose it just as swiftly if standards slipped.Today, the customer experience is even more vital...
Having recently looked back on customer experience in 2015, what is predicted for the coming year? As always, leading analysts have provided their own thoughts and in this blog I’d like to look at trends highlighted by Forrester and Gartner.Kate Leggett of Forrester outlines 10 areas for focus in 2016, with these being 5 that she has shared through a recent blog...
As we enter 2016, I’m already seeing plenty of predictions about what the year will bring for the customer experience and customer service markets. However, before exploring some of these trends in future blog posts, I’d like to take the opportunity to review 2015 – specifically some of the most popular topics covered by the Eptica blog.Looking through the posts that had the most...
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...
Increased competition and ever more demanding consumers mean that organizations across the Asia Pacific region need to focus on continually improving the customer experience that they offer. However, given the complexity of today’s multichannel world, knowing where to begin with customer experience can appear daunting. Jeff Rajeck, APAC research analyst at Econsultancy, recently published...
Banks and other financial service providers are facing unprecedented challenges. Not only are regulatory pressures increasing, but a new wave of financial start-ups is entering the market, using technology to transform everything from loans to payment processing. Whether it is new branch-based banking, different ways of raising finance through crowdfunding sites such as...
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...
In a more and more complex world, consumers are asking an increasing number of questions – and want fast, accurate answers, whatever channel they use to make contact on. Delivering consistent, accurate and compliant answers is at the heart of delivering the excellent customer service that they require, meaning that knowledge management has moved center stage...