Social media has significantly changed the customer service landscape, rebalancing the relationship between consumers and brands and providing a public forum for complaints to be made.
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...
Customer service directors face increasing challenges. They have to deal with a growing number of queries, calls, emails and tweets from consumers, who demand the highest levels of service, irrespective of channel. At the same time, they have to balance their budgets and ensure that they are delivering value to the business through efficient and cost-effective operations.Meeting these two objectiv...
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.
In a previous blog post I highlighted the growing gap between customers and companies, and how this lack of understanding is undermining efforts to improve customer experience.This was demonstrated by the Eptica Study: The Power of Linguistics in Customer Service. Based on research with both consumers and agents, it sought to identify the frustrations that are undermining the UK customer...
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...
Over the past four years Eptica has been benchmarking the UK customer experience by evaluating 100 leading brands on their ability to provide answers to routine questions via the web, email, Twitter and web chat.
In 2011 Gartner predicted that by 2020, 85% of customer relationships would be run without human intervention. At the time it seemed a startling target, but in just four years self-service has become the norm for many transactions. For example, how many of us actually phone or visit a bank branch? And if we do, it tends to be just to pay in or take out money through a machine. ...
Organisations today understand that customer service is everyone’s job and cannot be solely left to agents in the contact centre. However, in a multichannel world consumer expectations are high – they want to receive consistent, personalised service no matter how they make contact and certainly don’t want to have to repeat themselves when they move between channels. Customers don...