Understanding customer needs and emotions is central to delivering the experience that today’s consumers demand. However, most current Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs focus on structured data, from sources controlled by the company, such as feedback surveys sent out to consumers - this ignores a goldmine of information....
The latest Institute of Customer Service (ICS) UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) has a positive message for everyone involved in customer service. Overall, consumer satisfaction has risen to 77.8, up 0.8 compared to January 2016, marking the fourth straight improvement in results. Satisfaction is at its highest since July 2013...
Providing customer service through social media has multiple advantages for both consumers and companies. Customers want the convenience and simplicity of being able to contact companies through Twitter and Facebook, without needing to call or email a business. Done well, social customer service also benefits brands.
We’re now coming to the end of National Customer Service Week, which highlights the vital importance of customer service to businesses and puts the spotlight on the great work done by those in this sector. It also looks at sharing best practice to further improve standards, ultimately benefiting consumers everywhere.On that note, let us focus on the positive side of customer...
In the past contact centers were often viewed as a cost center, meaning that the primary goal of companies was to run them as efficiently as possible while still responding to customers competently. As companies are becoming more customer-centric, this is approach is changing. Now businesses realize that they need to use the customer experience as a differentiating factor if they want...
In today’s time-poor world, consumers increasingly pick who they buy from, and what channel they use, based on ease of use. This can be seen in the growth of local shopping at the expense of out of town supermarkets, as well as the rise of techniques such as Click and Collect that make it simple to pick up online purchases at a convenient location.
There’s widespread agreement that customer satisfaction is vital to every organisation. A Gartner poll found that 80% of executives thought it was more important than three years ago, with 95% seeing it as the key way of differentiating from competitors. Where there’s less togetherness is how you measure the customer experience. For example, many of the traditional metrics used...
There are lots of ways of measuring the customer experience, from First Contact Resolution rates to Net Promoter Scores. While these deliver useful data, companies also need to step into their customers’ shoes and see for themselves how good service is. Visit your own website and ask the same basic questions that customers do – is it easy to find the right information and do your onlin...