With an increasing amount of our time spent online, company websites are now more often than not the first port of call for consumers looking for information from brands. Being able to find answers to their questions quickly is therefore a vital part of the customer experience. According to the latest Eptica Multichannel Customer Experience Study, the good news is that most companies understand
Retail is one of the most competitive sectors in the economy. Transformed by the internet, new entrants and ever more demanding consumers, retailers cannot afford to rest on their laurels.Customers are pushing retailers to innovate and deliver new services, improved experiences at lower prices. Loyalty is a thing of the past, with consumers are now able to choose from an enormous range...
Over the past five years Eptica has regularly evaluated the multichannel customer experience offered by 100 of the UK’s biggest brands, across ten sectors. To do this we’ve posed as prospective customers, testing how easy it is to find information and answers to the routine questions that consumers might ask every day on the web and via email, chat and social media.Since we began,...
Email has been a mainstay of customer service since its inception, providing a digital alternative to the telephone for consumers. Despite the growth of other digital channels, such as social media and chat, it continues to thrive – 69% of people still want to contact companies through email, according to Forrester. In some sectors (such as retail), ...
In 2015 the US Census Bureau reported that Millennials outnumbered Baby Boomers for the first time, meaning they now make up a quarter of the population. Here’s the breakdown: 1 million Millennials (born 1982-2000), 66 million Generation X (born 1965-1982), 4 million Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964). We’re currently at a tipping point, as more and more Millennials...
20 years ago customer service existed in a world dominated by voice, hence the widespread reliance on call centers to manage customer service interactions. Things have obviously moved on since then as email, and more recently digital channels such as social media and chat, have become a regular part of managing customer service delivery. Call centers have now evolved into...
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...
As every retailer knows, a good Christmas can make the difference between success and failure. This is particularly true in the UK, with research from ING finding that Britons are the most generous present purchasers in the world, and expect to spend an average of £294 (US$446) on gifts this Christmas. By contrast American shoppers are aiming to spend £250 ($38...
As we approach the holiday shopping season, retailers are getting ready for their busiest time of the year. So at Eptica we thought it would be a good time to look at how they perform when it comes to the customer experience. The 2015 Eptica Retail Customer Experience Study therefore evaluated 500 U.S. retailers, in 15 sectors, on their ability to provide answers to 10 questions...