Customer experience is important to every industry, but particularly vital for retail. Fierce competition, exacerbated by the rise of ecommerce, means it is increasingly important for retail companies to differentiate themselves. And with many stores often selling the same products, customer experience is a more appealing way of differentiating than competing on price...
With the discovery of horse meat within a number of processed foods, it is no exaggeration to say that the European food industry is facing one of its biggest challenges since the BSE epidemic. While horse meat itself is safe to eat (unless the horse had been treated with particular drugs), consumers believed they were buying beef-based ready meals and burgers from reputable suppliers and supermar...
There are many similarities between banks and retailers. Both sectors have large, geographically spread branch/shop networks, and in many cases are facing the same challenge of balancing online and offline channels to meet changing consumer needs.As part of their strategy retailers have aggressively been moving into new markets – offering everything from insurance, bank accounts and telecoms...
This is a guest blog post from Jo Causon, chief executive of the Institute of Customer Service, the professional body for customer service.We live in an age of ‘austerity spending’, where businesses have to work harder than ever to hang on to their customers.Last year we commissioned research that concluded that the average cost to replace a lost customer is around £6,500 and 56 ...
The launch of the new Apple iPad has dominated many sections of the media over the last week as retailers and rivals have tried to capitalise on the buzz around the launch.However an unfortunate pricing error has led to the wrong sort of headlines for Tesco. A misplaced decimal point saw the retailer advertise the new iPad 3 for £49.99, rather than £499, on its website. As news spread ...
Social media opens up a whole new way of communicating with customers. However companies need to understand that it is fundamentally different to other channels. Social media is much more of a two way conversation and, as it is held in public, the world can see the results. So while many companies have moved onto social media and are using it for customer service, what is vital is how engaged...
Telecoms companies have historically had a poor reputation for customer service, something that our own research unfortunately verifies. Previously with little difference between service levels amongst telcos, customers didn’t have much choice, so there was little incentive to invest.However this is changing as new entrants and technologies disrupt the traditional telecoms market. On the bac...