Eptica enables marketing and customer service collaboration at DatingDirect.com

Online Customer Service specialist Eptica has completed a programme with the UK's largest online dating service DatingDirect.com, to implement an online customer request handling system. The Eptica solution not only provides the customer services team with a multilingual, automatic email routing solution; but gives DatingDirect.com's marketing team visibility to customer comments through real-time reporting functionality. This enables the team to monitor customer feedback on new initiatives and changes to the site, giving them the capacity to react accordingly. The synchronisation of the marketing and customer service departments provides DatingDirect.com's customers with rapid responses to their enquiries and a greater level of online service.

When the company launched DatingDirect.com on a new platform in 2007, it was essential for the teams to monitor customer reaction by accessing in-bound comments as they were being posted. Eptica gave DatingDirect.com real-time visibility to monitor the volume and the nature of inbound emails just a few minutes after the platform migration began, allowing the teams to address any technical issues rapidly, some within 30 minutes.

With more than 3.5 million members, DatingDirect.com continuously strives to improve service levels. Johan Lebail, Global Customer Care Director commented: “With constant updates and new initiatives being added to DatingDirect.com, Eptica's reporting function has given us an invaluable tool to gauge the popularity of each additional feature, or marketing initiative, as soon as it has been implemented". He continued: “In addition the solution has enabled us to reduce our customer response times, whilst simultaneously increasing our staff productivity by 40%.”

Paul Barnes Managing Director at Eptica UK commented: “Positive customer experience has been central to DatingDirect.com's success. The company has effectively demonstrated how bridging the gap between marketing and customer services provides a rich information source gathered by one department, which can be used to enhance the other”. He concluded: “By managing online customer interactions more effectively, Eptica can assist businesses in providing customers with enhanced online experiences and provide organisations with more efficient, flexible and powerful customer contact operations.”