Technology has the power to transform how we communicate with each other, and has made huge advances over the last twenty years. We’ve seen the growth of email, the rise of social media and the emergence of web chat all provide new ways to interact with friends, families and organizations. In turn, this has revolutionized customer service, adding new channels an...
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...
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...
While the peak season for retailers isn’t yet over, many companies are already taking stock and looking at their performance, as well as studying the wider trends that emerged in the run up to Christmas 2015.The positive news is that overall spending in the US was up by nearly 8%, according to figures from MasterCard. However, not every retailer will have felt the benefit...
Delivering outstanding customer service is central to every business, but is especially important to midsize organizations, which may not have the brand recognition or marketing budgets of their larger competitors. These companies, who typically have between 100-999 employees, tend to have fewer resources to dedicate to implementing new systems and may not have the experience of deploying...
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...
The growth in online channels has dramatically changed how customers interact with brands in every sector. They now demand a better experience, across more and more channels, and are far less loyal to companies that fail to deliver what they want. As digital natives, they are empowered by the information they find online and use the internet and social media as their primary means...
Last week’s Gartner Customer Strategies & Technologies Summit in London provided a perfect opportunity to take the pulse of customer service and customer experience, and to look at future trends that companies need to start preparing for now. The two day event was certainly packed with presentations, and well attended by both vendors and end users, demonstrating the vital ...
Delivering a superior customer experience can now be extremely complex for companies. Consumers want to use multiple channels, and expect to be able to switch between them seamlessly on the customer journey, while still receiving the same high level of fast, consistent service, personalized to their needs. At the same time the number of incoming interactions is growing rapidly, particularly on dig...
In a previous post I looked at the biggest frustrations amongst UK consumers when they dealt with brands through digital channels such as email or social media. Research carried out by Epticahighlighted that a lack of understanding and a failure to acknowledge their feelings were not just holding back engagement, but actively causing consumers to switch supplier.The E...