Sales of smartphones may be on the rise but brand loyalty isn't necessarily following suit.
Read more »
Customer experience improvements can be worth billions -- yeah, "billions" with a "B." Forrester recently published a report by my colleague Megan Burns that models the business impact of an improved customer experience. I'm proud of this report because it: Quantifies the correlation between a rise in a company's Customer Experience Index score and the corresponding increase in three loyalty metrics that every company cares about: purchase intent, likelihood to switch business to a competitor, and likelihood to recommend Makes
Read more »
First of all, thank you for taking time away from your online shopping today to read this post. Cyber Monday is a great day for deals online. But, not everyone is organized and ready to make holiday purchases today. So what happens after Cyber Monday? Are retailers prepared to deal with last-minute shoppers? How can they make the most of this important customer group?
Read more »
Anyone can sell a product online. But a successful company does more than just sell products -- they provide customers with the information and support they need to be effective with those products. Doing so will keep customers coming back and will inspire referrals.
Read more »
As the busy shopping season ramps up this Friday (and on Thursday this year in some retail chains), it's important to keep your customer service and frontline staff motivated to provide quality customer experiences.
Read more »
Customers hate getting stuck in IVR purgatory. Virtual Hold Technology CEO Kevin Sjodin discusses how companies can leverage automation in the contact center to help improve the customer experience.
Read more »
Most companies have the intention of providing excellent customer experiences. However, most find it difficult to translate those intentions into the cultural fabric of their companies. I like to give companies feedback on how they're doing -- and to see how customer service people deal with feedback. Three recent incidents with employees made me question how well these firms were making this translation:
Read more »
The mobile channel continues to grow as a valuable customer experience touchpoint. Nielsen reports that smartphone penetration in the U.S. is at least 28 percent and rising, accounting for 41 percent of new phone purchases in Q3 2010. As customers do more with their phones, the mobile app market grows as well. Companies are clamoring to develop apps for the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and iPad devices. But while the desire to keep up with technology is strong, there needs to
Read more »
In a tough economy, a path of least resistance is the belief we can save our way back to profitability with savings from, among other so-called cost centers, call centers. Thinking fewer calls are better, we drive customers away from personal contact and toward website technology that lets them resolve issues for themselves. Thinking shorter calls are better, we link customer service representative performance to faster average handling times.
Read more »
My sister was telling me that last week the manager of her department in her office was about to make an offer to a candidate for an open position. The day before, a couple colleagues decided to check the candidate's Facebook page. What they found surprised them. Not only was her profile picture lewd, but she listed her interests as "using expletives, causing chaos, and drinking until 5 a.m." Because the manager didn't want to find out what type of
Read more »
When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg helped introduce the company's new "modern messaging system" on Nov. 15, he was careful not to call it an email service. Because it's not. Instead, it's more of a compilation of email, SMS and instant messaging.
Read more »
I don't normally like to use this blog to complain about poor customer service. But sometimes the situation is so blatant that I can't hold back. I hope the following story encourages any automaker or auto dealer to take an honest look at how they may be alienating their customers.
Read more »
"Companies have to take social to the next level and create measurable impact." Katy Keim, CMO of Lithium, noted when we spoke earlier today. Many companies are trying to do just that as they expand and integrate their social strategies across customer service, marketing, product development, and sales. Keim offered some advice on three types of metrics that organizations can use along the way.
Read more »
The scenario unravels in rapid fire incompetence: A call center agent stumbles through a script, struggling to comprehend All-American novelties like Green Bay Packers "Cheese Heads." Lunchtime mercifully arrives, and leaves behind an empty call center as every agent heads to the cafeteria while the phones ring off the hook. The afternoon concludes with the staff playing a silly "True or False" game about American culture. All these scenes came from NBC's new "Outsourced" series - which, while attempting to
Read more »
A recent report from eMarketer shows that ecommerce spending this quarter is expected to jump 13.7 percent over the same period last year. But are organizations prepared for the influx of shoppers?
Read more »
Ali Hedayati, President and COO at Coradiant, discusses steps that online retailers can take to prepare their websites for an influx of traffic and transaction volumes on Cyber Monday. He speaks with Tom Hoffman of 1to1 Media about what retailers can do ahead of the biggest online shopping day of the year.
Read more »
Social media efforts tend to impact intangibles like goodwill, brand awareness, and affinity, which are tough to measure. But companies are increasingly thinking of social media as part of a coordinated, multichannel effort, connecting specific online and mobile initiatives to offline sales. Marketers are finally starting to answer the question, "how does social media impact my bottom line?"
Read more »
Whether customers comment on a blog post, join a conversation thread on Facebook or Twitter, or respond to an online promotion, the goal is more, more, more. Earlier this week at the "10 Ways to Screw-Up Your Social Media Marketing" event hosted by New York Social Media Meetup, Offerpop cofounder Mark Cooper shared six strategies companies can use to encourage customers' participation in social settings.
Read more »
Social media's skyrocketing adoption, along with "Generation Me's" coming of age and buying power, is drastically changing customer service and its best practices. Companies that don't figure out how to leverage social media while catering to the newly empowered Generation Me consumer will suffer lost customers, brand damage, and failed new customer acquisition strategies. "Generation Me" is a term loosely described as Gen X combined with Gen Y, meaning anyone from age 10 to 40 years old. Usually defined as
Read more »
On Monday when I went to the grocery store, I was surprised to see Christmas and other holiday items already in place of the Halloween aisle--only a day after trick or treating. But a new study from ATG of more than 1,000 consumers called "Consumer Shopping Experiences, Preferences, and Behaviors," reveals that most consumers will start their holiday shopping prior to Thanksgiving, with only 22 percent waiting until Black Friday to shop.
Read more »
Over this past weekend, Cablevision and Fox ended a two-week squabble over transmission fees that had left some 3 million viewers without Fox programming, including the first two games of the World Series and episodes of Glee and The Simpsons.
Read more »
Not to brag, but I have a lot of friends on Facebook. 421 to be exact. Some are good friends with whom I spend a lot of time, some are family members I keep up with, some are old elementary school acquaintances that I reconnected with, etc. I have different relationships with each of them. One giant social network to treat them in the same way makes it hard to manage. Understanding this, Facebook created a new tool called "Friendship
Read more »
