customer service | Internet Marketing Blog

H&M's Trashgate: A lesson in social media

International retailer H&M could ignore The New York Times. But the company couldn't ignore an overwhelming groundswell of outrage on Twitter.

Last week, an outpost of the retail giant was caught shredding and discarding unsold clothes. When a New York Times reporter came calling for a comment, H&M didn't bother responding. But two days later, after readers expressed trending outrage on Twitter, H&M was ready to do something about it. And it all could have been avoided with a simple returned phone call.

by Meghan Keane 11 January 2010 16:13pm 9 comments

Virgin Media's customer service / Twitter fail

I have TV and broadband through Virgin Media, and both went down at about 6PM last night, and remained down for the next three and a half hours, though some customers are still without service this morning.

To be fair to Virgin, this is the first major outage I've had in the past two years, and I have no major issues with the service in general, but in this instance the communication to customers, both online and offline, has been woeful.

by Graham Charlton 03 December 2009 09:21am 29 comments

Customer service is more important than the cheapest price

I’ve had a theory for a long time that the majority of people want quality products and great customer service more so than a good cheap deal. Don’t get me wrong, people like value for money, but not at the cost of a shoddy experience.

I think you can take Ryanair as a good case-in-point, whereby some people still want great customer service after paying peanuts. For people who are more realistic, it’s worth paying that little bit more for a better experience. After all, our time and how we feel, are the most important things for many people.

by Philip Wilkinson 01 December 2009 11:29am 15 comments

Online retailers still need to work on customer service

While a study of 46 leading e-commerce sites found overall performance to be satisfactory, with average scores ranging from 76% to 90%, many etailers still need to improve on customer service.

The eRetail Benchmark Study from eDigital Research used mystery shoppers to assess the usability of leading online retail sites in the UK. Customer contact by email and phone are two areas where some retailers performed poorly.

by Graham Charlton 05 November 2009 12:26pm 3 comments

Q&A: Zappos' Jane Judd on customer loyalty

Zappos has built up a reputation for excellent customer service, and owes much of its success to this. The fact that 75% of its business comes from repeat customers provides convincing evidence of its importance.

I've been asking Jane Judd, who is the senior manager of Zappos' Customer Loyalty Team, and was one of the keynote speakers at the recent Internet Retailing conference, about the company's approach...

by Graham Charlton 04 November 2009 11:25am 6 comments

Five ways to drive interest in your tweeting

James Gurd eCommerce Consultant

Advice for using Twitter to build an army of engaged followers is prevalent. Less is suggested for the ways to drive awareness of your Twitter presence using other communication channels.

If you apply the basic logic of acquisition and retention, you can use Twitter innovatively to engage your current followers but if you do nothing to tell others, how do you grow this channel?

This blog looks at six practical steps to pushing your Twitter presence. It's not rocket science but good ideas shouldn’t be complicated...

by James Gurd 01 October 2009 13:02pm 2 comments

Gone fishing: Seven tips for providing customer service support via Twitter

I've never done a list before, but here's my seven tips from using Twitter to provide customer service and online help and support. What are yours?

by Guy Stephens 04 September 2009 11:51am 8 comments

Love your customer service staff, love your customers

There's an old adage about it costing five times as much to acquire a new customer as to retain a new one. So why – in these difficult times - aren't more businesses focused on reducing customer churn, and improving customer service levels, to generate more repeat business?

This is fundamentally a cultural problem for many companies. There needs to be a shift in the mindset of larger organisations, in order to keep both staff and customers satisfied. I'm not sure that the balance is right, and I'm hoping that the next decade will be all about retention and satisfaction, so here I'm going to lobby for love. I want you to give more love to your customer services staff, for they are at the forefront of your push towards boosting customer satisfaction...

by Chris Lake 01 September 2009 14:21pm 2 comments

When Twitter met Yammer

I have been exploring for a while to see if a link between our customer service agents on Yammer and our customers on Twitter exists. Is there a point at which the two platforms could come together in the provision of customer service?

Happily there is. It's a bit clunky but it works. And the answer is '#yam'.

by Guy Stephens 06 July 2009 12:52pm 7 comments

10 reasons why customer service doesn’t have to suck

The hell of a call centre Last night the BBC aired Watchdog, which this week focused on the ailing state of customer service among big businesses (and no doubt some smaller ones).

Almost three quarters of people said customer service is getting worse, according to a survey of more than 7,000 consumers. The worst offenders tend to be broadband / mobile operators, and utilities companies, though web companies aren’t immune either.

It doesn’t come as any shock to me, but surely good levels of service and a focus on the customer experience are key to surviving a difficult market?

by Chris Lake 05 May 2009 12:45pm 16 comments