customer service | Internet Marketing Blog

Goodbye e-commerce, hello 'customer interaction'

In my last post I outlined how we need to start changing our thinking about multichannel, in particular the fact that we will need to start addressing a collection of touchpoints that we offer to the consumer and provide a good user experience across all of these.

Now, the message that the user experience needs to be spot on is not new, but the fact it now needs to be good across every channel provides a whole new challenge, and neither our systems, nor our organisations are geared up for it.

by Kees de Vos 08 July 2011 09:18am 5 comments

Do we invest in multichannel or get the basics right?

I was recently asked a question: Do we invest in multichannel or get the basics right?

It got me thinking that all too often we think in ‘exclusive absolutes’ – one or the other – multichannel or the basics, Twitter or Facebook, social or traditional, chat or email, call deflection or everything else…

And yet the answer is far more complex. Complex because ultimately what companies are trying to decipher is the panoply of human behaviour. Customers are unpredictable. The challenge for companies is not in understanding that, but rather where to draw the line?

by Guy Stephens 01 July 2011 11:00am 3 comments

Start me up! A profile of email sentiment service Chorus

Chorus is a startup based in Australia which takes sentiment monitoring to another level by allowing customer support teams, marketing departments and PR professionals to analyse and prioritise the emails they receive.

It helps internal structures and processes to focus on the negative issues first, meaning that customer experience is managed on an intelligent basis, according to severity.

We caught up with Dave Trindall, one of the co-founders, to discuss sentiment monitoring, delivering excellent customer service, the problems with current email systems and, of course, Chorus itself.

by Jake Hird 16 June 2011 13:08pm 0 comments

Why your customer service team should be your biggest investment

Online and offline good customer service is absolutely vital for a successful business.

So why is it that most customer service teams are among the lowest paid in a business and receive the smallest level of training?

by Alexandra Gaiger 07 June 2011 10:05am 4 comments

How are airlines handling the volcanic ash crisis online?

Just over a year after the last crisis, those Icelandic volcanoes are at it again, and a plume of ash is threatening flights to and from airports in the UK.

Hopefully, the disruption to flights won't be as widespread as last year, but concerned holiday makers and business travellers will still be looking to online channels for up to date information.

I've been looking at the websites and social media channels for some of the airlines with disrupted services...

by Graham Charlton 24 May 2011 14:08pm 7 comments

20 reasons why customer service is broken

Social media gives big companies the fear because it is an unpoliced environment where bad noise travels fast. And increasingly consumers are using it to say all kinds of things about brands, and also to aim direct questions at them (in public).

In many cases these companies aren’t remotely geared up to deal with questions, and they would much rather communicate with customers in private.

But here’s why customers do their complaining in public: it’s easier. It’s really that simple. People don’t mind bitching out loud, and sometimes they take a little comfort from it, but if customer service wasn’t so broken in the first place I think customers wouldn’t be so quick to resort to the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

by Chris Lake 19 May 2011 11:36am 23 comments

Eight marketing lessons estate agents need to learn (and FAST!)

I’ve recently been searching for a new place to live (Contrary to popular belief, Econsultancy staff are occasionally allowed to leave their desks), which means I’ve been spending even more time than usual online, browsing the ‘to let’ ads on property websites.

And getting closer to a brain haemorrhage on an hourly basis.

Estate agents and larger aggregate property sites are ideally placed to exploit the massive uptake in web usage we’ve seen in the last decade, yet their sites are usually among the very worst examples of design and usability you’ll ever encounter, while the offline experience is also disjointed and frustrating.

While it’s clear that the agent can’t always be to blame, larger companies in particular need to get their act together fast as some providers are surging ahead, leaving their less useful competitors in the dust.

As an excuse to go house-hunting during working hours and have a bit of a rant in general, I wanted to run through some of the common mistakes I’ve seen recently.

by Matt Owen 19 April 2011 10:17am 11 comments

UK retailers are unresponsive on social media: report

The UK's top 25 retailers have plenty of room for improvement in their social media and customer service strategies, with just 25% of those with a Twitter presence responding to customer questions through this channel.

This is one of the findings of the Auros Are you serious about social? study, which looks at how the top 25 UK retailers responded to queries on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs.

More highlights from the study after the jump...

by Graham Charlton 08 April 2011 09:20am 12 comments

Poor customer service means more complaints on social media: study

According to a survey, while 83% of consumers expect businesses to work harder to keep them since the recession, just 5% of think that customer service has improved over the last three years.

The channels that customers are using to complain are changing too. While 41% of people will make a complaint by phone and 63% by email, 20% take to social media sites to have a good old moan to friends and family.

This means more negative comments about companies and highlights the need for customer service improvements, as well as policies to monitor and respond to complaints on social media channels.

by Graham Charlton 18 March 2011 09:26am 8 comments