E-commerce growth is plateauing: how do you stay competitive?
Recent figures published by BRC-KPMG give the UK retail industry another grim reality check.
According to the report, there was only a small 2.3% rise in total UK retail sales numbers during February 2012, a significant slowdown when compared to January (where sales grew 11.3%) and 2011 (where overall growth was 18.5%).
Making the most of mobile commerce opportunities in 2012
Mobile is booming. Chances are that, if you’re shopping online in 2012, increasingly you’ll be carrying out part of the transaction on a mobile device.
The majority of smartphone users are now using a mobile device to browse and shop online while, in the UK, 5m tablet owners are expected to purchase a second device in 2012.
IHS screen digest recently released research predicting that in-app purchases will hit £3.6 billion in 2015, accounting for as much as 64% of mobile app market revenues.
So one thing is clear: if optimising your mobile channel isn’t high on your list of priorities in 2012, it really should be.
How to improve mobile app user ratings
As discussed in a previous blog post, customer experience needs to be at the heart of your mobile strategy in 2012.
With online forums, comment boxes online and the growing number of brands with a social media presence, a customer has more ways than ever before to vent their frustrations following a poor online customer experience.
What’s more, a customer who has a poor experience online using a mobile device can use the very same device to log on to Facebook or Twitter and tell their entire network of friends and family about the poor mobile online experience they encountered.
15% of those aged 16-24 turn to social media first for customer service
Once again we see that young consumers want to be able to address customer service issues using social media, according to a new study by Sitel.
Led by consumers aged under 25, Britons are turning to social media sites – including Facebook, Twitter, blogs and forums – to solve problems, search for information or voice complaints.
Why social customer service will come of age in 2012
Social media and customer service would seem to be a match made in heaven. In 2012, more and more brands will commit beyond simply responding to customers on Twitter.
Brands are actively recruiting customers into online communities to help them develop products, give feedback and report issues.
First Direct’s ‘Live’ community discusses openly anything from savings rates to charitable donations, and includes a (very brave) sentiment tracker on the front page to show, live, what people think about the brand (it’s overwhelmingly positive at the time of writing).
Bridging the gap between online and the call centre: Part two
In my last blog I looked at the important role the call centre team can play in improving customer experience in a multichannel environment.
In part two, we explore the steps companies can take to close the multichannel customer experience gap.
Bridging the gap between online and the call centre: Part one
Just how important is your customer contact centre to you?
For some companies, call centres are seen as a last resort for extremely frustrated customers who have struggled online or in store and need assistance completing their transaction.
In reality, the customer contact centre is at the forefront of customer experience and can often be the only ‘human’ interaction a customer has with a brand.
How to extract actionable insight from online customer feedback
The Reducing Customer Struggle report that we produced recently with Econsultancy found that the majority of etailers (76%) generally first become aware of website issues when customers call or email the contact centre.
The problem with this method and other feedback channels, such as voice of customer feedback forms, is that the onus is on the customer to help recreate or replicate the issue in question.
10 great posts on multichannel marketing
In advance of tomorrow's JUMP conference, I've compiled some of the best multichannel-themed posts from the last 12 months.
Customer service goes social
Companies have rushed to embrace social media marketing, but there's
more to social media than marketing.
Increasingly, whether companies like it or not, consumers expect companies to respond to customer service inquiries submitted via social channels like Twitter and Facebook.
Unfortunately, it currently appears that companies are generally more adept at social marketing than they are at social customer service.
