I've done some research since my first post and narrowed it down to the following:

Aspect Software www.aspect.com/Solutions/ForCustomerService.html
Callmedia www.callmedia.co.uk/products/glance.php
Charter UK www.charter-uk.com/
eGain www.egain.com/products/multichannel_service.asp
Eptica www.eptica.com/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=2
Genesys www.genesyslab.com/products/genesys_e-mail.asp
KANA www.kana.com/about.php
Numero www.thisisnumero.com/
RightNow  www.rightnow.com/

Any opinions would be gratefully received and if you know of others I've missed I'd also appreciate your input.

Incidentally, what attracts me to Numero's offering is that they use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to translate and classify inbound customer emails - to me this seems to offer huge added value to a customer facing operation. Once again, if you've had experience of this I'd appreciate your views. 

On 10:31:41 12 September 2008 MikeBailey wrote:

I'm a BA for a highly successful store and online retailer who are looking to replace their customer service application and I've been tasked with identifying potential suitors. So far I've mapped out the business process, the requirements and I'm in the process of preparing an ITT. I've also had preliminary discussions with a package provider called Numero who impressed me greatly.

We get phone and email contacts in fairly equal proportions - self-service on our website is non-existent and won't be upgraded for a year or two. 

My objective is to provide excellent service to our customers - what's good and what's bad out there? 

Also, who provides the best customer service in your experience? Two retailers that impress me most are Screwfix and Lakeland - does anybody treat their customer as good as these two?

Thanks

Thanks, that's really useful - I quickly found another contender called ciboodle.