Archive for the 'Customer Service' Category...
Filed under Customer Service
In an effort to gain a competitive edge in the market, companies are implementing customer self-service solutions to address two distinctly separate business challenges — improving the customer experience and cost reduction. While the cost-related benefits of self-service are widely understood, and arguably self evident, new research by the Aberdeen Group found that a well-crafted customer self-service strategy can have a demonstrable impact on financial and growth objectives.
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Original post by Andrew Boyd and software by Elliott Back
Filed under Customer Service
Stephanie Cerneck doesn’t go through the checkout line at her supermarket anymore. Or even the self-checkout line. She uses a personal scanner offered by the Bloom grocery store near her home in Scaggsville, Md. When she’s done, she pays at a terminal at the front of the store. The handheld scanner lets customers keep a running tally as they work their way through the aisles, allowing them to spend more time shopping and less time waiting to check out.
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Original post by Alex Dominguez and software by Elliott Back
Filed under Customer Service
Amazon.com has taken more than a million pre-orders for the final “Harry Potter” book due out in July, but the world’s largest Web retailer won’t make a profit, chief executive Jeff Bezos told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting Thursday. Amazon’s handling of the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” release — a $17 discount off cover price, a free shipping offer and guaranteed on-time delivery — showed yet again that the company is willing to take a hit to cement customer loyalty.
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Original post by Aili McConnon and software by Elliott Back
Filed under Customer Service
Can you make water less wet? Can junk mail be made less junky? They sound like Zen koans, but Decision Intelligence, a Minnetonka, Minn., direct marketing consultancy, says it has solved that last one at least. Using sophisticated algorithms and decades of experience in direct marketing, the company’s officers say they have improved the accuracy of catalog mailings for major clients like Lands’ End and L.L. Bean. The company also mines customer databases for nuggets of wisdom to help companies as varied as Thomson West, eBay, Cigna and National Geographic.
Original post by Leslie Brooks Suzukamo and software by Elliott Back
Filed under Customer Service
ATG has updated its e-commerce platform to include automated affinity selling for retailers and other e-commerce providers. It is the biggest update the vendor has made since it rolled out its v. 6.4 platform last summer, spokesperson Tucker Walsh told CRM Buyer. This release enhances the company’s adaptive scenario engine by automating personalization capabilities, he explained. The features allow retailers to define groups and subgroups of customers, as well as the rules that apply to them.
Original post by Erika Morphy and software by Elliott Back
Filed under Customer Service
Call centers for PC companies placed dead last in customer satisfaction in a survey released Tuesday by an international consulting group. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based CFI Group found PC call centers scored a 64, the lowest customer satisfaction score of all the industries surveyed. “Scores in the sixties are generally considered worrisome,” the report said. “PC call centers clocked in a full four points below the next-lowest industry, insurance call centers and cable/satellite TV call centers, both 68.”
Original post by John P. Mello Jr. and software by Elliott Back
Filed under Customer Service
We hate automated customer service systems. That’s the key finding of a recent study by Accenture. Understand, the study didn’t look at how well we like acquiring, installing, integrating, operating and maintaining customer service automation. It was about how well we like being on the receiving end. Short answer: We don’t. Wait, it’s worse: We not only hate being subjected to automated customer service, we’re also irritated enough that we’re ready to change vendors in the hope that we’ll have better luck elsewhere.
Original post by Frank Hayes and software by Elliott Back
Filed under Customer Service
If you’re like lots of Americans, you’re increasingly wary of identity theft. But should you pay LifeLock or a similar company a few bucks to more than $100 a year to protect your identity? A host of new companies has sprung up recently offering products including credit monitoring, fraud alerts and identity theft insurance. Some will even unleash robotic software to scour the Internet and ferret out whether crooks are selling your credit card number in chat rooms. Are they worth it? Or are they hyping consumer fears to turn a quick profit?
Original post by Paul Wenske and software by Elliott Back
Filed under Customer Service
Video rental purveyor Netflix and TV shopping channel QVC led a customer satisfaction index of the top 100 online retailers released Friday by ForeSee Results. The index, calculated twice a year by the firm, ranked the Web sites of Netflix and QVC, with scores of 85, as the kings of customer satisfaction among Internet retail’s top 100 revenue makers. Those enterprises were closely followed by booksellers Amazon, with a score of 83, and Barnes & Noble, and leading pet supply retailer Drs. Foster and Smith.
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Original post by John P. Mello Jr. and software by Elliott Back
Filed under Customer Service
The BBC is building a customer information database to help it compete with commercial rivals should the license fee be scrapped. Because of its public funding model, the corporation has traditionally lagged behind rivals such as Sky and ITV in compiling customer data. However, the growth of interactive platforms such as video-on-demand, mobile TV and digital stations is generating more viewer data than ever before. In the next two years, the BBC wants to deploy CRM software to enable it to deliver targeted content across its different platforms.
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Original post by Dave Friedlos and software by Elliott Back
