Customer Service news and archive

What AI is not going to fix for you in retail

It feels like everyone, everywhere is talking about AI. What it will change, how fast it will move, and how it might solve some of the biggest challenges businesses face today. It’s being positioned as the answer to everything from inefficiency to innovation. There is far less conversation about the other side of that coin: what AI is not going...

Retail

Half of Brits think department store customer service has worsened

Ditch the “fabricated experiential initiative” and work on customer service. That’s the best way to attract customers this Christmas shopping season according to The Institute of Customer Service, whose new research finds that 48 percent of UK shoppers think customer service in department stores has gotten worse in the last 10 years. Shoppers...

Member

Business

Marks & Spencer automates customer service, moves switchboard employees to stores

After partnering up with Microsoft to incorporate artificial intelligence in its business and setting up a retail data academy to step up its employees’ “data literacy”, Marks & Spencer has taken one more step towards becoming a more digital-savvy retailer. This time, it has joined forces with cloud communications platform Twilio to adopt a...

Fashion

Seamless multichannel is crucial

As technology is ever changing the retail market both on and offline, retailers are facing increasing challenges. Relying solely on bricks-and-mortar or online retailing is fast becoming an outmoded approach. To succeed, today’s retailer must link all channels effectively and provide their customers with a seamless service, regardless of their...

Fashion

Next fails to refund online charges

A BBC investigation has found that Next has been breaking consumer law by failing to refund delivery charges applied to goods bought online, but then returned. The BBC has also discovered that staff at other mail order companies are giving out the wrong information about their refund policies. Under the Distance Selling Regulations (DSRs), a...

Fashion

Brands beware customer experience

Brands are being reminded that the customer experience and complaint resolution is still the most important factor for shoppers after new research by reveals that stock availability and staff attitudes were more important than price. 800 exit interviews were conducted in August and September 2009 outside 10 major retailers in high street and out...

Fashion

Customer service back in fashion

Customer service has taken on a whole new meaning since the economic downturn has swept across the retail world. Where once snooty shop assistants and neglectful store staff were unimpressed by your potential to buy unless you looked the part of a Russian Oligarch (pre crunch time) these days you are practically bowled over by kindness and the...