Customer Service Faces New Challenge - ITWeb

There is much more to customer satisfaction than erecting a 24/7 call center. In these days of intense completion, companies have to develop a keen sense on what customer is saying and she wants.

These were the thoughts expressed at the Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) CEM Executive Forum, recently presented in partnership with ITWeb, in Rosebank.

Participants felt that the important aspects of providing better customer satisfaction were delivering on the brand promise, exceeding customer expectations, and truly understanding what customers want.

Patrick Patton (News - Alert), pre-sales consultant at Interactive Intelligence, focused on the advantages of process automation in ensuring an improved customer experience. It allows for one contact resolution and an improved response time, facilitates communication in the form the customer prefers to receive it, and with repeatable automated processes, fosters consistency in the customer experience.

Professor Adré Schreuder, head of Consulta Research and customer experience expert, told delegates that customer satisfaction and loyalty cannot be measured by a lack of complaints, or by a good review after a single interaction. “You have to measure the customer's overall satisfaction level. While customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence (BI) and contact centre tools are all important, to deliver a satisfactory customer experience, a company also needs a strategy to gather real insights.”

Recently, the company promoted its journalist Kathryn McConnachie to digital media editor at ITWeb Online. Kathryn was appointed in ITWeb in 2011 as a winner of the ITWeb Journalism Bursary for 2010, awarded every year to best students at the Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies who take up New Media as a specialization.

ITWeb is ready for the disruptive changes that are reshaping both the ICT and the media industry.

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