Author Archives: brownsourcing

Is Customer Service Adapting to the Mobile Customer?

Posted on January 22, 2015 by brownsourcing

Mobile commerce used to be considered an added extra. Most customers browsing an online store would shop on a laptop or PC and not on the tiny screen of their phone – but that has all changed. Phone screens are … Continue reading →

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Will customer loyalty depend on new payment systems?

Posted on December 22, 2014 by brownsourcing

The technology magazine Wired featured a story last month about the new Apple Pay payment system. The really interesting part of the story was a description of the Starbucks loyalty programme in the US. Starbucks has combined loyalty and payment … Continue reading →

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Managing the Modern Retail Omnichannel

Posted on December 16, 2014 by brownsourcing

Omnichannel is one of those business buzzwords that is often used and seldom understood. Many use it interchangeably with multichannel, but I would argue that these are quite different concepts. First, what is the multichannel? This is really just the … Continue reading →

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Creating a Single View of Your Customer

Posted on December 15, 2014 by brownsourcing

As customer service has become more complex, it has become more difficult for retailers to capture and work with a single view of their customer. The explosion in channels over the past five years means that customers will often be … Continue reading →

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Food retailers are competing on customer service

Posted on December 3, 2014 by brownsourcing

Food retailers are facing a tough time in the UK at present. The biggest of them all, Tesco, is facing up to some very unusual problems related to accounting errors (still under investigation) and Sainsbury’s has seen sales fall in … Continue reading →

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You don’t need to delight, just be effective

Posted on July 22, 2014 by brownsourcing

Business magazines are full of tips on how companies can delight their customers. This language is used to describe how companies – particularly retailers – can make their customer service experience so good that customers will leave with a smile … Continue reading →

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Supporting online shoppers continues to be a challenge

Posted on July 1, 2014 by brownsourcing

Online retail is a now a mature business model isn’t it? After all, companies such as Amazon have been taking orders online and delivering products for two decades. Is there still so much to learn? Clearly there is still a … Continue reading →

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Tesco aiming to improve customer service

Posted on June 16, 2014 by brownsourcing

A feature article in The Grocer has focused attention on the troubled times at Tesco. The article pulls no punches in criticising the management of Tesco for creating the present situation where profits are falling, but the source of the … Continue reading →

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Social customer service is more than just answering Tweets

Posted on June 3, 2014 by brownsourcing

As new social channels become more accepted and more important it becomes increasingly complex to manage the overall customer experience – or the unified customer experience as the analyst firm Forrester calls it. The digital and social customer channels are … Continue reading →

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The retail omnichannel is not easy, but it is possible

Posted on May 21, 2014 by brownsourcing

Retail Week recently ran some analysis on the way that customers are treated across various channels. As the number of channels customers can use to reach a brand has exploded beyond just voice and email alone brands have had to … Continue reading →

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