Customer Service

Help Wanted: 3 Ways to Deliver Great CX Despite the Labor Shortage
August 25, 2021 at 6:55 pm

Workforce turnover has reached an all-time high with a record 9.2 million vacancies. In June, the number of Americans who quit their jobs increased by 164,000 to 942,000, and retail is leading the charge with the most resignations of any industry. The resulting labor shortage has retailers across the country struggling to keep enough qualified people…

How to Make Appointment-Based Shopping Work
August 19, 2021 at 6:16 pm

It's become commonplace for a number of industries in the past year to have customers booking in advance to do things. Yet, as things mercifully get back to normal with widespread vaccine rollouts, the idea of booking in advance to visit the grocery store is beginning to fall out of favor given the immediate danger…

Why Customer Experience Matters
August 4, 2021 at 5:48 pm

With the onset of COVID-19, the world changed. As a result, businesses had to efficiently (and swiftly) pivot their planning to adapt to the new lifestyle everyone was now experiencing. During this period, retailers that could quickly and effectively shift strategies rose to the top. Additionally, those that enhanced their customer experience stepped into the…

What Retailers Need to Know About Conversational AI vs. Chatbots
July 27, 2021 at 3:58 pm

Traditional chatbots have become commonplace on e-commerce sites, yet too many are becoming unreliable and are alienating consumers due to their limitations. This is because many retailers rely on what's called "rule-based" chatbots when instead they should be implementing conversational artificial intelligence (AI), two terms often used interchangeably, but which are actually very different. Conversational…

How to Get the Best ROI From Your Customer Community
July 21, 2021 at 8:52 pm

Did you know that the average brand community — the people that make up your social media following, your online account holders, and your email subscribers — has the potential to deliver a return on investment of over 4,000 percent? And this can even grow each year your community is active. Many aren't aware of…

3 Tips for Retailers Struggling to Surpass Customer Service Expectations
July 19, 2021 at 8:14 pm

The massive shift to e-commerce in the last year significantly raised the bar for consumers’ expectations of customer service. Consumers today expect to get what they want, when they want it, and anticipate quality help and support along the way. As a result, retailers must adapt how they engage with their customers and their employees.…

9 Best Practices for Negative Customer Reviews
July 8, 2021 at 7:41 pm

Retailers today know online reputation management is vital. After all, nearly 95 percent of consumers read online reviews before they make a purchase. Understanding the importance of online reputation is one thing for businesses, but knowing how to manage it is usually another. Negative customer reviews are particularly worrisome for retailers as they can linger…

Shipment Tracking is the New Customer Experience
July 7, 2021 at 3:40 pm

The pandemic upended the retail industry, accelerating the evolution of online shopping. In fact, online sales boomed during the pandemic. However, delivery times also ballooned. Our internal data showed delivery times for domestic U.S. shipments increased one to two days from April 2020 through the holidays compared to the same period in 2019. This means…

3 Ways Retailers Should Evolve Their CX in the Post-Pandemic Economy
July 6, 2021 at 1:17 pm

The pandemic changed everything … how we worked, lived, and interacted with our friends and family. And it really affected what we purchased, how we purchased, and which companies we purchased from. How many of those changes are permanent and what will it look like after the dark cloud of COVID subsides? This is a…

How TNTs Can Have a Seismic Impact on Customer Loyalty
June 24, 2021 at 7:16 pm

In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham discuss an article recently published in Total Retail Report titled, “5 ‘Tiny, Noticeable Things’ Guaranteed to Build Customer Loyalty,” by author and speaker Adrian Webster. He shares that there's no simpler nor effective way to build customer loyalty than by fully…