Customer Service

Shares of Vera Bradley, a company best known for its quilted-cotton handbags, hit an all-time low Wednesday, and investors can thank Chief Executive Robert Wallstrom’s candor. “We are not attracting enough new customers to the brand,” he said in a news release accompanying the earnings, forgoing the typical corporate-speak that glosses over problems. Wallstrom later…

It's sadly ironic that contact centers are frequently staffed by mobile-enabled, always-connected agents who in turn support mobile-enabled, always-connected customers, but do so with antiquated processes, technologies and incentive systems. New research from LogMeIn and Ovum shows that while the majority of consumers typically turn to the web for answers before contacting customer service, only…

Hear best practices around how to motivate and empower your staff to make your customers feel every bit as important as they are.

Speakers share best practices to take your retail business international from e-commerce professionals and retailers who’ve done it.

Learn best practices for omnichannel integration and how live video can bring the in-store experience to e-commerce channels.

Ace Hardware has always been known for its "helpful hardware folks" motto, but now the company is taking its customer service knowledge global. The retailer has launched the Ace Center for Excellence, a new division designed to share the strategies and key principles of the brand's unparalleled commitment to customer service with businesses and organizations around the world. According to Ace, the center's goal is to help companies improve upon their customer experience based on Ace's award-winning approach through customized solutions, such as keynotes and workshops. 

Walgreens will no longer require its cashiers to send each customer off with the words, "Be well." A spokesman said the campaign had run its course, though the company didn't elaborate on why the effort, launched several years ago, was dropped. "It's accomplished its goal of reinforcing our branding," spokesman Michael Polzin said. "We'll continue to build our relationships with customers in other ways."

Meijer is turning a past headache at the checkout lanes into a $10 coupon that customers can use Friday or Saturday. The coupon is good for $10 off a $50 purchase on grocery, health and beauty items or general merchandise. Frank J. Guglielmi, senior director of communications for the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based retailer, said an outage affected the retailer's ability to process credit cards. He noted it was an internal IT issue. The glitch in late February disrupted the point-of-sale system at stores for debit and credit card purchases.

Customer experience management is the marketing team's responsibility for most retail companies. Many aspects of customer experience do fall in the marketer's realm of expertise, but in order to deliver truly exceptional customer experiences, you must look beyond the marketing department. It's imperative that the modern retailer looks at customer experience in omnichannel terms. To do so, you must go beyond the marketing team, implementing these five key requirements:

Online price matching is a tactic that brick-and-mortar retailers use around the holidays to save as many sales as possible. Blick Art Materials, the nation's largest art supply retailer, is launching its own online price-matching program — with a twist.