Expectations for Customer Service continue to rise around the globe. Customers expect more from brands when it comes to convenience, resolution times, and agent expertise. Evolving customer preferences are tightly linked to innovations in digital technology, and brands must embrace both in order to keep pace with heightened expectations. The good news is that brands that can deliver on expectations are rewarded with higher rates of customer retention and loyalty. The Microsoft 2017 State of Global Customer Service survey polled 5,000 people from Brazil, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. We continue to find commonalities along with distinct differences between locals. And though people in all age groups are embracing new digital trends, millennials especially are shaping the way brands need to think about the future of customer service engagement.

Digital transformation is the process of creating value, growth, and competitive advantage through new offerings, business models, and business relationships that are data centric and data driven. It’s about changing the way that business gets done. This transformation also places IT at the forefront when making strategic business decisions related to redefining business processes and operational efficiencies, shifting work and employee productivity, changing customer relationships, increasing buyer loyalty, and transforming product and service revenue streams. IDC believes that IT organizations must assume a critical role in the forthcoming digital reinvention by assuming the position of being a critical business innovation platform. Intel Inside®. Powerful Productivity Outside. Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Customer loyalty matters. Loyal customers spend more, advocate more, and are the first to try new products or services. But how do you build a loyal customer base that drives profitable sales? The answer is a loyalty program that provides the data needed to support individualized experiences and show appreciation. And this is where technology can help. Move beyond paper punch cards and emails with personalized greetings. Quickly create an effective loyalty program that keeps your customers coming back for more.

Customer service organizations are struggling to react to the pace of innovation and the explosion of channels and devices. To get ahead of these challenges, AD&D pros must deeply invest in automation — automated answers, automated conversations, automated agent guidance, and automated end-to-end processes. They must also invest in intelligence to ensure automated technologies evolve and learn from prior interactions over time. Automation and intelligence quell the headcount increases. They will free agents from working on low-value or repetitive tasks, as they will only have to address highly complex customer scenarios or exceptions to standard operations. This also enables them to focus on building connections with customers to garner their satisfaction and loyalty.

More and more sporting goods and outdoor sports retailers are using the rich and robust Epicor® Eagle N Series® solutions for higher profits and faster growth—all while building loyal customer relationships. Now, with hundreds of additional enhancements built in, Epicor Eagle N Series software can help you streamline nearly everything you do for your business so you can focus on running more efficiently and profitably. With Eagle N Series, you can: • Simplify everyday processes—natural, intuitive workflows whisk you through everyday activities, plus it includes specialty tools for firearms compliance and equipment rentals • Manage complex inventory despite seasonal and trend-based demand swings • Improve overall business performance—make fast, informed decisions using intuitive on-screen analytics and dashboards What do businesses powered by Eagle N Series have to say about it? Read on to find out.

The General Data Protection Regulation – or GDPR – is a European Union (EU) law that protects the rights of individuals with respect to their data. Adopted as an EU law in April 2016, organizations that hold data about any resident of the EU must be compliant by May 2018. With attention-grabbing fines of €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover, GDPR commands attention at the highest levels. And despite the “legalese” that compliance suggests brands utilize, the brands that balance legal compliance with a human approach will turn GDPR to their advantage. This white paper provides a series of actions you can take to make the most of GDPR to both enhance your customer relationships and mitigate risk.

Among all the trends and buzzwords currently shaking up the marketing industry, one concept is emerging as the one to watch: customer experience (CX). Providing individual customers with the best possible experience is becoming the top priority at the moment, even to the point where experience outshines product quality(!) as the main differentiator. This is confirmed by a recent Gartner1 survey, in which 86 percent of participating companies listed customer experience as the main factor for gaining a competitive advantage, compared with merely 36 percent in 2012.

20% of customers will be responsible for 80% of profit – or so says The Pareto Principle, also known as the “rule of the vital few.” So, while marketers are trying hard to increase market share, they should be equally (or even more) concerned about nurturing the customer relationships they already have. That means finding ways to strengthen bonds with your best customers and figuring out how to turn good customers into better ones. Personalization, truly helpful support, data-driven contextual marketing, re-engagement strategies, gamification… There’s an almost overwhelming number of options out there, each touted as your golden key to an enduring bond with your users. In the pages that follow, you’ll learn about five strategies to drive engagement and retention with actionable tips from Selligent clients – top brands that are at the forefront of creating and sustaining customer loyalty.

It’s More Difficult Than Ever to Deliver a Five-Star Experience. To truly capture customer interest and loyalty, your applications and services have to deliver reliable experiences that delight users, scale to support their changing needs and regularly refresh with new innovations. As a result, you need ways to measure the metrics that really matter, namely: engagement, loyalty and satisfaction. It’s also imperative that you match agility with quality, making application performance a priority goal for everyone—from the business to marketing to IT. Finally, you need to future-proof your business by rapidly adopting the latest technologies and innovations that will meet—and exceed— customers’ expectations.

Prepare your business for the future of customer service. In a world where price and product can easily be matched, customer experience has become a key brand differentiator. It’s never been more important to understand customer expectations, perceptions, preferences, and trends. The 2017 Microsoft State of Global Customer Service report found that customer service impacts brand choice and loyalty for 96% of consumers around the globe. The 32-page report offers insights from 5,000 survey participants. Learn how you can stay ahead of the competition and earn customers for life with intelligent customer service. Find trend details and actionable data on: The growing importance of service in a customer’s choice of or loyalty to a brand The most important aspects of a good customer service experience The most frustrating aspects of a poor customer service experience Expectations of the millennial customer segment Channel preferences based on geography Customer expectations for self-serv

Helping your customers see the full value of your product is key to ensuring their loyalty, and webinars are one of the most efficient ways to foster that loyalty

eCommerce Marketers who want to exploit the full potential of e-mail should develop plans to consistently grow their permission-based e-mail lists of customers and prospects. This allows them to build loyalty and promote cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

With more than three decades in the hotel marketplace, Grupo Posadas operates more than 104 hotels and 19,042 rooms in 50 beach and city destinations in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. It's brands include AQUA, Fiesta Americana Grand, Fiesta Americana, Lat 19°, Caesar Park and Caesar Business, making Posadas the leading Mexican hotel operator in Latin America. Posadas selected Neolane's enterprise marketing software to improve segmentation and deliver consistent, personalized customer communications across e-mail and direct mail channels, while streamlining campaign management within its loyalty programs.

Learn how a deep understanding of touchpoints - and the ways they drive customers closer to you (or farther away) - can improve acquisition, retention and loyalty, create better customer experiences, strengthen relationships and boost your bottom line. (Plus 5 steps for leveraging touchpoints to profit from better customer relationships.)

See how the landscape of customer experience is being altered forever, as touchpoints continue to drive shifts in distribution, feedback and marketing channel control. In this whitepaper, you'll learn how making your touchpoints stronger, faster and smarter today will mean increased profits and stronger market positions tomorrow. (Plus 7 specific steps any company can take to improve customer experience today.)

Today’s mobile users are spoiled. They demand rich, desktop quality experiences tailored to their devices and delivered at lightning fast speeds. And while these “always on” users represent a tremendous business opportunity, satisfying their high expectations requires overcoming complex mobile delivery challenges. In this e-book, we review three key mobile delivery challenges and explain how you can overcome them by optimizing for fast APIs, mobile apps, and mobile sites to increase engagement, revenue, and customer loyalty. Download today to learn how your business can Meet Today’s Mobile Mandate.

Capitalize on a rising tide of data to grow your business and strengthen customer loyalty The speed and efficiency of your data storage hold the keys to business growth. It’s also one of today’s biggest IT headaches. Here’s what you really need to handle growth as you acquire and retain customers.

Build a better midsized business without borders Empower your employees — through business collaboration and communications solutions like video, audio and web collaboration — to help grow revenues, improve customer loyalty, and boost productivity. Learn more in this white paper.

First, today’s digitally oriented customers expect banks to provide an ever-higher quality experience defined by speed and the flexibility to conduct business across many channels. They’ve grown accustomed to going online and transferring money between accounts, for example, and using their mobile device to make payments and check their account balance. These kinds of experiences have raised the bar in terms of customer expectations – and banks need to keep up, or risk losing customers. This is particularly true of millennial customers, as they have little regard for loyalty, which banks have traditionally relied on to build their business. Once frustrated by inconvenience, they don’t hesitate to switch banks – and thanks to the internet, this is now a fast, painless process.

Is your organization truly meeting the expectations of your customers and delivering a differentiated experience that builds revenue growth and loyalty? Although there is currently a lot of focus on what constitutes the ideal digital experience, few organizations have successfully executed a strategy that takes the entire digital experience equation into consideration. Download this whitepaper now to learn the 5 keys to the digital experience equation and to read case stories on companies who have gotten it right.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms have been around for more than a decade, but they are no longer just for big enterprises selling expensive technology. Now companies of all sizes and industries are enjoying the power of CRM systems to improve sales effectiveness and customer loyalty. The key to this new wave of adoption are the many valuable add-ons and integrations, like DocuSign, that can greatly augment the user experience. This ebook explores ways to improve your CRM productivity and usability.

Customer service is the cornerstone of a great customer experience. However, in today’s digital consumer age, organizations no longer decide how customer-centric their companies are, the customers do. According to the “The Forrester Wave™: Customer Service Solutions For Enterprise, Q4 2015” report, customer service technology investments are one of the top five most focused on investments that companies made in 2015. Why? Because good customer service boosts long-term loyalty. This report identifies the 11 most significant customer service solutions with Pegasystems ranking as a leader. Download this Forrester Wave report and get detailed findings on how well each vendor fulfills Forrester’s criteria and where they stand in relation to other vendor solutions in order to help customer service professionals select the right partner for their customer service initiatives.

Banks are at an inflection point. According to a recent research by Viacom, 1 in every 3 U.S. consumers are open to switching banks in the next 90 days. Financial services companies need to break through the competition to gain customer trust and loyalty. Building a 360° view of the customer can help banks grow customer retention and loyalty, upsell high margin products and provide compelling interactions. However, this is no easy task as complexity increases when retail banks engage their customers across multiple channels and financial products. Gaining visibility into every customer interaction, across your business silos, and with every engagement channel is critical to making the right decisions to deliver amazing customer experiences. This white paper examines the challenges Financial Services Institutions (FSIs) face when building a 360° view of the customer to transform their customer experience and how to overcome them.

Netflix, Intuit and Clear Capital. These 3 innovative companies have one thing in common. They are altering their business landscape and transforming the way people live and work through highly personalized applications. And they're doing this with Apache Cassandra™ and DataStax. Download this white paper and learn why relational technologies failed to meet the demands of Netflix, Mint Bills and Clear Capital and how these enterprises modernize their Web and Mobile applications with DataStax to drive customer engagement, loyalty and lifetime value.

Traditional direct mail campaigns often deliver anemic response rates and direct mail campaigns sweetened with discounts don’t fare much better. Poor results combined with escalating printing and mailing costs and changing consumer expectations means that businesses must find more effective ways to get consumers’ attention.