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The Nightmare before Christmas – UK Retailers jeopardise £5.5 billion in sales through poor customer service

Roberta Galazzo — 2010-07-27T08:25:47Z

Eptica warns: prepare now or pay later

Cambridge – 27th July 2010: UK retailers are risking their share of the £5.5 billion* Christmas sales boom by not being able to effectively handle the seasonal spike in customer service demand, which can increase by as much as 400%. Eptica (www.eptica.com), the leading provider of multichannel customer interaction software, warns that firms failing to ensure their customer service can cope at the most important trading period of the year could see their peak Christmas sales figures reduced by 5% or more.

Leading up to the festive season, contact centres are inundated with customer enquiries often involving large numbers of questions around the same topic. This increasing volume of routine, frequently asked questions (FAQs) can quickly lead to poor or slow service resulting in heightened customer frustration and lost sales at a time that represents 50-70% of a retailers' annual revenue.

Research using Eptica's customer base has shown that by reducing seasonal inbound FAQs and more efficiently responding to customers' enquiries at peak times, retailers can increase sales by an average of 5%. Dee Roche, European Marketing Director at Eptica commented: “We looked at before and after scenarios at 280 organisations across a wide range of sectors and found a similar uplift in sales. This is achieved by businesses using increases in efficiency as an opportunity to redeploy customer service resources to sales conversion activity and on delivering high quality service and advice to help potential purchasers. These benefits can only be realised by diverting low value questions away from customer service agents.”

Retailers can experience four times their normal level of customer enquiries in the build up to Christmas including more than twice the normal volume of inbound emails. For contact centres that handle thousands of calls and emails a day, this increase represents a very significant volume of customer enquiries. A contact centre receiving just 500 calls and 750 emails a month could easily see that number increase to 2,000 calls and 1,500 emails respectively. Without the right systems in place it's impossible to identify which enquiries are potential sales and which are basic FAQs so that they can be filtered, prioritized and handled accordingly. The challenge for retailers is to ensure that enquiries that would result in a sale, if they are handled promptly, aren't lost because agents are tied up dealing with basic questions.

One company in Eptica's study was able to half the number of inbound contacts it received from 6,000 to 3,000 during a peak customer service month, while increasing its sales compared to the same period the previous year. The company also achieved a reduction in the cost of handling each contact, from £6.50 to £1.70, resulting in a customer service saving of nearly £34,000 in a single month. The company achieved this by migrating routine questions online to be answered through Eptica's advanced natural language meaning based customer self-service and email response management software. Both were deployed on a Software as a Service basis and were up and running 5 weeks after the company's decision to go ahead.

With consumers starting their Christmas shopping months in advance the increase in customer enquiries for retailers can gain momentum as early as September. The spike that this creates in customer service continues to build through the January sales season into the end of February. Retailers will continue to face a high volume of post Christmas enquiries in to 2011 as customers contact them on issues such as gift returns and product support, and the cost of handling these can quickly eat in to profits.

There is still time and a variety of measures that retailers can take to ensure they effectively cope with the surge in customer enquiries and make the most of the sales potential of Christmas. Solutions such as Eptica Web Self-Service enables merchants to deflect emails and calls from the contact centre by making information easily available to customers on the retailer's website. The systems dynamic knowledge base expands with each new enquiry enabling a company's website and customer service channels to work together to improve customer engagement, give customers better information, resolve enquiries faster and maximize every sales opportunity.

“The festive season is the busiest time for contact centres as they are inundated with customer enquiries, often around the same topic. Retailers should do everything they can to maximize the positive effect of Christmas and any additional uplift in sales as a result of customers wanting to purchase now to avoid the increase in VAT next year. We strongly recommend retailers take time to review their systems and take action now so that they have ample time to bed in new systems ahead of the Christmas sales surge. ” added Roche.

-Ends-

Notes to editors * UK shoppers have spent £5.46bn online in December 2009, IMRG

Excellence in Multichannel Customer Service Celebrated at Eptica Customer Service Innovation Awards 2010

Zuzana Pankova — 2010-07-12T08:49:25Z

Haven, Republic and Capita recognised for using technology to raise the bar in customer service

Reading – 12 July 2010: UK customer service best practice has been recognised at the Eptica Customer Service Innovation Awards. The winners, including leading UK holiday company Haven and fashion retailer Republic Limited, were announced by Paul Barnes, UK & Eire MD for Eptica, at the company's Annual Customer Summit at The Royal Horseguards Hotel, London.

Eptica (www.eptica.com), the leading provider of multichannel customer interaction software, created the awards to celebrate excellence and innovation in customer service. The awards are won by firms that have achieved outstanding business results and demonstrated a forward thinking approach and strategy in their use of Eptica technology.

‘Further Mile' Award 2010 - Haven

Haven, the leading provider of UK family holidays and short breaks, scooped the Eptica ‘Further Mile' Award 2010 for the significant results the company achieved in managing inbound enquiries to its contact centre through optimising the customer's online experience. Deploying Eptica Self-service and Email Management has enabled Haven to reduce the volume of inbound emails by 46 per cent and cut email handling times by 40 per cent. In just four months, Haven's strategy of diverting routine questions online and redeploying support staff to respond to holiday enquiries has seen the company increase its sales by 5 per cent.

Online Customer Service - Republic

Republic, the leading multi-brand fashion retailer, won the award for Online Customer Service. Republic.co.uk has adopted a self-service approach on its Top 10 Hitwise ecommerce site making the answers to customer questions easily accessible and instantly available online. To date, just 6.7 per cent of customers using Eptica Self-service on Republic's website go on to submit an enquiry by email, thereby dramatically reducing the volume of incoming enquiries needing a response. The website's customer self-service is also seamlessly integrated with Eptica Email Management. The technology accurately analyses the text of an inbound email customer enquiry to provide the customer services agent with the ‘best answer' meaning that Republic's agents have been able to reply to customers faster and more effectively. As a consequence 90 per cent of customers now have their enquiry resolved through their first email contact.

Best Service Improvement Project - Capita

Capita, the UK's leading business process outsourcing and professional services company, won the award for Best Service Improvement Project for the efficiencies and quality of service enhancements it delivered to a major public sector contract. Handling more than 300,000 inbound calls and 20,000+ letters each month against a series of strict Key Performance Indicators, Capita deployed Eptica Contact Assistant to improve the consistency of its customer service. It was also required to increase customer satisfaction, increase first contact resolution rates and reduce operational costs. The centralised knowledge management system achieved this through providing agents with fast access to approved customer service content, enabling Capita to reduce call handling time from 180 to 160 seconds and cut agent training time by 20 per cent. The results are even more impressive when you consider that the project was scoped, implemented and up and running in just six weeks from the initial contract being signed.

Dee Roche, European Marketing Director at Eptica, commented: “With these awards we wanted to champion innovation within customer service and highlight the fantastic work that our customers are undertaking. Customer service is always important, but in an uncertain economic it is absolutely vital and can make or break a firm. Each of the winners has delivered tangible benefits that not only improves their company's bottom-line, but will also make a real difference to the service that their customers experience.”

Eptica's Multi-channel Customer Interaction Management software enables website and customer service channels to work together to improve quality of service, resolve enquiries faster, reduce costs and maximize every sales opportunity.

Eptica is based in the UK, France, Spain and Singapore and operates worldwide through its network of partners. Eptica was awarded the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA in 2009 for the third consecutive year.

Eptica Reduces Haven's Inbound Contact Giving Its Contact Centre A Break Of Its Own

Clare — 2010-05-18T10:53:39Z

Haven Increases Sales 5% and Reduces Inbound Contact 46% with Eptica's Web Customer Service Software

Haven, the leading provider of UK family holidays and short breaks, has opted to deploy Web Customer Service software from Eptica (www.eptica.com), provider of multichannel customer interaction software, as a means of effectively managing inbound contact to its contact centre and optimising the customer's online experience. Subsequently, Haven has reduced the volume of inbound emails by 46 per cent and cut email handling times by 40 per cent. In just four months, Haven's strategy of diverting routine questions online and redeploying support staff to respond to holiday enquiries has increased its sales 5%.

Haven has been one of the most prominent figures in the UK holiday market for the last 40 years and currently has 35 award-winning UK family Holiday Parks nationwide. As a result of more and more consumers wanting to holiday in the UK, Haven has experienced a huge increase in traffic to its website and consequently inbound enquiries to its contact centre.

Haven wanted to offer the best possible guest experience from the first point of contact and as such deployed Eptica's Email Management software at the end of December 2009 and Self-Service in January 2010, with the results from both being immediately evident. Eptica's self-service offers a refreshingly easy to navigate and intuitive customer help experience which answers the majority of customers' routine questions automatically online, to date only 4.8% of Web self-service users escalate to email. From the time Epticas Self-service was implemented through to the end of April 2010, Haven's contact centre received just 12,000 email enquiries compared to 24,000 for the same period the previous year despite, increasing its sales.

By also utilising Eptica's self-learning knowledge base, which automatically analyses the text of inbound emails and offers agents a ‘best response' to answer them, incoming emails are processed more efficiently, cutting response times down from two minutes thirty seconds to just one minute forty seconds.

As a result of the reduced contact and decreased handling times, Haven has been able to redeploy agents from the Internet customer service team into the sales team which has reduced customer service costs and achieved an increase in contact centre conversion of calls to sales by 5%.

Sean Power, Sales Manager at Haven Holidays commented: “Prior to Eptica our agents were handling a high volume of routine, frequently asked questions that were hindering our sales conversions. Due to Eptica successfully answering these questions on our website, we've improved customer experience, reduced inbound emails by 46% and our agents are consequently able to spend more time helping customers pick the best holiday option for them which in turn has increased our sales conversion rates by 5%.”

Haven has 4 core contact centre teams, a dedicated holiday advisor team of over 65 agents, customer care which comprises of 25 agents, guest relations which comprises four agents and finally an internet team that comprises of two and a half agents, down from six last year. Furthermore, during the summer months Haven has traditionally had to increase its number of agents by 10 to 12 per cent to cope with the volume of enquiries, an additional expense they will be able to avoid this year.

Sean continued: “During one of our peak periods last year we were receiving one call or email for every three bookings. Considering we can book up to 15,000 holidays a week, that is a lot of inbound contact to deal with. Using self-service to reduce that by 46 per cent has not only enabled us to dramatically decrease our handling times, it improves the online customer experience. Our customers can now easily find the answer to straightforward questions on our website without always having to make direct contact.”

The importance of reduced handling times and inbound contact can be highlighted further through the fact that during peak times – such as school and bank holidays – 60 per cent of bookings are made less than two weeks before departure, including an average of 350 bookings for next day departure and 300 actually on the day.

Indeed, booking a holiday can at times be a stressful experience but Haven continually strive to ensure that the whole journey, beginning to end, is as smooth and trouble free as possible.

Sean continued: “When we first decided to deploy online customer service, we wanted to create the same customer experience online as that when speaking to an agent and Eptica has seamlessly allowed us to do just this. We did look at a number of options but Eptica's proven technology, approach, delivery and ease of use was unmatched.”

Haven's agents adapted to the software instantaneously. Two of Haven's customer service managers attended a two day supervisors course, hosted by Eptica, before relaying the information to the agents in a half day session. “One agent that couldn't attend even picked up how to use the technology in two hours.” Sean added.

Dee Roche, European Marketing Manager for Eptica, commented: “The purpose of web based customer service software is to improve online customer experience and reduce the strain placed upon contact centres and if it's overly complicated it only serves to do the opposite. Eptica's Web Customer Service software is extremely easy to use, quick to deploy and delivers impressive results immediately.”

Eptica maintains its position as 2009 European market leader

Clare — 2010-04-01T09:16:44Z

April 2010 – Eptica (www.eptica.com), the European provider of multichannel and multilingual customer interaction software, concluded 2009 with a 20% growth in turnover and an increase in consolidated profit of 10%. The company signed an average of three new customers per month throughout the year including leading brands such as Republic, Haven Holidays, Fortis Insurance, Viking Direct, Go Compare and Virgin Holidays.

Eptica was also one of only a few online customer interaction solution providers to feature on the Deloitte Technology Fast500 EMEA 2009 of fastest growing technology companies. Paul Barnes, Managing Director of Eptica UK and Eire, commented: “This is the third consecutive year that Eptica has been ranked in the Deloitte Technology Fast500 and is a result of our continuous 370% growth over the last 6 years.”

Eptica is seeing increased demand for its comprehensive suite of self-learning multichannel customer service software as increased competition and economic factors drive more organisations to improve customer service, reduce costs and increase sales. Eptica's Web Self-service and email management software is proven to reduce inbound customer contact and email handling time by as much as 60%. It can furthermore improve first contact resolution via a company's email channel by more than 90%.

On a global scale, close to 25% of Eptica's turnover came from international territories. Eptica's solution, available in 26 languages including Chinese, was implemented by international companies such as ING Direct and FNAC Italy, Venca Spain and Hong Kong's Health Department. “International turnover has risen quite dramatically in the last 3 years - rising from 5% to 25%.” added Paul.

Eptica also enables European organisations to manage multi language online self-service and email enquiries using a single hosted solution. The technology is ideally suited for companies with inhouse and outsourced customer service operations, across multiple outsourcers and countries, enabling them to manage customer contact using a single, centralised, hosted solution - thus providing improved workflow efficiency, significantly reduced costs and the ability to achieve complete visibility of every enquiry. Companies such as Hotels.com, Pixmania and the global online gaming distributor, Gametap, are amongst those already utilising Eptica's Multi lingual eService solution.

Typically, less than 10% of online customers using Eptica Self-service will go on to submit an enquiry by email, thereby dramatically reducing the volume of incoming enquiries requiring a response. Both Eptica Self-service and Email Management utilise an advanced ‘meaning based' search engine and centralised self-learning knowledgebase. The technology accurately analyses the text of inbound customer enquiries, routes them to the appropriate customer services agent and provides them with the ‘best answer'. Consequently, agents are able to increase productivity and reply to customers quickly, accurately and more effectively.

Eptica's software also enables contact centres to take an active part in controlling inbound enquiries. As agents encounter new questions they can use a ‘one-click' action to flag them as needing an answer to be quickly added to the system's knowledge base and made available to customers via online self-service. This allows a company's Web site and customer service channels to work together to improve customer engagement, give customers better information, resolve enquiries faster and maximise every sales opportunity.

“Poor customer service costs the UK market billions of pounds in lost revenue every year and, especially with recent studies indicating that the UK has one of the lowest levels of customer loyalty in Europe, no business can afford lower its customer satisfaction,” said Paul. “Eptica has a proven track record of dramatically improving customer satisfaction and agent productivity whilst still managing to lower costs. This, coupled with ease of use and quick deployment times has resulted in another extremely successful year for Eptica and, I have no doubt that this will continue in 2010.”

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About Eptica:

Eptica is the leading European multilingual solution for Customer Interaction Management including Web Self-service, Email Management, Chat, Fax-Letter- SMS and Knowledge management for Customer Service. Available on premise or Saas, Eptica software enables website and customer service channels to work together to improve quality of service, resolve enquiries faster, reduce costs and maximize every sales opportunity. Today more than 280 customers, including some of the world's largest, in 14 countries, use Eptica solutions to deliver excellent customer service at much lower cost. Eptica's customers include: Confused.com, Go Compare.com, Fortis Insurance, Hotels.com, La Redoute, Republic, Brent Council, DatingDirect.com, Capita, Société Générale, South East Water, ING and Barclays.

Webinar: Online Customer Service for Retail

Clare — 2010-03-17T10:00:00Z

Presented by: Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK & Eire

Wednesday 17th March 11.00 - 11.30am

REGISTER NOW!

Some of the biggest improvements in ecommerce practices have been in the area of Online Customer Service and improving customer experience. Online retailers are recognising that helping customers to get faster and better service is key to driving more sales, improving customer experience and reducing costs.

This webinar tells the Online Customer Service story of a leading UK fashion retailer and how it has enabled them to:

Deal with their biggest ever Christmas customer service spike without creating a backlog
Reduce inbound contact - only 6.7% of customers that use self-service escalate to email
Improve first contact resolution through its email channel to 90%
Reduce new agent training time by 50%
And how the contact centre is ‘centre stage' in improving online self-service by highlighting the questions that create inbound demand

Find out how through this FREE webinar.

Don't miss it - Join us on Wednesday 17th March at 11.00am.

REGISTER NOW!

Once registered, you will automatically receive a confirmation of your registration and, a few days before the Webinar, you will receive a reminder.

For further information, contact us here »

Republic Manages Largest Ever Christmas Customer Service Peak With Eptica

Clare — 2010-02-24T12:50:02Z

Only 6.7% of Web self-service users send email and email first contact resolution increases to 90%

Republic, the leading multi-brand fashion retailer, has chosen online customer service technology from Eptica, European provider of multichannel customer interaction software (www.eptica.com) to manage increasing demand as a consequence of its record breaking ecommerce growth. Despite coinciding with a Christmas surge in enquiries, Republic's investment in improving online service for its customers has enabled the retailer to provide faster responses and increase First Contact Resolution through its email channel to 90%.

Republic.co.uk has adopted a self-service approach on its Top 10 Hitwise ecommerce site to provide visitors with immediate online answers to their questions. To date, just 6.7% of customers using Eptica Self-service go on to submit an enquiry by email, thereby dramatically reducing the volume of incoming enquiries requiring a response.

The website's customer self-service is seamlessly integrated with Eptica Email Management and both share an advanced ‘meaning based' search engine and centralised self-learning knowledgebase. The technology accurately analyses the text of an inbound email customer enquiry to provide the customer services agent with the ‘best answer'. Consequently, Republic's agents have been able to reply to customers faster and more effectively.

Sharon Biltcliffe, Customer Service Manager at Republic, commented: “We experienced a huge customer service peak in December ‘08 and it became apparent that systems were not going to support business growth. One of the reasons we selected Eptica was the simplicity of the system from a user perspective, once we'd decided to go ahead it was up and running within 5 weeks. The contrast before and after implementing Eptica was extraordinary – we couldn't have handled the Christmas peak this year without it.”

Eptica's software also enables the contact centre to take an active part in controlling inbound enquiries. As agents encounter new questions they can use a ‘one-click' action to flag them as needing an answer to be quickly added to the system's knowledge base and made available to customers via online self-service. Similarly, when the contact centre experiences an influx of questions about the same issue such as delivery times at Christmas, the information can be reprioritised and pushed to the top of self-service pages so that customers can find it faster and therefore not need to email.

Sharon Biltcliffe, Customer Service Manager at Republic, adds: “We also use the system's knowledge base to train new agents which has cut training time by at least half. We can take on temporary staff to help us with busy periods and in a couple of hours they can be ready to handle specific types of questions.”

Since the business launched in 2007, the number of email enquiries received by Republic's customer services team had grown month-on-month. Consequently Republic sought to implement a specialist customer self-service and email management system to increase efficiency and maximise the knowledge available to customers during each first contact.

Dee Roche, European Marketing Director at Eptica, added: “Republic is a high growth, dynamic business and its success could have outstripped its capacity to manage customer interactions on a one-to-one basis. Moreover, this approach is simply no longer necessary as so many customer service enquiries can be managed through a fully-integrated approach to customer self-service. Republic has proven that investing in service delivery through a system that evolves with every interaction will increase both business efficiency and revenue performance.”

**
About Eptica:

Eptica is the leading European multilingual solution for Customer Interaction Management including Web Self-service, Email Management, Chat, Fax-Letter- SMS and Knowledge management for Customer Service. Available on premise or Saas, Eptica software enables website and customer service channels to work together to improve quality of service, resolve enquiries faster, reduce costs and maximize every sales opportunity. Today more than 280 customers, including some of the world's largest, in 14 countries, use Eptica solutions to deliver excellent customer service at much lower cost. Eptica's customers include: Confused.com, Go Compare.com, Fortis Insurance, Hotels.com, La Redoute, Republic, Brent Council, DatingDirect.com, Capita, Société Générale, South East Water, ING and Barclays.

Out with Outlook: In with Painless Email Management!

Clare — 2010-02-10T08:00:00Z

Presented by: Frederick Teo, Regional Manager, Eptica

Wednesday 10th February 4.00PM - 4.30pm (SST Singpore)

REGISTER NOW!

Are you one of the many contact centres still using Outlook or Lotus notes to handle inbound customer email and wishing you had a proper email system? Given how difficult it is to manage even a single personal inbox, it must be a nightmare to manage customer email in this way.

Not sorting out email management is one of those 'painful' false economies. A proper system will literally halve the time it takes to handle inbound enquiries - a 100% gain in efficiency which can be used to reduce costs and improve quality of service.

Using case study examples, this webinar will show just how easy it can be to manage email properly and the features that every contact centre should have. If call volumes are your issue, it's even possible to migrate routine FAQ calls through an email channel for lower cost of service and reduced handling time.

Agenda

Getting the right enquiry to the right agent and ensuring it's answered effectively
Managing email reply content so all agents are providing fast, consistent and accurate answers
Migrating calls to an effective email channel for lower cost of service and reduced handling time
Using email management to build an online customer self-service system and cut inbound contact
Achieving complete workflow control and visibility of agent productivity
Gaining invaluable insight about the issues that create customer demand

Don't miss it - Join us on Wednesday 10th February at 4PM (SST Singpore).

REGISTER NOW!

For further information, please contact:
marketing.en@eptica.com

Or contact us here »

Out with Outlook: In with Painless Email Management!

Clare — 2009-09-30T17:26:01Z

Presented by: Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK & Eire

Thursday 22nd October 11.00 - 11.30am

REGISTER NOW!

Agenda

Don't miss it - Join us on Thursday 22nd October at 11.00am.

REGISTER NOW!

For further information, please contact:
Dee Roche
Telephone: +44(0)7976 815140

Or contact us here »

Gocompare.com invests in customer service and retention with Eptica Email Management

Dee — 2009-09-27T21:35:29Z

22 September 2009 – Online insurance comparison service, Gocompare.com, has implemented Eptica's (www.eptica.com) advanced natural language email management system to improve customer experience and efficiency. Handling in excess of one million insurance quotations per month, Gocompare.com has seen a sharp rise in the number of web visitors and enquiries it receives as consumers look for the best possible deal on insurance. Using Eptica Email Management, the business has improved customer service quality and delivery, and reduced the time it takes to resolve customer questions by nearly half the time.

"“As one of the UK's top three price comparison sites, a vast number of people use Gocompare.com because we help them find the right policy, at the right price; with the features of cover that they are looking for," said Lee Griffin, Business Development Director at Gocompare.com. "With the number of customers using our service constantly growing, we've also experienced an increase in inbound enquiries. To manage this growth, we needed an email management system that would enable us to increase efficiency, whilst maintaining the highest level of service possible. We want customers to know that if they use Gocompare.com and they have any questions, we'll answer them quickly."

The Eptica solution uses powerful natural language semantic search technology, which analyses the text of inbound email enquiries and provides Gocompare.com's customer service agents with the best answer from a dynamic knowledgebase of responses to previous customer questions. This capability allows the business to provide fast, high-quality and accurate replies to customer queries, which reduces the level of repeat enquiries and subsequent customer frustration. The software also provides a full audit trail of all customer enquiries and previous correspondence, giving agents a complete picture of customer issues and making it easy for them to respond to enquiries fully and efficiently at first contact.

The Eptica solution also provides a future-proof strategy for organisations looking to improve multi-channel customer service over the long term. As agents respond to customer emails on a daily basis, they are simultaneously building up a robust knowledgebase of questions and replies – a task that has traditionally proven to be a headache for organisations investing in online self-service. This knowledgebase can then be made searchable online to cut email volumes and give customers faster, more accurate answers through ‘Online Help' and ‘Contact Us' pages.

A key requirement for the Gocompare.com team was the ability to gather information and trends from inbound enquiries so that the company could gain a deeper understanding of the issues that matter most to its customers, and make the changes necessary to improve website usability and boost customer satisfaction. After assessing the various solutions, Gocompare.com chose Eptica for its advanced technology, robust reporting capabilities and ease of use.

Paul Barnes, Managing Director at Eptica. said "With Eptica, Gocompare.com has demonstrated a clear commitment to its customers by prioritising the delivery of a genuinely high level of service. And at times like this, that is of course what keeps customers coming back again and again."

For more information, contact: Dee Roche 0044 07976 815140

Eptica sees first half profits soar

Dee — 2009-09-27T21:25:12Z

EPTICA DEFIES ECONOMIC DOWNTURN WITH RECORD REVENUES IN H1 2009

September 2009 – Eptica, a world-leading provider of multi-channel and multi-language customer interaction solutions, has announced record financial results for the first half of 2009 with revenues up by over 25 percent during the six month period and profitability up by 10 percent. The company signed up more than thirty new clients during the first half of 2009, including household brands such as Virgin Holidays and Go Compare. Eptica expects to maintain this level of growth into the second half of the year, with planned expansions into Southern Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

The current global recession has caused many businesses to re-evaluate how they communicate with both new and existing customers. Eptica's advanced multi-channel applications – which are available in 26 languages – optimise interaction between organisations and their customers, improving the customer experience while at the same time streamlining customer service operations.

"We are in a period of fundamental change, with an increasing number of consumers choosing to interact with organisations online," said Paul Barnes, managing director at Eptica UK and Eire. "Effective customer service is all about making sure customers get the right answers to their queries in a timely fashion, through the channel of their choice. Companies are increasingly acknowledging that customer service is a crucial differentiator – particularly in today's economic climate, where loyalty is weak and churn rates are high. Our numbers for the first half of the year reflect this shift in thinking."

Eptica's multi-channel customer service software increases business efficiency and revenue performance through its unique ability to self-learn from every interaction how best to answer customer queries. Hosted on the premises or on Eptica's SaaS platform, these solutions enable organisations to deliver fast, accurate and consistent responses to customers through all channels including the web, email, phone, fax, letter and SMS.

UK customer wins so far during 2009 include Britannia Hotels, Virgin Holidays, Go Compare, The Postcode Lottery, Office Depot, Viking Direct and Fortis Insurance. Eptica's multi-language capabilities also makes it the solution of choice for an increasing number of international companies, now including ING Direct, Pixmania and Direct Energy.

As part of a phased international expansion plan, Eptica has also announced its first customer in the Asia-Pacific region. In June, by way of recognition within this new territory, Eptica's multichannel suite of customer service solutions received the prestigious ‘Most Innovative Technology' honour in the Asia Pacific Customer Relationship Excellence (APCRE) Awards.

"Eptica has always been at the forefront of online customer service solutions in Europe, and these results not only underscore our leadership in the industry, but also show that more organisations are turning to Eptica as a strategic partner,” continued Barnes. “We are honoured to have our technology recognised by the APCRE Awards, and look forward to helping more organisations in the Asia-Pac region to improve revenue performance by transforming the way they handle customer interaction at reduced cost in the near future."

Fortis Insurance cuts customer enquiry time in half with Eptica Email Management

Dee — 2009-09-27T21:18:38Z

27 July 2009 – Fortis Insurance Solutions (UKFIS), a leading provider of personal lines insurance solutions in the UK, has chosen Eptica's (www.eptica.com) advanced self-learning, natural language, Email Management technology to reduce costs and improve online service and efficiency of its customer and partner communication. In March 2009 UKFIS implemented a phased roll out of the platform, reducing its average customer query handling time by 50 percent, as a result of migrating telephony enquiries from online customers to Eptica's email-based system.

With 250,000 policyholders and over 15 insurance partners, UKFIS is using Eptica Email Management to control multi-channel client contact and staff workload at its headquarters in Stoke-on-Trent. The insurance firm considered customer interaction solutions from several multi-channel solutions providers, before selecting Eptica for its features, ease-of-use, reporting capabilities and overall end-to-end efficiency. In addition to customer facing processes, the company is also using Eptica's technology in-house, streamlining inter-departmental enquiries for its 310 employees.

Since deploying Eptica in March 2009, UKFIS has improved customer interaction across a range of business areas including payment collections, policy renewals and the issuing of duplicate documents. The email management solution has also helped the company deal more efficiently with its insurance partners reducing the amount of unnecessary communication via telephone and post.

"Around 90 percent of our business originates from the web in this highly competitive marketplace and it's absolutely vital that we can efficiently process a large number of customer emails in the shortest possible timeframe to maintain our efficient customer service," said Ray Westwick, head of call centre at UKFIS. "Eptica has dramatically enhanced our customer services operations. Telephone enquiries that previously took up to seven minutes to resolve, now take just half the time via email. In addition, by migrating calls to email we can better distribute and prioritise our workload, enabling agents to deal with urgent enquiries straight away while saving non-urgent requests for off-peak periods."

Eptica's self-learning Email Management software is quick and easy to deploy, helping organisations like UKFIS to immediately improve the speed and quality of their agents' email responses. With an advanced linguistic and natural language semantic search engine, Eptica's technology accurately analyses each inbound customer enquiry from the email text and provides agents with the best response from a self-learning knowledge base of pre-scripted replies. It also provides a future-proof solution for organisations wanting to reduce inbound enquiries by making the Eptica Email Management knowledgebase searchable online via Web Self-service.

With Eptica's Email Management software, UKFIS can create and rollout bespoke web forms and email response content in just a few simple clicks, drastically reducing agent workload, customer resolution times and freeing up telephone lines in the process.

"The aggregator boom has created a real challenge for insurance brokers – customer loyalty has decreased as more consumers turn to the internet in search of the cheapest prices on the market, so today's business is all about being the most cost-effective as well as delivering a high standard of service," continued Westwick. "Eptica helps UKFIS in its strategy to operate the highest quality customer service model at the lowest operating cost, simply through improved management of client contact and staff workload. As a result, we can reward our customers with more competitive pricing in the marketplace."

"The insurance industry has seen a great deal of upheaval during the past five years which has tested organisations' business models to the max," said Paul Barnes, managing director at Eptica. "Customer retention is the number one priority for insurance firms – particularly in the current economic climate – making efficient customer interaction solutions a critical business component."

For more information contact: Dee Roche 0044 07976 815140

Customer Service Strategies for Insurers, Aggregators and Brokers

Clare — 2009-07-09T15:21:04Z

Presented by: Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK & Eire

Tuesday 28th July 11.00 - 11.30am

REGISTER NOW!

The Internet, the economy and the influence of aggregators have created unprecedented change within the Insurance industry. With competition increasing and customer loyalty decreasing, new approaches to customer service are needed to support revenue performance and reduce costs.

While 90% of new insurance business comes through the Internet, the industry is still heavily reliant on dealing with customers by phone due to lack of effective online customer service and email management. In many cases, inefficient processes for managing policy administration increase costs and adversely affect customer retention.

In a competitive marketplace, a low cost operating strategy for service is needed; but customer satisfaction is key. Using case study insight from Fortis, Confused.com and GoCompare, this webinar will explain how to:

Reduce call volumes by answering routine questions online, automatically
Migrate calls to an effective email channel for lower cost of service and reduced handling time
Reduce paper processes involved in insurance sales and policy administration
Create better workstreams so the right enquiry gets to the right people
Manage transactions such as amendments to policies entirely through self-service channels
And importantly, gain invaluable insight about what customers want and the issues that create customer demand

Join us on Tuesday 28th July at 11.00am.

REGISTER NOW!

For further information, please contact:
Dee Roche
Telephone: +44(0)7976 815140

Or contact us here »

Eptica wins ‘Most Innovative Technology' in Asia Pacific Customer Service Excellence Awards

Roberta Galazzo — 2009-06-24T07:27:59Z

22nd June, 2009: Eptica is delighted to win the prestigious APCSC CRE ‘Most Innovative Technology'award for its multi-channel suite of customer service solutions. As a new entrant to the awards, we are impressed with the rigour at which the APCSC evaluated our technology and our business.

Eptica's multi-channel customer service software increases business efficiency and revenue performance through its has a unique ability to self-learn from every interaction how best to answer a customer enquiry. Available on-premise or SaaS, Eptica enables organizations to deliver fast, accurate and consistent responses through all channels including online service, email, phone, fax, letter and SMS. We are very excited at working with organisations in Asia to enable them to deliver excellent customer service at much lower cost.

In the period of fundamental shift of communication channels we are experiencing today, as more and more customers choose to engage with organizations using the internet, the role of a dedicated online service provider is more important than ever.

“Excellent customer service is about ensuring customers get the right answers, when they want them, through the channel of their choice,” said Mr. Olivier Njamfa, President and CEO of the company.

Customers today are increasingly demanding; they often use several channels before making a single purchase. More often than not, the customer journey starts online with them looking for the best products at the best price.

To cater for the varying needs of customers, Eptica provides comprehensive interaction solutions incorporating different channels. The joined-up, consistent approach to multi-channel customer service offered by Eptica helps deliver quality services, raise business efficiency and maximize revenue.

“We aim to help businesses in Asia to improve revenue performance by transforming the way they handle customer interaction,” Njamfa added.

“Eptica solutions provide organizations with an incredible source of insight about what customers want and the issues that create demand, for fast and effective decision-making”.

About Eptica

An award-winning global provider of online customer service software, Eptica offers practical solutions to optimize interactions between customers and organizations, so as to improve both customer experience and business effectiveness. As a result, over 250 companies, including some of the world's largest, use Eptica to deliver excellent customer service at much lower cost.

Eptica clients include: YeeYoo, Expedia, ING, Societe General, Credit Agricole, Hermes, Total, Exon Mobil, Renault, Axa and Barclays.

Optimising Outsourced Email Management: how Hotels.com manage, route, track and answer emails from 32 websites in 9 languages

Dee — 2009-05-06T20:50:40Z

Presented by: Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK & Eire

Wednesday 3rd June 11.00 - 11.30am

Hotels.com, the world's most visited hotel booking site, manages email enquiries in 9 languages using outsourced contact centres in 5 countries. Every inbound enquiry is a potential sale, or a booking question, that needs to be handled accurately and fast.

This web seminar will explain how Hotels.com achieves this using a single, multi-language email management solution integrated across all websites and contacts centres. A strategy which has enabled them to drive operational efficiency, reduce transaction times and improve utilisation of outsourced agents.

But you don't need to operate on the scale of Hotels.com to have the same customer service issues in common. You don't even need to be an International company to benefit from the Hotels.com story.

This web seminar will explain how to

• Enable Outsourced contact centres to improve email response times and quality of service

• Operate effective multi-language email management

Join us if you have any of these challenges:

Do you outsource your contact centre operations and have issues with quality of service or achieving visibility of agent productivity and performance?
Are you a pan-European organisation wanting to successfully integrate multi-channel enquiry handling across European websites and contact centres for maximum efficiency and cost savings?
Have you successfully embraced the online space, and are looking now to Europe to reach new consumers. How are you going to deal with customer service?

If these issues don't affect you, read on ...

What about the number of UK consumers, for whom English isn't their first language? In today's multi-cultural society the ability to offer Web Self-service in languages other than English will make you more accessible and gain you sales from a broader range of customers. Being able to successfully manage online self-service in multiple languages such as Urdu or Polish is easier to manage, than you might think.

Using the case study example of Hotels.com this session will cover:

Treating every online enquiry as a potential sale that needs to be handled accurately and fast
Getting new agents, in new locations, quickly operational and ready to respond to customer enquiries
Routing enquiries effectively to the right multi-language contact centres world-wide even though the combination of multi-lingual agents at your contact centres varies at any one time
Improving first contact resolution and consistency of customer service across pan-European contact centres
Gaining visibility of inbound enquiries, agent utilisation and how effectively agents are responding
Using hosted and outsourced services to set-up customer service in new markets with relative ease and minimum risk.

For further information, please contact: Dee Roche Telephone: +44(0)7976 815140 Or contact us here »

First Contact Resolution: How Successful Contact Centres Get It Right

Dee — 2009-04-06T14:01:18Z

Presented by:
Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK & Eire

Wednesday 29th April 11.00 - 11.30am

This web seminar is for contact centres, outsourcers and heads of customer service and will focus on the key issues facing contact centres today - how to improve service quality and contain costs.

Log in to find out how a leading UK outsourcer reduced both headcount and operating costs by using an agent knowledge base to turn CSRs into ‘star performing' agents.

According to customer satisfaction surveys carried out before the Agent Knowledgebase was deployed, the biggest complaint of customer service had been the lack of agent knowledge. Now 84% of customers who use the service say their experience of dealing with customer service agents exceeds their expectations.

The key themes for this webinar are cost reduction, service quality and agent utilisation. We'll show you how an Agent Knowledgebase is able to:

improve first contact resolution
reduce call handling time
address compliance issues
support a self-funding productivity bonus so agents can earn more
all of this – and deliver an ROI within 6 months.

This case study will cover the results and a simple guide to:

Essential knowledgebase features
How to introduce an Agent Knowledgebase successfully and get agent buy-in
How to manage your knowledgebase day-to-day
How to integrate call tracking and customer interaction history
How to gain visibility of agent productivity and the performance of your contact centre
Making your knowledgebase future proof: how to deploy across other customer service channels

For further information, please contact:
Clare McRobbie
Telephone: +44(0)118 949 7072
Or contact us here

Register Now! Learn How Email Managment Can Cut Call Centre Costs and Sick Days

Roberta Galazzo — 2009-03-13T09:38:21Z

Presented by:
Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK & Eire

Wednesday 25th March 11.00 - 11.30am

When Britannia Hotels invested in new Email Management software it was to streamline its reservation process and automatically convert fax hotel bookings into inbound emails for faster, more accurate processing. The business impact was immediate with a 16% increase in productivity and average handling time cut from 3 minutes to 2.5 minutes for each reservation.

The new system is successfully reducing the Hotel groups' contact centre costs but unexpectedly it is also having a positive effect on agent morale. In the words of Britannia Hotels' Call Centre Manager “We've even seen a drop in sick days and we have a much more focussed team, delivering excellent results. ”

Find out how Britannia Hotels' have used Eptica Email Management to:

Free up valuable management time.
Improve agent morale
Reduce call centre operating costs
Increase agents' earning potential
Reduce sick days amongst call centre staff

For further information, please contact:
Clare McRobbie
Telephone: +44(0)118 949 7072
Or contact us here

33 Britannia Hotels Get Their Fax Right with Eptica

Dee — 2009-03-11T14:30:36Z

11 March 2009: Britannia Hotels, the largest privately owned hotel chain in the UK, has streamlined its reservation process using Eptica's (www.eptica.com) advanced Email Management technology to automatically convert fax hotel bookings into inbound emails for faster, more accurate processing. Eptica, which was rolled out across 33 hotels in December, has already resulted in a 16% increase in productivity and enabled Britannia Hotels to cut the cost of operating its reservation administration.

Hotel bookings received by fax are automatically read and converted into emails by Eptica Email Management then prioritised in the reservation systems' email queue according to the guests' arrival date. Guests arriving at Britannia hotels, regardless of whether they made their booking 10 months or 10 minutes prior to arrival, can be assured that their reservation will be processed. The time taken to process approximately 2,000 daily bookings has been reduced from 3 to 2.5 minutes per reservation.

This year, Britannia Hotels has experienced an increase in bookings. By improving efficiency and cutting the time it takes to process reservations, by around 120 hours a week, Eptica Email Management has resulted in significant operational cost savings for the Group.

Karen Pownall, Call Centre Manager for Britannia Hotels commented: “Eptica has been a win- win investment for us; they have delivered exactly what they specified at the outset of the project. We're a cost conscious organisation and the project fitted into our price bracket, resulting in significant operational cost and service improvements.”

Britannia also reported an increase in staff morale following the Eptica implementation. Karen Pownall explained: “Our administration agents are delighted with Eptica, it is simple to use, easy to maintain and workflow is prioritised. Staff can achieve a greater level of productivity, which is linked to their bonus scheme, increasing their earning potential. We've even seen a drop in sick days and we have a much more focussed team, delivering excellent results. ”

“Eptica has also allowed us to free up valuable management time, which moves managers away from time-consuming administrative tasks to focus on the training and coaching of our team.” Pownall concluded: “Eptica means that all our data is in one place and because it is a hosted solution, we don't have to worry about losing information if we encounter any internal technical problems. We are delighted with the results Eptica has delivered.”

Paul Barnes, Managing Director at Eptica concluded: “We are very pleased to add Britannia to our growing list of travel and tourism clients. The sector has seen an incredible rate of change in recent years due to customers shifting to online channels. Eptica is focussed on providing solutions to maximise efficiency and productivity levels for the customer service challenges that this move creates."

Register Now! Learn How Britannia Hotels Use Email Management to Cut Call Centre Costs and Sick Days

webmaster — 2009-03-02T21:33:40Z

Presented by:
Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK & Eire

Wednesday 25th March 11.00 - 11.30am

The new system is successfully reducing the Hotel groups' contact centre costs but unexpectedly it is also having a positive effect on agent morale. In the words of Britannia Hotel's Call Centre Manager “We've even seen a drop in sick days and we have a much more focussed team, delivering excellent results. ”

Find out how Britannia Hotel's have used Eptica Email Management to:

Free up valuable management time.
Improve agent morale
Reduce call centre operating costs
Increase agents' earning potential
Reduce sick days amongst call centre staff

For further information, please contact:
Tanya Stroud
Telephone: +44(0)118 949 7072
Or contact us here

Online Retailers and Call Centres Reduce Customer Service Costs With Eptica

Clare — 2009-01-27T14:59:27Z

Eptica launch low risk, short commitment business terms for Web Self-service and Email Management

Eptica (www.eptica.com) has today introduced low risk, short commitment business terms for its web self-service and email management solutions, to help organisations achieve tough cost reduction targets in the economic downturn. According to Eptica, delivering an effective strategy for managing online ‘Help' and ‘Contact Us' is fast becoming a critical differentiator for online retailers - many of whom are under pressure to improve sales and customer service with fewer resources.

“Valuable margin and goodwill is eroded when online customers are forced to use other channels to find information. When customers can't find the answers they want on the website, the company risks losing their interest,” comments Dee Roche, European marketing director, Eptica.

“Consumers have infinite choices and will engage with the companies that provide what they want, this includes good service. Companies need to work smart to balance customer satisfaction and cost reduction. New customer service technology needs to provide a fast return on investment, be quick and painless to implement, and offer flexible business terms should the dynamics of the business change,” adds Roche.

Eptica Self-service allows customers who prefer to interact online to find the information they need easily without having to make a phone call or send their questions by email. Around 80% of routine sales and customer service questions can be answered online at the moment of interest - and crucially, it keeps customers on the web site.

Eptica Email Management will typically reduce email handling time by 60% and repeat emails by 25%. Using Eptica, leading insurance aggregator Confused.com, has been able to handle a 135% increase in customer enquiries while reducing the cost of providing service by half. 99% of inbound enquiries at Confused.com are now processed automatically, whereas these were previously dealt with by phone.

Eptica Self-service and Eptica Email Management are available separately or as a fully integrated service and can be up and running within a month. Eptica Self-service is typically deployed to manage online Help and Contact Us and sits in front of email to reduce inbound contact and improve agent utilisation. This frees agents from routine enquiries, allowing them to focus on high value and more complex customer service issues.

Both systems utilise a self-learning knowledgebase of customer service information. Customers can access information by asking questions using everyday language, key words or browsing. Agents' handling emails are automatically provided with the best reply from a set of pre-scripted answers. Telephone agents can also access the system to improve first contact resolution, reduce resolution time and ensure consistency of answers across all channels - an important consideration for organisations that need to meet quality and compliance targets.

For further information you can join an Eptica webinar on Wednesday 11th February at 11.00am. You can register by visiting www.eptica.com.

Eptica Ranked Amongst Fastest Growing Technology Companies on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2008

Clare — 2008-12-09T17:14:45Z

Eptica today announced that it has once again been placed on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2008, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in EMEA. Rankings are based on percentage revenue growth over five years.

This is Eptica's second consecutive appearance in the Fast 500 and shows Eptica as one of only two software companies in the Multichannel and Online Customer Interaction category. Eptica is regarded as demonstrating continuous growth and European dimension, growing by more than 440 percent during this period.

Eptica's CEO, Olivier Njamfa, credits the international deployment of Eptica solutions and the company's growth over the past five years to the steady increase in consumer Internet use, and being able to provide multi-lingual web self-service and email management solutions that can be deployed and managed with ease. He said: "Consumers have become more confident in making online purchases and are demanding more efficient customer service. Eptica has successfully supported organisations wishing to meet these customer expectations, increase sales, attract new customers and cut customer service costs." Njamfa continues: "Our proven success in the UK and France has enabled us to extend our solutions to countries across Europe to support them in their e-commerce growth phase."

"Making the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 is commendable in today's highly competitive technology industry," said Karel Bakkes, partner in charge of Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 EMEA program. "We congratulate Eptica on being one of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in the region."

Technology Fast 500 EMEA selection and qualifications

The Technology Fast 500 list is compiled from Deloitte's EMEA Technology Fast 50 programs, nominations submitted directly to the Fast 500, and public company database research. To qualify for the Fast 500, entrants must have had 2003 operating revenues of at least €50,000 and 2006 operating revenues of at least €800,000.

Entrants must also be public or private companies headquartered in EMEA and must be a “technology company,” defined as a company that owns proprietary technology that contributes to a significant portion of the company's operating revenues; or devotes a significant proportion of revenues to the research and development of technology. Using other companies' technology in a unique way does not qualify.

Eptica Helps Web Sites Avoid EU Fines

Clare — 2008-11-27T10:55:43Z

Companies need to re-evaluate online customer service channels to meet EU directives

Companies with consumer facing websites may need to re-evaluate their existing online service systems in order to provide fast, efficient responses to customer enquiries, warns Eptica (www.eptica.com). Companies who overlook this advice could fall foul of EU e-commerce directives leading to bad publicity, lost sales and fines up to €100,000.

Recent court rulings against companies whose websites failed to comply with EU directives include a low fares airline and a leading German insurance company*. In one case, for not publishing an email address on its website; and the other for failing to provide internet customers with a rapid, effective means of communication as an alternative to submitting their enquiries by email.

These cases demonstrate that companies should act on EU directives for web site customer service, which include using email and web forms as a direct and effective way of communicating with customers, and that online queries should be answered within sixty minutes.

“Understandably, many e-commerce sites don't make email addresses easy to find for fear of opening the floodgates to a deluge of email enquiries, which they cannot manage,” comments Dee Roche, European Marketing Director, Eptica.

“When web self-service systems are used as a front door for online customer enquiries, a significant volume of routine questions can be answered automatically on the website, leaving customers satisfied and the company with fewer emails to deal with,” continued Roche.

Eptica believes the key to improving online customer interaction, without overwhelming customer service teams, is to give consumers the option of obtaining the answers to their questions directly online through web self-service. This provides a speedier first option to submitting an email. Customers that need more help can be automatically routed to a customer service agent by email, phone or chat, based on the nature of their enquiry or customer profile.

Eptica allows multi-channel customer interaction to be managed through a single customer service knowledge base, using workflow to ensure responses are accurate, consistent and timely. Using Eptica Web Self-Service, content is created from agents' email replies to in-bound email queries, these mirror the questions customers are searching for online, thus keeping the knowledge base up-to-date and in tune with customer requirements.

Web self-service reduces routine and repeat enquiries, giving customers the freedom to quickly find information online and leaving contact centre agents with more time to deal with complex requests. By managing in-bound emails more efficiently, repeat emails can be reduced by 25% and email handling time by as much as half. This results in an overall reduction in in-bound contact, including phone calls.

Eptica also enables companies with pan-European operations, such as Hotels.com, to respond to enquiries from their European websites using a single, multi-language customer service knowledgebase and email response management system. This achieves greater efficiencies and speed of response, ensuring each enquiry is routed to an agent with the appropriate language skill. Hotels.com has complete visibility of all online customer enquiries and its entire customer contact operations across Europe.

*http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/s...

Eptica Accelerates Adoption of Online Customer Service in Europe

Clare — 2008-11-25T16:54:18Z

Eptica to Help Spanish Ebusinesses Cut Costs and Turn Online Visitors into Shoppers

Eptica, (www.eptica.com) Europe's fastest growing provider of multi- channel customer interaction software, has launched its intelligent web self-service and email management solutions to the Spanish market to enable ebusinesses to improve online service and cut customer service costs. Spain is experiencing rapid growth in e-commerce; echoing the trends already seen in the UK and France. Eptica will enable businesses to manage the predicted escalation in the number of inbound phone calls and emails they are set to receive - and maximise every opportunity to increase online sales.

FNAC, the second most visited website and one of Eptica's first customers in Spain, is using Eptica Email Management® to improve online service. FNAC sells CDs, books, DVDs and computer accessories in stores throughout Europe and online and receives 600,000 visitors to its website every day. Its Spanish contact centre is able to handle emails more efficiently to the extent that response times have halved. “We can now handle twice as many emails with the same number of agents,” said Carmen Sorbrecueva, Head of Customer Services at FNAC.es

Olivier Njamfa, CEO of Eptica commented: “As Spanish consumers become more confident making online purchases, they will also demand high quality, efficient online customer service. Organisations wishing to meet customer expectations, increase online conversions and attract new customers will need to have the right systems in place.”

Eptica Self Service® uses a powerful semantic search engine and dynamic knowledge database of product and customer service information to give customers the power to quickly find the answers to their questions online. This significantly reduces the number of inbound emails received by the contact centre by approximately 80%, leaving agents with more time to focus on complex or high-value enquiries. Customers requiring further assistance can escalate their enquiry by phone, email or chat.

Eptica Email Management® automatically provides agents with the right answer from a knowledgebase of email templates along with a history of each interaction with the customer. Agents can edit templates to suit specific enquiries in order to personalise and improve the quality of their replies. This in turn increases first contact resolution and reduces repeat emails. The process of answering customer enquiries is also used to automatically create web self-service content. Companies using Eptica Email Management typically cut repeat emails by 25% and email handling time by half.

Olivier Njamfa concluded: “Eptica has delivered world-class online customer service solutions for over ten years. In this time we have supported the development of e-commerce throughout much of Europe. Eptica is very well qualified to help Spain's e-commerce operators accelerate their online business.”

Eptica appoints Dee Roche as European Marketing Director

Clare — 2008-11-10T07:00:00Z

Eptica (www.eptica.com) the leading provider of multi-channel customer interaction software and specialist in web self-service and email management has appointed Dee Roche as marketing director for Europe. Despite the current economic climate Eptica has experienced accelerated growth within its core UK and French markets, with companies such as Confused.com, ING and Hotels.com adopting Eptica technology to increase first contact resolution, improve online service and increase online sales.

The appointment of Dee Roche will support Eptica's drive into new European markets. Roche has a reputation as an opinion leader on best practice online customer service and brings a deep understanding of multi-channel e-commerce.

“By using Eptica technology, organisations are able to integrate customer interaction across their entire web and contact centre customer service channels: Using a single centralised knowledge base and workflow to manage online self-service and email enquiries, end-to-end, even when customers cross from one channel to another,” explains Roche.

“Crucially, contact centres can take advantage of technology normally utilised by advanced search and web self-service systems. This means that contact centres can take charge of reducing web generated emails and migrate easily to online self-service in the future - simply by making the systems knowledge base accessible and searchable online.” concludes Roche.

Eptica believes that contact centres are best placed to drive the content for web self-service. Customer service agents are on the frontline, dealing with customers - they know what questions customers need answers for. Every interaction with the Eptica knowledge base enhances the quality and relevance of content: including agents answering phone calls, handling chat sessions, answering emails and searches made on the knowledge base. It's only a one click action on the part of agents to highlight questions needing content.

Improving the quality of customer service information delivered across all channels reduces cost and enables customer service to run more efficiently - customers do not need to send repeat emails, or make multiple phone calls, when they get a complete first time resolution to their enquiry.

Olivier Njamfa, CEO at Eptica concludes: “Dee has cultivated a vast amount of experience and will play a crucial role in driving awareness of Eptica's customer interaction solutions, services and expertise across Europe. We are bringing together the best people and technology to ensure that both Eptica and our customers are distinguished for delivering efficient high quality service.”

Eptica Online Customer Service Webinar - Automation That Customers Actually Want!

Roberta Galazzo — 2008-10-10T09:59:13Z

- Events

Confused.com implements email system

Clare — 2008-09-24T11:03:00Z

Confused.com Clear About The Benefits Of Using Eptica Email Management

Clare — 2008-09-18T07:30:00Z

Confused.com boosts email marketing strategy

Clare — 2008-09-17T07:44:00Z

Confused.com has implemented new intelligent email management software from Eptica

Clare — 2008-09-12T11:07:00Z

Confused.com automates email handling

Clare — 2008-09-10T07:30:00Z

Confused.com automates email handling

Clare — 2008-09-10T07:30:00Z

Confused.com sets gold standard for email

Clare — 2008-09-10T07:28:00Z

Confused.com clear about the benefits of using Eptica email management

Clare — 2008-09-10T07:22:00Z

Confused.com Clear About The Benefits Of Using Eptica Email Management

Clare — 2008-09-10T07:11:00Z

Confused.com sets gold standard for email: Eptica Email Management improves email efficiency and handling times

Clare — 2008-09-09T12:15:55Z

As part of its drive to lead on customer service, Confused.com, the UK's leading insurance comparison website, has implemented new intelligent email management software from Eptica (www.eptica.com). The system uses advanced semantic processing to manage customer email interaction and improve the quality and efficiency of email replies. To date, repeat inbound emails have reduced by 25% and average email handling time by more than 60%. As a result, customers emailing Confused.com can now receive quicker answers to their email queries, improving service delivery.

Confused.com has seen a dramatic increase in visitors to its website - which handled approximately 13 million insurance quotation searches last year. With these numbers set to rise in 2008, the company needed a robust but easy-to-use, best practice email system that would provide complete visibility to all enquiries. Confused.com selected Eptica Email Management following a rigorous tender process.

David Williams, IT Director at Confused.com commented on the selection: “Online conversion ratios and customer experience are critical elements for Confused.com, and ones which we are constantly looking to enhance. We were particularly impressed that Eptica's email system uses advanced search technology and a dynamic knowledgebase to manage email reply content: the core ingredients of a self-service system.”

He continued: “Our agents are at the customer frontline and are best placed to capture information about what customers want and therefore drive the content for online service. We plan to make the knowledge base available to customers on our Web site so they can find answers to the majority of their questions, without having to email us at all. Because online service and email management will be completely integrated we expect to gain both on improved customer experience and efficiency.”

During peak times and promotional periods, inbound emails can increase by up to 50% for Confused.com. Despite the increase in volume, Eptica Email Management has enabled Confused.com to maintain their high service levels, whilst improving efficiency. Agents can now easily edit standard replies, personalise responses and add further information and attachments as required.

Comprehensive and easy to use reporting is proving invaluable to Confused.com, providing complete visibility to queries. The contact centre can now run reports to see what questions customers are asking and which standard email reply templates are being used in response (approximately 60 templates are in use at present). Analysis can be carried out to reveal the peaks and troughs in activity by day, time and particular queue. Customer queries can be further analysed by drilling down to number and type, then individually, to view specific queries. The contact centre is now feeding this information about what customers want, back into the business on a daily basis. In this way, the contact centre is playing a key role in providing information about customer requirements; this data is also being fed into a major website redesign.

Confused.com has been able to make use of comprehensive management information and compliance features to ensure full track and traceability of every enquiry. A full audit trail of customers' enquiries, including previous correspondence, gives agents a complete picture of customers' issues, making it easy for them to resolve enquiries efficiently. Automatic spell checks ensure accuracy and agents have the ability to attach additional notes to enquiries which are pending further investigation or require additional information from insurance providers.

Paul Barnes, Managing Director at Eptica concluded: “With so many consumers using comparison Web sites, it's vital to provide good information and respond efficiently to customers' questions. As the market leader, Confused.com's investment in customer service will enhance the web site's position as a fantastic resource for consumers looking to find the right insurance product”.

About Eptica

Eptica is the leading European provider of multi-channel customer interaction software and is ranked on the 2007 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA.

Thanks to its in-house or on-demand SaaS solutions, Eptica allows more than 200 companies to deliver consistent, managed service across all channels (web, email, chat, fax, letter and SMS). These web based applications enable dramatically improved customer experience and business effectiveness.

Eptica has many clients, including: Fnac (FR), La Redoute (FR & UK), Crédit Agricole (FR), Maaf (FR), Insee (FR), Transport For London (UK), Edition Atlas (Switzerland), Hotels.com (UK & Spain), Verbaudet (FR & Germany), Skynet (BE), Proxi (BE), etc.

Eptica has offices in the UK and France and operates worldwide through its network of partners. For more information please visit: www.eptica.com.

South East Water chooses Eptica to manage online customer service and meet industry regulations

Clare — 2008-08-25T07:30:00Z

South East Water deploys email management

Clare — 2008-08-20T06:55:00Z

South East Water Chooses Eptica To Manage Online Customer Service

Clare — 2008-08-19T07:30:00Z

South East Water implements online customer service programme with Eptica

Clare — 2008-08-18T11:00:00Z

South East Water upgrades to manage email surge

Clare — 2008-08-18T07:30:00Z

South East Water implements online customer service programme with Eptica

Clare — 2008-08-18T07:30:00Z

South East Water upgrades to manage email surge

Clare — 2008-08-18T07:30:00Z

South East Water chooses Eptica to manage online customer service and meet industry regulations

Clare — 2008-08-15T07:00:00Z

Eptica delivers improved online customer service and manages five fold increase in in-bound emails at South East Waters' new in-house contact centre

South East Water has successfully completed the first phase of an online customer service programme with Eptica www.eptica.com. The Eptica Email Management® implementation will ensure that the five-fold increase in in-bound customer email enquiries is efficiently managed and routed to appropriate agents. Eptica will give South East Water complete visibility to agent activity and provide customers with improved levels of service by means of speedier and more proficient responses. Investing in Eptica has already enabled South East water to meet industry standard response times* and increased agent productivity levels by 9.7%

South East Water has 2.1 million customers in the South East of England, supplying over 565 million litres of drinking water per day. The company currently manages customer service operations through an outsourced contact centre which employs 100 FTEs. In February 2006, South East Water issued new billing literature to customers which featured a customer service email address prominently on the front of customer bills. In-bound email traffic rose from approximately 80 enquiries per week to 80 per day. South East Water now deals with approximately 28,000 in-bound emails each year.

Dr Howard Handley, Head of Customer Services, South East Water commented: “Our previous system for managing email only allowed one employee to log in at any one time. As we were only processing approximately 80 to 100 in-bound email enquiries each week, this was suitable for our needs at that time”. He continued: “When this figure suddenly escalated it became immediately clear that the system would not be able to cope. It would also be impossible for us to sustain our Ofwat response targets.”

South East Water selected Eptica Email Management based on its proven capabilities to standardise customer service levels company-wide, saving agent time with auto response templates and providing the company with automated reporting facilities and complete visibility. The deployment of phase 1 of the project was speedy due to the hosted ASP version of Eptica which South East Water selected.

At South East Water emails are now dealt with quickly and efficiently. Branding and messaging are consistent and emails are sent out in HTML format with embedded unique customer reference numbers for tracking. Twenty-six templates, created by managers, are in use and these can be added to and improved upon, at any stage. Managers can now see, at the touch of a button, average response times and individual performance statistics. Reporting can also be performed against the number of emails delivered, answered and waiting and also by category, for example, complaints, change of occupier etc. Pass-to rates, customer history, age and number of outstanding contacts can also be viewed.

Dr Handley noted: “The most significant benefits we have seen to date have been the visibility to all customer emails. We now have much better categorisation of enquiries, which allows us to respond to the customer more efficiently. Being able to report on activity and know that we are meeting regulatory standards is invaluable to us.” He finishes: “With Eptica, we are now working towards reducing the time to respond to customers even further.”

South East Water has to date, implemented Eptica Email Management for use with South East Water's customer base, prior to the merger with Mid Kent Water, this involves approximately 1.4 million customers. There are currently 10 agents using Eptica in the South East Water correspondence team. The remaining customers will be included during phase two of the project, which involves bringing the contact centre in house. This will bring the total Eptica user licenses to 20.

Paul Barnes, Managing Director Eptica UK and Ireland concluded: "Delivering excellent customer service in the utility sector is increasingly challenging and the recent shift to online channels is a major factor within this. South East Water has embraced this issue and we look forward to working with them to deliver significant benefits to both their customers and their business.”

*Ofwat Customer Charter states: Reply to 95% of written enquiries (letters and emails) within 10 working days, unless a question is particularly complicated. Complaints, disputes and appeals - respond to 80% enquiries within 10 working days.

Source and for further information visit: www.ofwat.gov.uk

About Eptica

Eptica is the leading European provider of multi-channel customer interaction software and is ranked on the 2007 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA.

Eptica has offices in the UK and France and operates worldwide through its network of partners. For more information please visit: www.eptica.com.

For Eptica press information, contact:

jd marketing
Kate Smyth
kates@jdmarketing.co.uk
T:+ 44(0) 20 8297 5388

Eptica:
Clare McRobbie
mcrobbie@eptica.com
+44 (0)118 949 7072

Visit Eptica on Stand E5 at callcentre EXPO 2008!

Clare — 2008-07-22T11:41:57Z

Eptica Online Customer Service Webinar - Optimising Online Customer Service - The Importance of First Contact Resolution

Clare — 2008-07-17T10:28:35Z

- Events

Eptica launches Eptica Express

Clare — 2008-06-27T12:03:00Z

Eptica launches Eptica Express™: the first Email Management Solution dedicated to SMEs

Clare — 2008-06-27T07:00:00Z

Eptica, the European leader in web self-service and email management has launched Eptica Express™, an email management solution dedicated to SMEs.

Eptica Express optimises inbound email management and improves customer service quality levels through the centralisation of emails into one single efficient queue, displaying queries according to competence level or query type. Eptica Express is an on-demand solution that requires only a simple internet connection, no hardware investment and is 100% compatible with existing systems.

Although 80% of Eptica's customer base is made up of larger enterprises, Eptica understood that SMEs were also experiencing huge increases in online requests due to the rise in the internet as a communication channel between a business and its customers. Eptica Express was developed as a tool to equal those used by larger Eptica customers, but with the price and functionality adapted to the needs of the SME. The absence of any specific solution addressing these business needs for the smaller enterprise, gave Eptica impetus to develop Eptica Express.

The solution allows SMEs to manage customers enquiries promptly and efficiently. It provides a choice of template responses organised in a knowledge tree structure and a detailed customer history with 100% tracking of all enquiries. Real-time or deferred reports on volumes, productivity, query topics and most frequently used responses are also available.

Paul Barnes, managing director Eptica UK and Ireland commented: “Today, it is not enough of a differentiator for small businesses to simply have good products and competitive prices. They must also be reactive and maintain exemplary customer service.” Barnes continued: “Eptica's acquired experience in email management for larger enterprises, together with the evolution of the internet market, naturally led us to develop a solution dedicated to SMEs".

For Eptica press information, contact:

jd marketing
Kate Smyth
kates@jdmarketing.co.uk
T:+ 44(0) 20 8297 5388

Eptica:
Clare McRobbie
mcrobbie@eptica.com
+44 (0)118 949 7072 or +44 (0)7769 978351

About Eptica Eptica is the leading European provider of multi-channel customer interaction software and is ranked on the 2007 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA.

Eptica has offices in the UK and France and operates worldwide through its network of partners. For more information please visit: www.eptica.com.

Eptica enables marketing and customer service collaboration at DatingDirect.com

Clare — 2008-06-03T12:10:01Z

Online Customer Service specialist Eptica has completed a programme with the UK's largest online dating service DatingDirect.com, to implement an online customer request handling system. The Eptica solution not only provides the customer services team with a multilingual, automatic email routing solution; but gives DatingDirect.com's marketing team visibility to customer comments through real-time reporting functionality. This enables the team to monitor customer feedback on new initiatives and changes to the site, giving them the capacity to react accordingly. The synchronisation of the marketing and customer service departments provides DatingDirect.com's customers with rapid responses to their enquiries and a greater level of online service.

When the company launched DatingDirect.com on a new platform in 2007, it was essential for the teams to monitor customer reaction by accessing in-bound comments as they were being posted. Eptica gave DatingDirect.com real-time visibility to monitor the volume and the nature of inbound emails just a few minutes after the platform migration began, allowing the teams to address any technical issues rapidly, some within 30 minutes.

With more than 3.5 million members, DatingDirect.com continuously strives to improve service levels. Johan Lebail, Global Customer Care Director commented: “With constant updates and new initiatives being added to DatingDirect.com, Eptica's reporting function has given us an invaluable tool to gauge the popularity of each additional feature, or marketing initiative, as soon as it has been implemented". He continued: “In addition the solution has enabled us to reduce our customer response times, whilst simultaneously increasing our staff productivity by 40%.”

Paul Barnes Managing Director at Eptica UK commented: “Positive customer experience has been central to DatingDirect.com's success. The company has effectively demonstrated how bridging the gap between marketing and customer services provides a rich information source gathered by one department, which can be used to enhance the other”. He concluded: “By managing online customer interactions more effectively, Eptica can assist businesses in providing customers with enhanced online experiences and provide organisations with more efficient, flexible and powerful customer contact operations.”

For Eptica press information, contact:

jd marketing
Kate Smyth
kates@jdmarketing.co.uk
T:+ 44(0) 20 8297 5388

Eptica:
Clare McRobbie
mcrobbie@eptica.com
+44 (0)118 949 7072 or +44 (0)7769 978351

About Dating Direct DatingDirect.com first went online in 1999, and is now the UK's largest dating website with more than 3.5 million members, each of whom has a detailed personal profile on the website. For more information please visit: www.datingdirect.com.

About Eptica Eptica is the leading European provider of multi-channel customer interaction software and is ranked on the 2007 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA.

Eptica has offices in the UK and France and operates worldwide through its network of partners. For more information please visit: www.eptica.com.

Eptica Enables Marketing and Customer Service Collaboration at DatingDirect.com

Clare — 2008-05-21T08:00:00Z

Eptica Enables Marketing and Customer Service Collaboration at DatingDirect.com

Clare — 2008-05-21T08:00:00Z

Eptica Enables Marketing and Customer Service Collaboration at DatingDirect.com

Clare — 2008-05-17T08:00:00Z