Customer Service

RFID has been a highly touted technology in recent years, but concerns about high costs and actual benefits have hindered its adoption. That's gradually changing as developers and vendors focus on systems design, development and interoperability of specific applications in the public and private sec...

Customers who shop online at Walmart.com may soon have no way to speak with a live person over the phone to ask questions. Thanks to a new "Customer Contact Reduction" program, the retailer by next week will remove its toll-free customer service support number, according to a Tuesday report in the N...

The familiar adage that the consumer is always right has taken on a new meaning in the Internet age. Rather than talk with a store manager, consumers are now making their feelings about different products known on message boards and blogs. "Many companies tried to ignore the online forums, but most ...

Bank of America has quietly raised ATM fees it charges noncustomers to $3. The bank has more than 16,000 national branch location machines; of these, some 6,000 are located in such public places as malls, movie theaters and stadiums. Fees to use these ATMs will remain $2. The bank raised its fee to ...

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs abruptly announced that the company was cutting the price for the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, he appeared to be a bit dismissive of the product's early adopters -- many of whom stood in line for hours to acquire the coveted gadget. Some 24 hours later, though, he was tryi...

As people head off to enjoy the last holiday weekend of the summer, few are thinking about the next stretch of holidays ahead: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah and New Year's. Rest assured, though -- retailers are giving the matter plenty of consideration. Labor Day weekend signals the start of the ...

Google may be No. 1 in terms of overall usage of its search engines. However, it appears to be falling short in one very important, non-tech metric: customer satisfaction. For the first time, Yahoo has overtaken Google to claim the top spot in this area, according to the University of Michigan's Ame...

Opposing tensions are much in evidence in the legal wrangle over individual privacy rights and security in the digital environment. The dizzying pace of technological innovation continues as individuals and organizations public and private struggle to come to grips with its implications and ramifica...

Some 9.1 percent of families in the U.S. do not have a deposit account of any type, according to a recent household survey from the Federal Reserve. This market segment lives check to check and typically avoids opening bank accounts because of a lack of funds combined with a deep distrust of banks.

While wireless carriers are shuddering in the face of the iPhone's launch, Sprint Nextel has sent letters to some of its more demanding customers telling them, in effect, "you're fired." The number of customers let go is unknown, according to press reports, and Sprint did not return calls for commen...

Ten years ago Joe Pine defined customer experience in "The Experience Economy" and as is typical for big ideas, it took several years for it to ferment and bubble up to the mainstream. During that time, it's been amazing to see how we've turned customer experience into something different from what ...

ATG has introduced a service center application for its e-commerce suite, ATG Commerce, that builds on some of the company's previous acquisitions. The Commerce Service Center contact center application integrates e-commerce functionality with back-end order administration, sales support and custome...

Next year, when taxpayers call the IRS for help answering questions as they fill out a return, they will know how many minutes they will have to wait on hold before they can speak with an agent. Earlier this year, constituents may not have known how long they would be holding, but some may have noti...

The saga of the $54 million lawsuit against a Washington, D.C.-area dry cleaners over a missing pair of pants has come to an end, with Washington Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruling that the plaintiff, Roy Pearson, had not proven the store had lost the pants. Now, Pearson, an administrative ...

In an effort to gain a competitive edge in the market, companies are implementing customer self-service solutions to address two distinctly separate business challenges -- improving the customer experience and cost reduction. While the cost-related benefits of self-service are widely understood, and...