GBS WORLD NEWS | WEEK 1 | NOVEMBER 2022

The UK customer experience (CX) market was rattled by the news that Deliveroo, a delivery company, was rated as the most disliked brand in the country, with 33% negative reviews, according to a Trustpilot report. Rudeness and dishonesty were some of the keywords describing Deliveroo’s contact center agents. To determine the rankings, review data on the UK’s top brands were collected from Trustpilot, where the percentage of negative reviews was calculated.

Following this news, 60% of customer service managers in the US and UK say it’s going to be “the toughest winter yet”. This is due to a decrease in customer willingness to buy and repeat purchase and a drop in retention rates as a result of the potential recession. The report was conducted by gig customer experience (GigCX) platform, Limitless, and surveyed 250 customer service leaders in the US and UK to ascertain whether the industry had reached a ‘tipping point’ amidst fears of a recession.

Epicor, a global leader in industry-specific enterprise software, has established a presence in Canada, where it acquired Toronto-based managed IT services provider, Evron Computer Systems. The acquisition of Evron’s dedicated Epicor consulting practice and CX software expands the company’s ability to help customers optimize business operations and drive growth.

South African business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, Rewardsco, has opened a third BPO center in its Umhlanga campus to cater for the company’s expansion into the UK, North American and Australian source markets. The expansion will create 600 job opportunities, with 600 more in the near future. Despite global economic disruptions, Rewardsco has doubled in size over the past two years and is projected to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25% over the next five years.

A leading American provider of omnichannel product content solutions, 1worldsync, has strengthened its CX team by adding Dan Parris as Director of Production to lead its content production teams. Parris has extensive experience in data, content, insights and technology. In his most recent role, he successfully led teams to adopt agile work practices which enabled clients to make better decisions more quickly.

New appointments were also made in the APAC region, where Alorica announced two new hires, including Mireille Magallona as Regional President for Asia-Pacific (APAC) Operations and Sanjay Ponnappa as Regional President overseeing India. Magallona and Ponnappa, both with significant experience in digital customer service, will lead Alorica’s Asian division to provide improved global support for clients and customers.

In general news, providing omnichannel experiences and leveraging big data and analysis are two of five ways in which telecom operators can improve their CX, according to a TelecomReseller article. The fact that nearly 60% of customers sidestep IVR indicates that telecom operators need to customize customer journeys to boost CX. Being proactive with unhappy customers and understanding client segments were also noted as vital approaches to improving CX among telecom operators.