Forget the app, get people! The use of social media and mobile apps for customer service has doubled since 2011, but according to NICE's Global Customer Experience Survey, the majority of customers – 88 per cent – still prefer a live service rep over the phone to resolve their issue quickly. In fact, 66 per cent of respondents rated interaction with a live person on phone as the most satisfactory way to resolve an issue, while a solid 44 per cent rated a personal visit by a company rep as their preferred solution. Only 1 per cent said they preferred interactions on social media! Time to rethink social media strategies?

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Recession is the mother of enterprise In 2014, one in five working age individuals in the UK were either running their own business, were actively trying to start one or intended to start in three years, making the UK the entrepreneurship capital of Europe. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report, this growth in early-stage entrepreneurial activity in the UK is mainly because more men, especially those aged between 50 and 64 years old — impacted by the economic downturn — are taking the first steps to running their own businesses.

WORK LIFE

Everybody needs more sleep!

Flexible work hours, and work-anywhere enablers like smartphones are actually robbing working people of their sleep, impacting productivity and eroding work-life balance, says a study by Nancy Rothbard and Steffanie Wilk of the Universities of Pennsylvania and Ohio State. Start-of-workday mood – often set by sleep quality and adequacy – serves as an “affective prime” relating to how employees see work events, feel subsequent to events, and how this felt effect relates to objective performance.

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