Customer Service

Ace Hardware, the world's largest hardware cooperative, has launched Hey ARMA, an artificial intelligence-powered assistant designed to support its nationwide in-store associates with real-time information and guidance. Operated through a handheld device, Hey ARMA provides associates with quick access to product knowledge, project advice, and recommendations, helping them to focus on solving customer problems and…

Retailers have spent the last decade racing toward speed. Faster checkouts. Faster deliveries. Automated personalization. Shoppers want it, and retailers have been more than happy to oblige. For years, that speed helped build loyalty. Brands could keep up with consumer expectations while rewarding customers with convenience they could count on. But it’s no longer enough:…

Retailers have spent the past several years optimizing for speed. Faster chat response times. Faster email acknowledgments. Faster automation, especially during holiday periods or major sales events. Yet many customer experience leaders have noticed a disconnect: service feels faster, but satisfaction isn’t meaningfully improving. In some cases, customers must reach out multiple times to get…

Retailers are operating in an increasingly unforgiving environment. Shoppers expect fast, personalized, and consistent service, while retail organizations are stretched thin by staffing shortages, rising costs, and ongoing supply chain volatility. In an on-demand culture, even minor service breakdowns — an unanswered question, a long wait, an out-of-stock item — can cause today’s transactional shopper…

Inflation eased in 2025, but cost pressure for e-commerce sellers remained high. Acquisition costs climbed, margins stayed tight, and growth became harder to earn. That makes one thing clear: sellers cannot afford to lose the customers acquired during the holiday shopping season. In 2026, retention is the growth strategy. Retaining holiday customers is often overlooked…

If technology matures at a pace closer to dog years than human, then we’ve already witnessed a century of conversational intelligence since Siri first appeared on our iPhones 15 years ago. As ChatGPT and a constellation of other large language models (LLMs) continue to evolve at an exponential speed and scale, legacy interactive voice response…

When import thresholds shifted this summer, enterprise retailers faced sudden operational disruptions. Packages that previously entered the country duty-free began incurring tariffs and extra fees, leading to shipment delays, canceled orders, and frustrated customers. For large customer service teams, these changes meant responding to a surge of inquiries while maintaining accuracy, clarity and empathy. Events…

In retail, customer experience drives loyalty, yet most organizations cannot pinpoint a single person responsible for it. According to Forrester, many companies admit they lack a clear CX owner. Instead, marketing, IT, digital, and operations each manage their own slice of the customer journey. For example, chatbots fall under digital communications, phone support under operations,…

Your best customer has a question at 10 PM on a Saturday. They need to know if that jacket runs small before they buy. They wait for a response, but nothing comes. So they close the tab and order from someone else. This happens every day. HubSpot's 2024 State of Service report found that 63…

Every brand dreads the same call. A product defect appears, and within hours the situation starts to spiral. Contact centers fill with calls. Warehouses fill with returns. Customers grow anxious and regulators demand answers. In just a few days, what began as a small issue can turn into a full operational storm. Recalls have always…