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American Express Recognized for Seamless Customer Experience Using Multiple Channels
TORONTO, March 14, 2016 /CNW/ - American Express Canada has been recognized for its world-class service, winning the Service Quality Award of Excellence for its omni-channel best practices. The award acknowledges the seamless experience American Express customers have using multiple contact channels.
"At American Express, our customers will always be at the cornerstone of everything we do," says Ross Dudek, Vice President of World Service at American Express Canada. "We are honoured to be recognized for this Award, which demonstrates our commitment to ensuring each Cardmember and customer receives a tailored customer service experience and feels valued no matter how they choose to interact with us."
The findings were released recently as part of an annual effort by Service Quality Measurement (SQM), an industry-focused research firm that tracks, benchmarks and recognizes over 450 leading North American call centres on an annual basis. Since 1998, SQM has been giving out Awards of Excellence after conducting over one million surveys with customers who have contacted a customer call centre.
"What sets American Express apart from the rest is the ability to bridge the gap we typically see in customer reported satisfaction when they have to use multiple channels to resolve their inquiry," says Nader Ghattas, Vice President of Consulting at SQM. "Normally, there is a considerable impact to satisfaction when a customer uses multiple channels to resolve the same issue or problem. This is something we don't see with American Express, which speaks to a seamless, consistent customer experience."
American Express takes a novel approach to customer care, empowering employees with a service ethos, Relationship CareSM. This service ethos is the overall strategy to deepen customer relationships by providing tailored information and service that reinforces the value of products and services for individual customers and to resolve inquiries upon first contact, regardless of channel.
One of the ways American Express Canada gauges the level of customer care is through 'Recommend to a Friend' feedback from customer surveys, which not only measures general satisfaction, but also how likely it is that a customer would endorse American Express products and services to the people who matter most to them.
"We continue to strive to raise the bar for ourselves," says Dudek. "Our vision at American Express is to be recognized as the world's most respected service brand. And every day – through every call, every email, and every solution to a problem through any channel – we strive to be leaders in this space."
About American Express Canada
American Express in Canada operates as Amex Bank of Canada and Amex Canada Inc. Both are wholly owned subsidiaries of the New York based American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc., the largest operating unit of the American Express Company. Amex Bank of Canada is the issuer of American Express charge and credit cards, with outstanding products like The SimplyCash™ Card from American Express®, The American Express® Gold Rewards Card, and the American Express® AIR MILES®* Credit Card. American Express opened its first offices in Toronto and Hamilton in 1853. For more information, visit AmericanExpress.ca or connect with us at Facebook.com/AmericanExpressCanada and YouTube.com/AmericanExpressCAD.
About SQM Group
Service Quality Measurement (SQM) Group is a specialist firm for assisting organizations in using voice of the customer (VoC) research data to measure and improve contact channel customer experience, operating costs and retention. Since 1996, SQM's customer survey research and best practices consulting services have helped clients improve their contact center first contact resolution (FCR) and one contact resolution (OCR) performance. In fact, SQM enjoys a 95% retention rate with over 70% of our contact center tracking clients improving their contact channel FCR, OCR, and operating costs year over year. For the average contact center SQM benchmarks, a 1% improvement in their FCR performance equals $256,000 in annual operational savings. SQM benchmarks over 500 leading international contact centers on an annual basis in 15 countries around the globe.
SQM also benchmarks and tracks all the major contact channels (i.e., website, call center, IVR, email and site). Our site contact channels include branch, retail store, dispatching and service work. By conducting contact center benchmarking and tracking studies on these contact channels, organizations can get insights into customers' experiences using these contact channels individually or using multiple contact channels, to get their inquiry resolved. For all the contact channel benchmarking and tracking studies, SQM focuses on the customer's experience in achieving first contact resolution and one contact resolution. SQM annually conducts 1.5 million surveys with customers who have used a contact center, email, website, IVR or site contact channel service.
SOURCE American Express Canada 