Average response time to email is reduced from 18 hours to 3.9 hoursLakeland has significantly reduced the time it takes to deal with customers’ emails by 88% - from an average of 18 hours to an average of 3.9 hours over three years using numero’s SmartAgent customer interaction management software.

“Our average response time to customer emails has reduced from 18 hours prior to implementing SmartAgent three years ago, to 3.9 hours currently - although many of our emails are in fact handled in 2.2 hours”, said Gary Marshall, director of operations, Lakeland.

“We receive in the order of 4,000 emails per week which are handled by around eight to ten of our 150 contact centre agents and we’ve seen the number of inbound customer emails double in three years.

“Customer expectations have also grown in terms of how fast the customer expects us to respond to them with a personalised and informed response - not just an ‘auto-reply’.

“As our online business has grown, SmartAgent is enabling us to maintain our commitment to the high quality of service over email that our customers already experience in our stores and via the telephone.”

SmartAgent manages all inbound email contact from consumers to Lakeland’s customer services centre in the UK providing quality and personalised responses to customers’ email queries.

“numero has a long-standing and excellent relationship with Lakeland and is very happy to have enabled it to continue to push its high standards of customer service - but with a personalised touch for each customer”, said Tim Easton, director, numero.

“SmartAgent enables Lakeland to provide both speed but also quality of response for its customers.”