Marks & Spencer has partnered with real-time customer engagement technology firm Rant & Rave to enable an easier process of capturing feedback from customers.

This forms part of M&S’s transformation to become a digital-first business, in response to a highly competitive retail market, which is seeing consumers shift their purchasing habits online and look to engage with brands across multiple touch points.

The programme, which will be introduced into the retailer’s customer service centres will be made up of Rant & Rave’s Voice of the Customer tool, which allows consumers to easily share their feedback via a multitude of channels, including email, webchat, SMS and Interactive Voice Response - then analyses the sentiment of the responses in real-time - and Frontline Engagement, which enables contact centre staff to track and analyse their own performance through a personalised dashboard.

These two products will allow M&S’s Chester-based sales and service centre staff, which responds to over 11 million customer contacts per year, with all customer feedback then be fed directly into the M&S senior management team to create a holistic view of all customer responses.

Jo Moran, head of customer service at M&S said: “The insight from the real-time customer feedback will help M&S become more relevant, more often to its customers as we listen and respond to their feedback in a faster and more streamlined way than ever before.”

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