Tue 8-Apr-2008 09:16
The online shopping experience is being marred by poor customer service, with slow response times and inflexible delivery slots creating a growing swell of customer discontentment.
That’s according to a survey by eDigitalResearch over the last Christmas period which indicated that efforts to build brand loyalty are being hampered by an inability to handle online enquiries efficiently. With Internet-savvy customers now accustomed to rapid shopping and access to product information, 24-hour response times for email questions are woefully short of heightened customer expectations. Some retailers are leaving customers waiting on an answer for longer than one day, shattering efforts made elsewhere by the business to create customer loyalty. Similarly, retailers offering all-day delivery slots are not in step with the flexible options that customers demand.
The results show that too many brands lack a cohesive customer service strategy. Many large operations were slow to react to the increasing use of the internet in the late 90’s, and so created web sites as ‘add-on’, failing to link them into the rest of the business. In many cases, marketing continues to run and manage the web site, with little integration with the service department. Until these businesses are able to view the web experience as integral to the customer experience and involve the service department with web delivery, the negative service situation is unlikely to change.
Of the 30 shopping websites subjected to mystery shopping for the survey, the leader was Amazon. As well as being deemed to be the overall leader for customer service delivery, Amazon posted the best scores for telephone service, accurate search results and first impression of the website. John Lewis Direct was also given recognition, with strong scores for email and telephone support.
Michelle Fuller, director, eDigitalResearch, commented: "The survey demonstrates that the long term e-commerce winners will be those sites that deliver at every stage of the ‘end to end’ customer process. Amazon and John Lewis are both excellent examples of how online players should be focusing on more than site functionality and price."
Source:
http://www.customer-strategy.co.uk/csnews/index.cfm?ccs=584&cs=3295 |
