THE PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL

Online customers bring a whole new set of customer service expectations that never existed with brick-and-mortar stores. When a customer goes online with the purpose of making a purchase, he or she expects to find easily all of the information necessary to make an informed purchasing decision. But that customer also expects to hit the order button, provide the necessary information, and boom! The package magically arrives at their door. This is because buying products online feels like magic to many online customers. Trying to manage such unrealistic expectation can provide a customer service challenge.

Let’s say that your business is increasing by leaps and bounds. That’s good, but the more customers your website attracts means more customer inquiries and more online transactions. That, in turn, translates into a higher burden on your order fulfillment systems and a greater load on your customer service department (which may just be a lone clerk, who not only answers the phone, but also picks and packs the orders).

But success can be your downfall. Despite the pressures put on an overburdened staff of a suddenly successful e-commerce site, you must promptly handle all customer inquires.

Numerous e-commerce businesses are dilatory in their response to online information requests. Once a customer has been disappointed by how slowly their query has been answered, they are unlikely to try again. Almost one-half of the currently operational e-commerce websites provide such poor customer service that they take more than five days to respond to an inquiry or complaint — that is if they provide any response at all! When a website ignores their customers’ inquiries, they not only discourage brand loyalty, but actually drive traffic to their online competitors.

Who is your competition? It is the e-commerce sites that respond to their customers’ inquiries within 24 hours.

Some sites leave their customers stranded where they can’t find an easy way to ask for more information and/or send an email request. Then there are the many sites where the “Contact Us” link simply launches a generic email query screen — with no information about how soon they can expect a reply and/or where else to look for information. Other sites hide their contact information forcing the customer into a “hide and seek game,” or give only a webmaster’s email address. Some websites don’t even give a telephone number for customers to use if they really need to talk to a human. This is not the way to provide quality customer service.

What an e-commerce operator should ever forget is that it takes only a few keystrokes for an unhappy customer to tell the entire world of the problem encountered while dealing with your website. If you have a bad customer service day, week or month — your business is ruined because by the time you’ve solved the problem the entire buying public has read about your failures via message boards, forums, chat rooms, and even review sites like eopinion.com.



The Complete E-Commerce Book. Design, Build & Maintain a Successful Web-based Business
The Complete E-Commerce Book, Second Edition: Design, Build & Maintain a Successful Web-based Business
ISBN: B001KVZJWC
EAN: N/A
Year: 2004
Pages: 159

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