(sa/art) Service the key to selling online
zdnet.com
Service the key to selling online:
Customer service must improve to keep shoppers online, e-commerce conference told.
By Margaret Kane, ZDNN
April 8, 1999 12:55 PM PT
"..."Customer service is probably the most critical component [for an Internet-store]," said Mark Wattles, CEO of Hollywood Entertainment Corp. (Nasdaq:HLYW) a video-rental chain that owns the Reel.com online movie site. "The whole premise of an Internet store is saying, 'Come to us and we'll make your life easier.' "
That dedication to service is coming just in time. Customer satisfaction fell through the holiday season, Jupiter analysts said. And those customers probably have a reason to be unhappy.
A Jupiter survey in the third quarter of 125 commerce sites found that 39 percent either never responded to an e-mailed question or had no e-mail address available. An additional five percent took four days or longer to respond to the question.
Those numbers actually got worse in a study done in the first quarter of this year, with only 43 percent of surveyed firms responding in one or two days.
"This is the wrong direction," said Marc Johnson director of digital commerce strategies at Jupiter. "Online service must exceed traditional service in order to get consumers to switch."
It's not just Internet pure-plays that suffered from customer service gaps, however. Several mainstream retailers moving onto the Web said that it brought new challenges to their service departments.
Direct exposure
For many manufacturers, the Internet is their first direct exposure to their customers. Even if they're not selling online now, they're hearing from their customer.
When Estee Lauder Companies Inc. launched a Web site for its Clinique line, it set up a 1-800 number. "That was the first time you could talk to the brand," said K. Angela Kapp, vice president of special markets and new media....
...That's not to say that Internet-only merchants have it easy. One executive said that while the company took e-mail messages from day one, it only recently upped its phone message center to be able to answer calls Monday through Saturday.
"It's important the customer feel free to engages with us the way they want to," said Darryl Peck, CEO of Cyberian Outpost. (Nasdaq: COOL). "When we look at our numbers, it's fairly obvious that customer service is winning us business."
Higher expectations?
Industry watchers agreed that consumers have higher expectations of service from online stores -- the same customer who might look around a department store for half an hour trying to find a clerk won't put up with a 20-second download on a Web page.
And many online sites have combined content and community aspects to their commerce plays, in an effort to make the consumers feel like they're part of a family. But once a company has done that, they need to make sure that family member is treated well, going beyond the service a mainstream store might provide.
"Service is where we can differentiate ourselves from brick and mortar," said Tracy Randall, vice president of commerce at Cooking.com. "Our name [suggests] that you can find out anything you want to know about cooking here. We have gotten obscure questions about recipes -- people asking about things their grandmothers used to make -- and we have a whole staff dedicated to tracking that down. Everyone on our team at some point answers consumer e-mail.".. |
