24 Jun, 2006
Online Customer Service
Posted by bknapik 22:06 |
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E-Commerce
How does a company be their competition with customer service? Easy! Many online giants lack timely e-mail response, product knowledge and friendliness according to a recent consumer group survey. There are several ways to improve customer service including one live chat, e-mail, and telephone. Implementing these three strategies will put your business ahead of most large e-commerce sites.
One recent innovation is live online customer service chat. This allows customers to talk to a customer service representative directly from the company's website. Online live chat is a cost effective way of handling customer service since employees can handle multiple customer requests at one time. According to OSI Codes an online shopper is 20% more likely to buy a product after talking to an online customer service representative and that online live chat will grow to 59% of buyers by 2007.
Not answering e-mail is the biggest pitfall of major online operations. They do not dedicate enough resources to provide quick and effective responses. If a company can overcome this obstacle, a major advantage is gained. E-mail is manageable and does not have to be answered right away like other forms of customer service making this the simplest form of customer support. Setting up the e-mail to auto-respond with a message saying that the customer's question will be answered within forty-eight hours and confirming the receipt of the message helps build confidence with the customer.
Even the largest online giants do not provide telephone customer service. Amazon.com only provides a phone number to order over the phone, Ebay effectively hides their customer phone number and asks that all issues are handled by e-mail. Many people feel more comfortable talking on the phone than sending an e-mail or talking on live chat. Some customers will not order unless there is a phone number listed on the website.
With these three strategies in place, it becomes easy to have a competitive advantage against the online corporate giants.
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