Devoted to customer service and the principles of exceptional customer services

Yesterday I talked about how you can enhance the online customer service experience by offering instant messaging on your website. Another option you can give customers to contact you on your website is this fairly new "Click to Call", or VoIP, technology.  For those of you familiar with Skype, you know what I'm talking about.  On e-commerce websites you can simply click a button to get in touch with a customer service rep.  One VoIP company that I've been researching is eStara. EStara's clients include Amazon, The Chrysler Group, Macy's, Gerber, to name just a few.  Today I'd like to share an article by John Federman, the CEO of eStara. 

This is part one of two posts:

HOW TO SCARE OFF ONLINE PROSPECTS…WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

By John Federman, eStara

E-commerce is growing at a tremendous rate, but is the online experience keeping pace with its offline counterparts?  comScore released new data this week predicting that e-commerce spending in the U.S. will reach more than $170 billion this year, which is similar to what other analysts are predicting.  In fact, Forrester Research says that online retail spending will reach $310 billion by 2010.

However, as blogger Hans Mestrum wrote back in March, "The brick-and-mortar experience still captures the hearts of most North Americans. In fact, 83% of consumers who buy products online prefer shopping offline to any other channel. Why can’t the Web break up this love affair with the physical world? Retailers should listen closer to the tunes their consumers are singing."

As customers flock to online stores and transactions become more complex, the need for better customer service mechanisms will also grow. Still, there are still a lot of companies that are doing the exact opposite of what consumers are demanding. Here are a few things they should avoid if they don’t want to scare of their customers:

1) DRIVING THE PROCESS DOWN A SINGLE PATH

Many websites make the mistake of assuming to understand every possible objection customers may have and refuting them. How so? By making the customer proceed down one path without offering any options as to when or where they can contact you for information.

According to analysts, while more and more people are researching online, more than 50% make the actual purchase at brick and mortar stores. Why is that? Because they’re more flexible when it comes to working with the customer’s needs.

Even more frustrating for a customer is when they try and go back during the process and all the data that they’ve input is erased – we’ve all experienced it at some point! Losing customer data is the best way to frustrate your customer and make sure they go to a competitor’s site.

2) INSISTING ON GETTING THEM TO BUY ONLINE

You spent all this money on a website, why would you want to get people to call you? Many organizations opt to make their online and offline channels two separate entities and they end up competing with each other to see who closes the most sales.

But what if the customer has a question?

During the infancy of e-commerce, many companies felt they could address these concerns by providing prospective customers with self-service tools, such as FAQs. However, with complex sales, like purchasing airline tickets or high-end electronics, companies are beginning to understand that they need to be more effective at securing, supporting and retaining their online customers.

Providing customers with a means of contacting a customer service representative may mean losing the online sale, but it could be the difference between the customer leaving the sale altogether or the customer buying something from your company.

As one executive from a major interactive media agency once put it, “Everyone’s concerned about the channel, but nobody’s concerned about the customer.” The bottom line is that most customers don’t care whether they book online of over the phone, they care about the overall experience. So why not make it easy for them and present them with options?

Tomorrow John will cover customer feedback, engaging your customers, and sales and service errors.   Stay tuned!