By Tom Kirkham
A few months back, Kathryn gave us a cautionary tale about self-service on the web. Well, according to Transversal, online customer service has hit a new low, with customers of telcos often waiting up to 52 hours just for a response to their emails.
Reading this made me recall a problem I encountered recently while shopping online. Using the ‘search for your address’ function on a website, I typed in my post code and house number, only for the Highgate branch of 'PetSmile' to appear on the screen. As I don't currently live in a pet shop, I made repeated attempts to re-enter the information - to no avail - before searching in vain for a manual input option. The only method of contacting the company was a formulaic customer comment form… at which point I decided to head into town to buy the item in person instead.
So why didn’t I complain? Well, because frankly, comment forms like these often seem designed purely to stop you from ever getting hold of an actual real-time customer service human being. In the case of one hugely successful e-commerce website, I was once sent an email directing me to the online help page, which advised me to call a support line, which put me through five minutes of speech recognition software, before finally referring me to my original email!
The internet has by and large made shopping far more convenient, but it still suffers from the disadvantage that, unlike the high street, you don't receive the things you order straight away (or in my case, sometimes at all). In order to give customers a compelling reason to wait that little bit longer, high quality customer service has to be top of the agenda.
Yes, automated systems can improve many online procedures, but if you remove the human element entirely, you're taking a big risk - and according to E-Consultancy, 80 percent of UK consumers are less likely to return to a site after just one frustrating shopping experience.
The answer is flexibility - give customers more contact options, while still retaining the convenience. For instance, Orbitz has just announced that it is trialling a live instant messaging facility for anyone experiencing problems booking online. The majority of businesses recognise that technology can reduce overheads - but it must be used in a way that empowers both customers and service reps, rather than making one want to strangle the other by the time they eventually make contact.
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