Triangle Business Journal

David Chapman

Hype of Web Masks Serious Service Issues

The holiday hysteria over Internet shopping is over. The forecasts, while not officially in, indicate huge numbers were put on the board. No doubt a booming economy, longer work hours and a deeper penetration of PCs in the home paved the way.

What’s not being talked about is the results from a recent Anderson Consulting study that uncovered the fact that one out of four shoppers couldn’t complete transactions due to crashes, gridlock or out-of-stock orders. The Toys R Us lawsuit over not delivering before Christmas was probably the most highly publicized fiasco.

Perhaps the most important research done around the holiday e-season was conducted by Forrester Research, which pointed out that 90 percent of online shoppers said perceived customer service was the most critical in selecting a shopping destination. Over half said they would stop shopping at a given e-tailer altogether if they were unhappy with the service.

Now I suspect many of those aggressive e-businesses are paying the price in terms of repeat business. Have you noticed the recent layoffs at Amazon.com, Beyond.com and ValueAmerica.com? Just like in the brick and mortar retail environment, unless customers feel like they are getting personal attention and real time service, they are going to go elsewhere.

As consumers become increasingly frustrated with problems of online shopping, yet another e-business opportunity presents itself for today’s entrepreneurial community. The revenues to be gained from data mining and site advertising are substantial.

Upshot “customer care centers” like Feedback Direct, Live Person and e-Gain hope to leverage consumer feedback into lucrative business models. Their selling proposition is the cold hard fact that top companies go the extra mile and leverage customer service as a differentiator.

Feedback Direct, a new consumer service portal, aims to give consumers a choice of ways to connect with vendors, including 800 numbers, snail mail and e-mail. The company uses standardized formats and an interactive database called the “Orange Pages” to enable consumers to research and contact off-line and online merchants.

Live Person takes a different approach, selling technology that allows subscribing Web sites to conduct real-time conversations with prospective shoppers. They reportedly have already licensed more than 300 online merchants.

E-Gain is a California-based provider of both hosted (leased) and onsite deployments of customer communications systems. They help companies manage high volumes of customer communications through e-mail and real-time Web collaboration. Their Website boasts of having the world’s largest hosted network for e-commerce customer service.

The service provides secure, 24x7 access with high-speed Internet connectivity to a client’s customer service department can be up and running quickly with low up-front costs.

Bottom line: There are many lessons to be learned from the holiday shopping season, including fulfillment, infrastructure, and a priority focus on 360-degreee customer service support.

To deliver on customer service, e-tailers must build a communications bridge to the consumer in order to address problems, anticipate needs and ensure timely delivery. No doubt suppliers like Feedback Direct, Live Person and others that create proactive consumer communications channels will reap the rewards. And so will the consumer.

Chapman is president of 919 Marketing, a Triangle-based marketing and public relations consulting firm. He can be reached at (919) 557-7890.