We have been touting that user experience really matters to not only people’s perception of your business, but their likelihood to buy something from you. A recent study has come out supporting our claim and added some further insight on customer service. We all know that many ecommerce sites out there provide a poor user experience, causing many customers to abandon their transactions and head to a competitor’s site. Well, using our ecommerce experience and our enterprise ecommerce solution, 7cart eCommerce, you can avoid these pitfalls.
Just having a website will not guarantee sales!
42% of Online Consumers Abandon or Switch after Experiencing Online Transaction Issues; Another 52% Experienced Bad Customer Service at a Contact Center, Following an Online Issue, and Subsequently Stopped Doing Business with the Company Entirely
The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, was commissioned
by Tealeaf, a company that provides Customer Experience Management
(CEM) software to online merchants.Of the 84 percent of online adults who shop online, nearly
nine out of 10 said they have had trouble completing a transaction.
Forty-one percent of the people who reported having problems said they
either navigated to an alternative site or simply abandoned the
transaction altogether.“The Web has changed business — companies both large and
small compete for the same customers,” Tealeaf CEO Rebecca Ward said in
a statement. “Now, competition is just a click away and customer
expectations continue to grow.”Indeed, in a sign of how e-commerce is moving into the mainstream,
the survey found that more than one third of the respondents said they
prefer to shop online, and that 84 percent said they expected a
transaction to be processed on the first try. Perhaps even more
surprising, a significant minority (22 percent) said they expect a
higher level of customer service when shopping online than when they go
to a store.The survey also highlighted the importance of online companies
maintaining a reputation for quality service, given how people tend to
share horror stories about their shopping experiences.On the heels of a poor online shopping experience, 84 percent
of the survey respondents said they would be likely to share their
grievance with others. Of those, 82 percent said they would air their
complaint in some offline channel, like phoning up a friend to vent.
And that’s not to say that those same people wouldn’t also register
their frustration online, say in the form of a review or blog post that
would become a part of the company’s permanent record.Chief among the customer service pitfalls Harris identified
was the failure of businesses to integrate their offline call centers
into their e-commerce platforms.Of the nearly half of online shoppers who have contacted a company’s
call center regarding problems with the Web site, 64 percent reported
that the service representative didn’t know much about the online
store. Thirty-eight percent said their issue went unresolved.Nearly three quarters (72 percent) of the people who received
poor customer service from a call center when trying to troubleshoot
Web issues either scaled back their business with the company, stopped
associating with it altogether, or filed a complaint with the Better
Business Bureau.“Businesses must take definitive steps to differentiate
themselves by understanding and improving their customers’ site
experiences, and equipping their contact centers to truly meet the
needs of online customers,” Ward said. “Companies that do take action
will be the ones to claim a greater share of this billion-dollar
business opportunity.” – Kenneth Corbin – internetnews.com
If your ecommerce plans include a new site for the
2009 holiday season, the time to start planning is now. Contact us to get your user-friendly ecommerce solution in place before it is too late