Only nine of 100 online merchants excelled at customer service in the 11th Annual Mystery Shopping Study by The E-tailing Group, Chicago-based consultants.
The nine sites that excelled in the fourth-quarter study are:
- Babycenter
- Bluefly
- Brooks Brothers
- Brookstone
- Crutchfield
- Golfsmith
- hpshopping
- Lands' End
- Walmart
"It is a matter of survival of the fittest among merchants,” says Lauren Freedman, president of The E-tailing Group. “Delivering best-in-class service will be an important differential and every customer interaction needs to be a positive one.”
The E-tailing Group ranked 100 merchants on specific criteria. Researchers eliminated merchants for not possessing what they deemed must-have criteria in the following order of importance:
1. 800 or toll-free telephone number
2. Keyword search
3. Four or fewer days to receive package
4. Adequately and correctly answer e-mail question within 24 hours; providing a specific answer
5. Customer service agents’ product knowledge when calling 800 number (must rank at 2.0 or higher on a scale of 3.0)
6. Six or fewer clicks to checkout
7. E-mail shipping confirmation sent
8. E-mail order confirmation sent with order number included
9. Real time inventory in shopping cart or product page.
Among the nine, Bluefly responded the fastest to e-mail inquiries, at 24 minutes, followed by Lands’ End at 28. The longest were Brookstone at 17 hours, 21 minutes, and Brooks Brothers, at 17 hours, 1 minute. The average for all sites that researchers shopped was 20 hours, 9 minutes. Among the nine, orders arrived in 2 to 4 days; the average for all sites was 4.76 days.
"In tough times merchants must control expenses but they need to monitor cost-cutting choices to maintain a robust customer experience," Freedman says.
The E-tailing Group’s Mystery Shopping Survey benchmarks over 260 features on 100 sites. The firm’s report highlights the following metrics (The figures in parentheses indicate 2008-vs.-2007 data):
- Contact information on-site (99% vs. 98%)
- 800 number is now universal (100%) yet home page visibility has seen little progress (65% vs. 63%)
- FAQs (84% vs. 83%)
- Real-time inventory (91% vs. 86%)
- Checkout process in step-by-step format (92% vs. 90%)
- Customer service hours listed on web site (78% vs. 73%)
- Perpetual shopping carts (77% vs. 72%)
- Picture of product in the cart (78% vs. 74%)
- Recap of cart contents on the thank-you page (74% vs. 77%)
Customer convenience elements included:
- Membership requirements to checkout are down (16% vs. 23%)
- Direct-to-cart buying increased (39% vs.17%) (Direct to cart refers to the ability to see what's in a shopping cart without having to click to a new page.)
- One-click settings (storing a customer's profile for future use) are up (29% vs. 18%)
- 18% offer ability to save cart, a new metric this year
- Sign up for back-in-stock e-mails is up (11% vs. 7%)
- More online return forms available (17% vs. 13%)
Researchers noted slips in these areas:
- Customer service hours were more limited with 24x7 access down (27% vs. 39%)
- Average number of business days to receive an item was up (4.76 vs. 4.18)
- Fewer merchants sent e-mail shipping confirmations (84% vs. 95%).
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