21/07/2006 - Communicating With Your Online Customers
It may seem very obvious to say that communicating with your customers is important, but the rapid adoption of the Internet as a shopping channel has magnified this.
If your customer is not happy with a purchase made on the high street, they will probably visit the store to return the item. However, whilst it’s assumed the Internet brings retailers closer to their customers, often the reverse is true.
You don't need to undertake a very wide survey to find examples of the frustration caused by outsourced call centres, outsourced distribution, and combinations of national and local dispatch.
So what can retailers do to bridge this gap? Firstly and most obviously, is to clearly publish a phone number. Whilst the Office of Fair Trading only requires an address to be published it’s definitely worth taking the extra step ( ‘Home shopping: Distance Selling Regulations ). This will have two effects. Firstly it sends a very positive pre-sale message to visitors that you can be contacted after they have bought, should problems arise. This will serve to improve conversion rates. Secondly, if a post order problem does arise, helping the customer make contact can only speed up the resolution, reduce the cost of the resolution and increase the chance of an amicable outcome.
Secondly many sites now use a ‘call me’ function to allow visitors to fill out brief details and be called typically within 1hr. However, if a response time is being promised, it’s important to make sure this can be met.
Thirdly there is now Instant Message (IM) based technology available allowing for a more interactive experience. IM allows users to communicate in real time. However, IM robots can now automate a customers interaction with a commercial web site. This means through a conversational enquiry, the robot will obtain the information needed to find the product or service the customer is looking for, and return results.
InsideC is a company that specializes in IM technology having produced robots to search product sets including Ebookers and Amazon. CEO, Riaan Van Schoor comments: “ IM is a well established medium and an automated plug-in to that makes a lot of sense; prototypes of such products like InsideMessenger, which interacts with popular consumer channels like Amazon and eBookers, are proving wildly popular amongst users without much advertising or educational material.”
The question for retailers is would people really use IM to communicate in an effective way, or is this just a gimmick. “People seem to take to these ‘bots’ very naturally and we see a huge growth in the person to application IM market,” concludes Riaan. Certainly this would seem to be supported by the rapid growth in MSN, AOL and Yahoo! Instant messaging applications, and not only for personal use.
As the web moves ever more interactive and dynamic it seems IM technology is set for a very rapid growth in popularity.
Pre and post sale contact with your customers is as important as ever, and focusing on this will pay dividends.
About Us
Internet Retail Technologies Ltd ( IRT ) works with manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers to help them enjoy greater advantage from internet distribution. Through offering consulting services, and web distribution services and channels, IRT helps is network of partners start or further develop their online sales and marketing strategies.
IRT also operates its own consumer facing web site: yourblueworld.co.uk |
