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On-line customers: how we are failing them
The cornerstone to success, whether it be online or offline, is facilitating the branding or purchasing experience by helping customers find what they are looking for on their own but still offering personalized service and support when needed. Doing the former has become second nature to most companies, but the latter is often overlooked in this day and age where self-service tools are viewed as a substitute for human interaction.
Below are two examples of companies that have taken different approaches in how they communicate with online customers. One company recognized the importance of human interaction between buyers and sellers but failed to execute its plan successfully, while another company viewed human interaction as nothing more than a cost and failed to recognize that it could also present a significant opportunity for boosting the bottom line.
eBay/Skype
eBay recently announced that it would be taking a $1.43 billion loss this year because they overvalued Skype in its 2005 acquisition of the VoIP company – to the shock of few in the financial world. While enabling online consumers to have offline conversations with sellers via VoIP-based click-to-call is a proven method to increase sales conversions, there were certain flaws in eBay's approach. For starters, neither customers nor merchants should be required to install separate software to communicate with one another. Secondly, in order to succeed with click-to-call, companies must look to solutions that are much more than just proxies for standard telephone calls.
In many ways, eBay had the right idea when it set its sights on Skype. As Gartner Research recently commented about the acquisition, "Integrating applications and communications can enhance the user experience and remove friction from business transactions. As one proof point, click-to-call capabilities have produced significant benefits by improving sales rates and reducing call handling times for call centers." (Source: Why eBay Was Both Right and Wrong About Skype, Gartner, October 9, 2007.)
In order to gain the most impact out of these types of technologies, ecommerce companies must look to vendors that can leverage real-time web data to engage customers proactively and deliver the context of a user's session directly to the contact center to enable cross-selling and up-selling, without requiring changes to existing telephony or CRM infrastructure. This real-time engagement coupled with real-time data is what makes click-to-call stand apart from standard telephone calls.
Wal-Mart
In early October, Wal-Mart quietly launched its "Customer Contact Reduction" program. This plan has the retailer pulling all customer service numbers from its website in an attempt to reduce costly inbound calls about order tracking. Instead of offering personal customer service, Wal-Mart's program forces all online customers to rely on email and self-service tools to resolve questions and online customer service problems. While in theory this program will streamline operations and cut costs, the company is potentially missing out on a chance to turn their contact center into a revenue center. The voice channel remains an important option for customers looking to quickly resolve questions, particularly inquiries about big-ticket or complex purchases.
A recent forecast from JupiterResearch, Trends in Customer Service Technology Purchasing and Operations, validates this statement by reporting that "customer service by phone will continue to be consumers' contact channel of choice," even as people shop for and buy more goods and services online. According to Jupiter, although service contacts started online are expected to double from 2006 to 2012, they will still be only 14 percent of the total.
What happens now if a Wal-Mart customer is shopping for a new plasma television and gets stuck on the check-out screen, or has a few questions and wants to be reassured by a live voice? By eliminating the phone as an option, Wal-Mart is potentially alienating a valuable would-be customer who is on the cusp of completing a sale.
There are alternatives to stripping the phone channel out of your multi-channel marketing program entirely. Today's technology allows marketers to usher customers to the most appropriate channel based on their needs by leveraging web analytics and applying sophisticated business rules to different scenarios. For instance, customers that have a question about the high definition television they see on the Wal-Mart website could be offered a phone line, while somebody inquiring about the delivery of their order would be directed to an email form or FAQ page.
When an industry fundamentally changes as quickly as marketing has in the past few years, companies are bound to make mistakes. eBay's CEO said it perfectly when she said, "In this business, the cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake." However, the key to marketing success now goes through the customer. Companies that listen to their knowledgeable customer base place themselves in an optimal position to reap the rewards of providing an excellent customer experience.
John Federman, eStara
