Note: this is the third in a three part series looking at the customer service performance of the top 25 online retailers during the 2011 Black Friday through Cyber Monday weekend. View Part 1 (Phone Support) and Part 2 (Email Support) for a complete view on how the largest online retailers cared for customers during the big shopping holiday.
Many online shoppers now prefer to engage with companies via live chat. It’s (supposedly) quick, easy and convenient. According to a 1,000 person consumer survey by the E-Tailing Group and Bold Software, one in five online shoppers select live chat as their preferred method of communication with a retailer. With 20% of shoppers preferring to use live chat, you’d think that most – if not all – of the largest online retailers offer this as a communication channel for shoppers.
We were curious to see which of the 25 largest online retailers offer this service channel, and here’s what we found:
First, it’s amazing how many of these retailers (44%) don’t offer the “preferred method” of customer support to 20% of online shoppers. Second, if you visit some of the retailers’ sites who are noted above as having live chat and don’t see a link for chat, the site is probably waiting for you to take some kind of action to trigger the live chat functionality. This kind of “dynamic” live chat functionality does not help the one-in-five online shoppers who prefer live chat, since they may not take the necessary actions on the website to generate the live chat window and thus will not be able to initiate a live chat when they want.
In addition, for the sites offering live chat we stress-tested how long it took for online shoppers to: (1) receive a notification that a live agent was present and ready to assist; and (2) receive an answer to the question we asked each live chat agent.
We found that the mass merchants performed the best in this study, and below are the top three performers and their results:
With so may products and varying shipping, returns and other policies, it is appropriate that some of these very large online retailers are delivering such a highly responsive and helpful live chat service.
Do you think it should be standard for all of the top online merchants to offer live chat?
Did you leverage live chat with any of the top 25 retailers this weekend? If so, what was your experience like?
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Methodology: Black Friday through Cyber Monday data was collected by initiating a live chat with each retailer five (5) times each day over a four day period, from Friday November 25th to Monday November 28th. Live chat sessions were initiated at random during the following time-blocks to generate measurements of service performance that have high reliability and construct validity: 8:00 -11:30am EST; 11:30 – 2:00pm EST; 2:00 – 5:00pm EST; 5:00 – 8:00pm EST; 8:00 – 11:00pm EST. Given the dynamic nature of live chat (i.e. it only becomes available when certain actions are taken by the user), we followed a consistent process by visiting the same number of pages, and staying on each website for the same amount of time, for each of the 25 retailers.
Note: this is the second in a three part series looking at the customer service performance of the top 25 online retailers during the 2011 Black Friday through Cyber Monday weekend. View Part 1 (Phone Support) and Part 3 (Live Chat Support) for a complete view on how the largest online retailers cared for customers during the big shopping holiday.
According to Forrester, 55% of online shoppers use email when attempting to solve a customer service problem. Most consumers expect relatively quick responses to email inquiries. In fact, if you’re shopping online and have a question, what’s the point of sending an email if the company doesn’t get back to you for days? The product, special deal or issue in question may no longer be relevant by the time you get a reply.
To give shoppers a better idea of which stores plan to keep you in the loop and which stores are likely to dismiss your message into the email abyss as you do your online holiday shopping, STELLAService is providing an unprecedented look at the email response rates of the largest online retailers.
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While it might seem obvious that retailers would (or should) reply to all emails sent to them by shoppers with questions, it’s far from reality!
These numbers are most likely eye-opening for many people, but they probably resonate when you think back to prior experiences. Did you email any of the large online retailers over the weekend? If so, did they get back to you within a day?
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Methodology: Baseline data was collected by emailing each retailer each day (336 total emails) over a 14 day period, from November 1st through November 14th, asking general customer service questions in each email (product questions, shipping or returns information, etc). Black Friday through Sunday data was collected by emailing each retailer four (4) times each day over a three day period, from Friday November 25th to Sunday November 27th. Emails were placed at random during the following time-blocks to generate measurements of service performance that have high reliability and construct validity: 8:00 -11:30am EST; 11:30 – 2:00pm EST; 2:00 – 5:00pm EST; 5:00 – 8:00pm EST; 8:00 – 11:00pm EST.
Note: this is the first in a three part series looking at the customer service performance of the top 25 online retailers during the 2011 Black Friday through Cyber Monday weekend. View Part 2 (Email Support) and Part 3 (Live Chat Support) for a complete view on how the largest online retailers cared for customers during the big shopping holiday.
Despite the many ways consumers can connect with a company for customer service, the telephone is still the most widely used customer service channel for online shoppers. According to Forrester, 69% of online consumers use the phone when seeking customer service help (followed by 55% who use email).
As a result, we think online shoppers should be especially aware of the findings from our 2011 Cyber Monday Customer Service study. For the first time, STELLAService is providing an unprecedented inside look at which stores provide joyful customer service during the holidays, and which stores are likely to deliver a full-serving of slow, frustrating support as you do your online holiday shopping.
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We found some of the numbers especially interesting:
Did you place calls to any of these retailers over the weekend? If so, what was your experience like?
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Methodology: Baseline data was collected by calling each retailer each day (350 total calls) over a 14 day period, from November 1st through November 14th, asking general customer service questions on each call (product questions, shipping or returns information, etc). Black Friday through Cyber Monday data was collected by calling each retailer five (5) times each day over a four day period, from November 25th to November 28th. Calls were placed at random during the following time-blocks to generate measurements of service performance that have high reliability and construct validity: 8:00 -11:30am EST; 11:30 – 2:00pm EST; 2:00 – 5:00pm EST; 5:00 – 8:00pm EST; 8:00 – 11:00pm EST.
