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Customer Service: Your Advantage
So, you don't have a multi-million dollar advertising campaign' You don't have a
staff of hundreds, venture capital backing or someone from Star Trek as your
spokesperson' Then perhaps it's time to look into one of the advantages that you
do have over these e-commerce giants..... customer service.
You might wonder how a small company can hope to give better customer service
than these heavily staffed, heavily funded e-giants. Believe it or not, it may be your
lack of size, that just might give you the edge.
Think about your average customer service experience in an off-line setting. Where
do you usually have the kinds of customer service experiences that are so positive,
you come away raving to your friends and co-workers' While I can't answer for
you, I can tell you that the overwhelming majority of my experiences of this nature
have come with small businesses, often very small. Conversely, I can also say that
as a rule, my biggest CS (customer service) nightmares have come with the biggest
companies. Of course, there are always exceptions, but this theory has proven to
be surprisingly consistent for me. I would bet that if you compile a quick mental list
of your best and worst experiences as a customer, you might find this to be true for
you as well.
The problem with large companies is usually a volume issue. Many of these
businesses have such a large volume of CS inquiries, that they simply don't have
the manpower to adequately provide timely and efficient service. Often, it is
difficult to even find the proper channel for which to take your CS issue. Large
e-commerce companies aren't immune to these kinds of issues. In fact, they are
often even less prepared to handle the flow of questions and comments that come
in from their site on a daily basis. Many of these companies experience massive
volume of traffic to their sites. A nice problem to have, but a problem that can
often leave the customer out in the cold.
A recent Gartner study surveyed 50 top-rated internet retail sites on their customer
service readiness and effectiveness. The results were very telling. Not one of these
50 sites ranked as excellent with regards to customer service readiness. 23%
graded out as average, and 73% were rated below average, and 4% rated poor.
Cnet quoted another recent study by Resource Marketing which showed similar
results. "Wal-Mart online is a maze, Williams-Sonoma makes customers fill out
applications every time they shop, and KBkids.com automatically sends new
customers its electronic newsletter, whether they ask for it or not." Caroline Cofer,
a spokesperson for Resource Marketing added that many of these large merchants
are "making some scary mistakes."
Now, with many of these large e-tailers streamlining operations in order to stay
afloat, it is difficult to imagine customer service improving. In fact, customer service
issues on-line have become such an issue, that an entire sector has evolved to deal
with the problems. Companies such as Egain Communications and Kana
Communications offer automated, CRM (customer relation management) solutions.
Many of these automated services are ASP (application service provider) models
that feature multi-channel response e-mail systems. In other words, software that
attempts to emulate a real human. On one hand, these companies should be
admired for their vision, and will probably be rewarded with booming sales. On the
other hand, the technology has a way to go before it is a replacement for human
interaction. Have you ever sent a question to a site's customer service center, and
received the answer to the wrong question' More than likely, this was the result of
automated CRM software that was unable to properly interpret your question and
send the correct response.
This is where your advantage as a small company comes into play. While you may
not enjoy the volume of these sites, you can create a higher percentage of repeat
visitors/buyers with superior CS. Generally, when you hear people talk about
improving CS, you hear things like: "make yourself available" and "give good
contact information." This is true, but it goes beyond that. What people really want
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