e-tailing group - 8th Annual Mystery Shopping Study
This fourth-quarter 2005 study of 100 online retailers found an overall decline in the level of customer service compared to a year earlier. Overall, merchants appeared to be less vested in customer service:
- More drill-down was required to find answers to questions on-site
- Contact information was not readily available
- FAQs and guarantees were less visible
- Address-checking tools and return registration log-ins were not always correct
- Shipping deals were more qualified
- Average clicks from product selection to checkout rose from 4.8 to 5.3
- Real-time inventory status was shown on 76% of sites in the study, down from 79% in 2004
- Customers recieved packages within 4.4 days, against a standard of 4 days
- The number of sites offering a toll-free customer service telephone number dropped to 93% from 95%
- Email response time rose to 30 hours, compared to 26 hours a year earlier
Only 10 shopping sites met all criteria: Ann Taylor, Bluefly, Blue Nile, Brookstone, Crutchfield, Finish Line, J. Crew, Sephora, SmartBargains, and Tower Records.
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