A new report released this week from Tealeaf Technology and Harris Interactive shows that the use of websites for transactions is growing and that while the quality of user experience is up, it still is "very much a work in progress."
Harris Interactive surveyed 2,188 people older than 18 between July 31 and Aug. 4 for the study.
According to the report, 80 percent of respondents using the web for a retail transaction in the past year reported a problem, while in the past that number was near 87 percent. The report said customers most frequently encountered error messages (38 percent), endless loops (19 percent) and login problems (28 percent).
As a result of the problems, 32 percent abandoned their transaction altogether.
Thirty-eight percent said they had contacted a company's call center after a website glitch, down from 47 percent in 2008. Only 26 percent had complained on a company's website when they had problems, down from 32 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, the number complaining about service problems on blogs or social networks doubled to 12 percent this year.
