News

Online retailers must provide better service

January 3, 2012

Although Cyber Monday 2011 set a record for the most online retail spending in a single day, and the weekend before Christmas was the second heaviest weekend of online spending on record, online retailers had some trouble filling the orders, according to a blog on fastcompany.com.

For example, one shopper purchased all his gifts a month before Christmas on BestBuy.com and then was told they wouldn't make it in time for the holiday.

The Associated Press reported similarexperiences with Best Buy.

These types of hiccups are inevitable as online sales grow so rapidly, according to Ford, but retailers have to do more about how they handle customer service in a virtual world to ensure that they don't lose significant face with customers as they try to scale up to meet shopper demand.

"It will be interesting to see what steps retailers take in 2012, not only to fix what went wrong in 2011, but to become more social, more empathetic and more proactive in managing issues with customers when things go wrong," said Sam Ford, director of digital strategy for Peppercom Strategic Communications, in the article.

He recommends that companies not only scale up their e-commerce infrastructure leading into the holiday season, but they should also put more thought into scaling up real, human service and follow-up.

"Perhaps the single most important thing retailers can do to prepare in 2012 is to put deep thought into the experience customers are having. Not just in making the site easier to navigate but to actually put themselves in their customer's shoes and think about what it looks like and feels like to have your order canceled, or delayed, or the other range of problems customers might have," he said.

Read more about online retailing.