ARE YOU BEING SERVED?

Why aren't customers buying online?

Are they worried about the security implications of giving their details to a web site? Are they simply too unfamiliar with the typical online purchasing process? The most likely reason for this extremely low uptake is the poor online assistance or customer service provided on business web sites.

Dissatisfaction with the lack of or poor quality customer service is on the increase. In a recent survey reported by Xxist.com, 58 per cent of the respondents had suffered low quality customer service during their online shopping experiences. Nine out of ten web users said they would never return to a site that had given poor service. The most common customer complaints included slow or no response to emailed queries, as well as questionable, or non-existent support and navigational facilities.

The cost of collectively neglecting online customer assistance is enormous. Datamonitor reported that businesses lost £0.9 billion in 1999 due to the failure to web enable their customer services. Assuming no change, this will be over £38 billion by 2004, in Europe alone.

While no one doubts there is an Internet revolution and a huge growth in e-commerce technologies, the functions for customer service and support have largely been left behind. Although call centres have come to rescue customer support services for many business web sites, they still rely on the traditional telephone.

If a customer has chosen to purchase or seek information from a web site, they should be free to use the Internet as their chosen media rather than being forced to make a note of a help line telephone number and their query and then try to fit a call into their personal schedule, often phoning after they have left the site. Leaving a business web site before their queries are answered also gives potential customers the opportunity to click on to a competitors site and purchase elsewhere. In short, inconveniencing customers by not providing help when they need it can all too easily result in lost sales.

It no longer has to be this way. For the first time, live, person-to-person customer service can be delivered over the Internet on individual business web sites. The technology has recently become available to provide direct support to a variety of business streams via the web.

In July 2000, the Merlin Information Systems Group launched HelpMagic.Com Ltd., the first fully integrated web-enabled customer service and helpdesk solution with multilingual capabilities. Harnessing technologies such as voice over the Internet (VoIP), live text chat, email, callback and online knowledgebase means customers can now choose their preferred method of communication and help. They can communicate live, on a one-to-one basis with a specialist from their PC through a web site, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Businesses can either outsource their online customer service personnel or web-enable their existing call centre. Although it may sound like a technical challenge, HelpMagic has actually made it extremely cost effective, quick and simple to implement.

Businesses can select which services suit their web visitors best and apply their chosen tools in the form of an online customer service button that can be replicated across their web site.

The online services are:

HelpMagic is the missing link between business web sites and customers. With an in depth understanding of the issues faced by the smallest sole trader to the largest international corporation, HelpMagic offers a fully scaleable solution. Pricing is tailored to suit individual needs; for example, clients can pay on a by-minute usage basis or per full time customer service agent. Web-enabling customer service is not expensive; Merlin's experience has shown it actually reduces running costs by improving agent utilisation by 50 per cent compared to traditional telephone based call centres.

So there is a solution to the poor state of online customer service. Now you only need to worry about site security, generating traffic, order fulfilment….

www.helpmagic.com
info@helpmagic.com
Tel: 01280 826 338
Fax: 01280 824 112