Do you get responsive Online Support in the UK?

In these times of belt-tightening, businesses are struggling to capture the attention of their customers. For many, the way to a customer’s wallet is through lower prices and as a result, discounters and utility providers are sustaining revenues and winning in some markets. For others, it isn’t easy to compete on price – but they may be able to get the edge they need with proper customer service.   It’s my view that you should improve what you do, and do it better than the rest.

There’s an interesting study into the performance of customer service from eGain Communications Corporation and although it’s retail based, it provides an international benchmarking report for online customer services. The report benchmarks and compares e-mail customer service and Web self-service offered by leading companies in the US and the UK. According to this research, US retailers performed worse than those in the UK in e-mail response quality, but these North American retailers performed better in Web self-service and the variety of online channels they provide for self-service.  The overall results indicate that there is significant room for improvement in both areas... something I’m certainly taking note of in the current climate.

The key results show that 25% of companies failed to respond to customer e-mails; 65% responded to e-mails within 24 hours, but 55% of them were considered poor or below average in quality.  If a job’s worth doing then surely it’s worth doing well.     This is concerning, especially as purchasing trends and transactions move online.  Robust online customer service needs to develop further to fully support the online consumption of services.   There no point in having great online services without strong and dependable online support behind it.

Companies cannot afford to ignore their customer service initiatives, no matter what segment or sector they serve. Not every customer will be driven by price and even if they are, there is always an alternative. We aim to improve.

Comments

[Dan Germain]

Hello Richard
I figured this would post would provoke a response of one sort or another! You are right - Cobweb can always improve and clearly we need to improve support delivery for you. My apologies for the lack of response to your emails.

This article stuck a chord with me and as I said "we aim to improve". Let me know how we get one. I'll ensure your Account Manager keeps tabs on this for you and let's you know how we're doing.

Thanks for the feedback,
regards
Dan

[Richard Marshall]

Hi Dan,

I find it a shame that Cobweb are aware of this problem, yet are a classic example of it. Cobweb consistently prove to be one of our poorest performing suppliers in terms of support, especially when it comes to acknowledging emails. It's not at all uncommon for us to email issue to your helpdesk but get no response. We have to phone to confirm an email reached you (ironic considering you're providing the email service), normally to be met with a response along the lines of "oh, yeah, we got that" but with no action taken. We tried the web form for support from the control panel too but unfortunatly ended up in the same boat. We had to phone the following day to get any action on it....

Perhaps you'd do well to pay attention to the reports and ensure that your helpdesk staff are actually being helpful.