By Julian Goldsmith, 5 November 2007 16:21
NEWS
The vast majority (86 per cent) of online consumers suffer some sort of difficulty in making their purchase.
A survey of more than 2,000 UK consumers, aged 16 or older, showed 37 per cent of those who experience problems with an online transaction prefer to abandon it altogether.
Two in five said they would never go back to a retailer if they received poor customer service from its call centre when calling about a website problem.
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The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive for customer service software specialist Tealeaf, also found 88 per cent of online shoppers expect to get the same level of service on a retailer's website as they would in the store.
Tealeaf CEO, Rebecca Ward, said after a decade of ecommerce, UK consumers have very high expectations of their online experiences, yet many companies doing business online are still failing to deliver an acceptable level of service to internet customers.
A separate survey has pinpointed a key emerging factor in consumers' online decision-making process. The research, which polled 2,000 adults aged 18 or over and was carried out by YouGov for customer review service Reevoo, found 60 per cent of online shoppers believe an independent product review by another shopper would influence their decision to buy.
But 36 per cent said they are worried about the authenticity of retailer-managed review programmes and 84 per cent say they would like some sort of kite-mark to reassure them a review is from a bona-fide customer.
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. Christopher Hubbard
How many of these 2000 are referring to items bought on eBay?
2. misceng
Customers would be better served if the suppliers were more aware of the law. Consumers would benefit from knowledge of the "The Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002" and "The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000" which can be viewed at
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20023045.htm
and
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2000/20002334.htm
I recently had touble wih an internet purchase where these laws applied but the supplier's Terms and Conditions did not conform. It took action by Trading Standards to sort it out and they are still in contact (at time of writing) with the supplier to get them to comply properly with these laws.
3. Stephen Meredith
One of the causes of poor online experience lies in the seasonal nature of the nation's shoppng habits. Many Web servers are just not geared up to handle the huge increases in traffic that occur during the main shopping periods such as Christmas which in effect act just like a DDoS attack. Some of the more enlightened e-tailers have made the necessary investment but there are still far too many who either choose to ignore the risk or maybe don't understand it in the first place.