Yes customer service is still an issue. If offline merchants see it as a huge cost that they try to drive down as much as possible, how can eCommerce sites seriously think they will be able to do this without tremendous cost to them.

I think returns are a bigger problem (maybe part of the entire customer service issue).

The question should be are you willing to cop bad/inferior service for lower prices?.

What is your price sensitivity for this tradeoff?

Posted by: JB on September 10, 2002 08:06 PM

 

One kind, human-like, or thoughtful action has the potential to turn me into a happy return customer.

Example: I have just bought the NNGroup Intranet Design Annual for 2002, but was unhappy about certain aspects of the report. I then looked on the NNGroup web site for their returns policy and couldn't find any reference to it at all.

This annonyed me, so I mailed the author of the report with my concerns and asked them how I could get my money back.

I got a personal response after a few hours which offered me a full refund and then went on to respond to most of my citicisms, and promised to look into the returns policy and its appearance (or lack of) on the site.

Because of this positive experience I then replied to tell NNGroup that I wouldn't take them up on the offer of a refund because of their positive response.

Posted by: Mac on September 13, 2002 01:45 PM