An Etailer's Customer Service Must-Haves

Since 2001, the Internet research company E-tailing Group conducts a mystery shopping survey to assess online merchants in terms of customer service. They judge the top 100 etailers based on a specific set of customer service criteria that they believe an etailer must possess.

Whether you are running a big ecommerce operation or a small etailing business, below are the customer service traits that a top etailer must have:

• 800 or toll-free number
• keyword search
• answer email question within 25 hours, correctly with a specific answer
• four or five days to receive package
• six or fewer clicks to checkout
• real time inventory in shopping cart or product page
• online shipping status
• order confirmation in shopping cart
• email order confirmation sent with order number included
• recommended products/features in shopping process
• display customer service hours