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
