NFIB

When You're E-inventing Your Company, Use Customer Service as the Foundation
04/ 15/ 2002


If you're in the process of vamping up your company's E-commerce business, or if your Web site is already in place, you're probably involved in almost constant planning for future growth. In today's Workshop, Jeffrey Moses shows why you should base this growth on the foundation of customer service.

Customer service should not be an afterthought when planning Web site growth. Too often, companies focus on pricing, inventory management, ordering and receiving, shipping, and Web page design -but leave customer service out of the mix until customers start complaining. To avoid this, put customer service at the head of your development list. Plan ahead to set up systems that enable you to receive return items quickly, and to charge back customer credit cards within 24 hours of return of merchandise.

A quick story to illustrate how important customer service is to growth and profitability: A rapidly expanding website, Royal Cashmere (www.ahah-pashmina.com), began growing exponentially last year when the site's main line of products, pashmina shawls, became all the rage with Hollywood stars (pashmina is a high-end variation of cashmere). Some of the most photographed people on the globe were seen parading pashmina shawls at grand openings and Hollywood galas, and suddenly the Royal Cashmere website was deluged with orders. Over last summer, their business continued to grow, even though they had thought people would tend to buy fewer cashmere items as the weather became warmer. Then, during the holiday season, their site became so busy that the company began hiring part-time high-school students to help fill orders.

Even as growth accelerated, the company's owners kept their focus on customer service. Unbeknownst to them, the site was selected by USA TODAY as one of the newspaper's best E-commerce sites during December 1999. USA TODAY anonymously bought a shawl, then requested to send it back. Without a hitch, the shawl was returned, and USA TODAY's credit card was credited within 24 hours. An article soon followed, reporting results of the customer service exhibited by all the E-commerce sites unknowingly involved in the test. Royal Cashmere was given a top rating. The free, unbiased and exceptionally positive publicity served to propel the company ahead even more quickly, and today business continues to boom.

This illustrates the importance of continuing to focus on the principles of basic customer service, no matter how rapidly your site is expanding.

Currently, the writer of this article is waiting to return a book to one of the large online booksellers. I ordered and paid for a hardcover edition (a $42.95 book) but received the paperback edition instead. To date, I have been working with the company now for more than a month, trying to get it to credit me the difference and send out a shipping voucher so I won't have to pay return postage out of my own pocket. Apparently, this type of service is what USA TODAY found all too frequently during its E-commerce test last holiday season.

It doesn't take much to make your site a customer-service delight. Essentially, it's all in the planning, although it does take an ongoing commitment to maintaining customer-service focus even when your level of sales takes off.

What to plan for in customer service?

0. Ease of contacting representatives before and after the sale, either through E-mail of telephone.
1. Ease of returning items.
2. Quickness of crediting for returns.
3. Convenience of your site, including moving from page to page, finding specific items, detailed descriptions of items, easily accessed information about price and delivery charges, quick and easily understandable ordering procedures, among many other intangibles that can ultimately mean the success or failure of E-inventing your business.

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