Friday, December 10, 2010

10 reasons why Xmas shoppers won't return to your site

10 reasons why Xmas shoppers won't return to your site ; With record online spending expected this Christmas, retailers have a great opportunity to acquire and retain new customers.

If customers have an excellent experience through purchase to delivery (and beyond if they need to return items), then they are more likely to return to make future purchases. I've listed ten things for retailers to avoid once a customer has made a purchase online...

Slow delivery

Waiting longer than expected for items to arrive is frustrating for customers, especially in the Christmas shopping season. Customers will be unlikely to forgive a retailer that fails to deliver

gifts in time for Christmas.
Delivery timescales should be made clear on the website, and retailers are advised to under-promise and over-deliver here. For example, John Lewis standard delivery says five days, but I normally receive my orders within a couple of days.

Of course, retailers are often at the mercy of the Royal Mail or couriers here, so choosing a reliable courier and closely monitoring performance is recommended.

Poor tracking information

If customers are anxiously waiting for orders to arrive, one way retailers can reassure them is to provide tools for them to track the progress of their order. Some tracking tools are good, I've always been impressed with Apple's for instance, but others make users work too hard to find the information they need.

For example, several retailers just give customers a long alphanumeric code which needs to be pasted into the courier's website. Finding the right box to paste it into is often tricky.

No contact details on site

Retailers should make it easy for customers to get in touch in case of any problems with delivery or with the products once they have arrived. Providing contact details on confirmation emails and with packages is one easy way to do this, but customers should also be able to find this when on the website. Retailers should provide a telephone contact option. If a customer needs to get in touch quickly then making them wait for a reply to an email will just frustrate them.

For an example of this, see Sports Direct. As far as I can tell, there is no telephone contact option, and customers have to wade through a long list of FAQs before they can find a link to contact the customer service team. Even then, you only get a contact form, which promises a reply within seven working days. Not good enough, and almost guaranteed to annoy customers.

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