RE: UKNM: A consumer's tale.

[Anil Pillai]

I agree entirely with your points Cosmo, and in fact there is a summary in

this weeks New Media Age Trend Focus about poor customer service being a

real turn-off to potential and existing net shoppers like yourself. 


Rubin Inc did a study "Evaluating the sticky factor of E-commerce sites" and

the findings are quite worrying. Poor communication/after-sales customer

service and support are cited as common problems for retail sites. They

polled 50 leading e-commerce sites, and found only 16% sent a follow-up

email to the customer after money was taken. Its a great great shame that

these selling sites are being built without thought to the most obvious and

basic issues to do with selling - building consumer trust and loyalty. One

of the best aspects of the selling on the Internet is that there is a real

opportunity to use technology to enhance the user experience, to help the

user shop, to maintain effective customer service. And yet the most common

points are still being overlooked. I hope these first generation E-commerce

sites will improve and that others who come on board learn from these

mistakes, especially if net commerce is supposed to become as huge as we are

told it will be.


With regards to boo.com, one life lost for being late, another for

alienating the users they should be targeting? sounds like $125m well spent!


A


_________________________


Anil Pillai

Consultant

Oyster Partners

t.	020 7446 7500

f.	020 7446 7555

e.

anil [dot] pillaioyster [dot] co [dot] uk

w.  http://www.oyster.co.uk



-----Original Message-----

From:

Cosmo [dot] Roecliffordchance [dot] com

 [

Cosmo [dot] Roecliffordchance [dot] com (mailto:Cosmo [dot] Roecliffordchance [dot] com)

]

Sent: Thursday, July 15, 1999 2:38 PM

To:

uk-netmarketingchinwag [dot] com

Subject: UKNM: A consumer's tale.



I am a lawyer who keeps a close eye on developments in net marketing both as

a professional and as a consumer.  As the latter I am a prime example of the

type of customer that net retailers should most value:  long working hours

with little opportunity to get to conventional retailers, disposable income

and unrestricted on-line access.  I shop fequently on the net.


As a result, I thought it might be useful to share my experiences as a

consumer with participants of a forum such as this.  I have a number of

comments:


*	please remember that 40% of net users (myself included) have

restricted shockwave capablilities due to operating from behind a firewall.

Ensure that you provide a basic no-shock version of the site for such users.

The prime example of this is Boo.com.  All that money, all that hype and

they put an unaccessible flash item on the pre launch intro page. Pathetic

research.


*	never, ever shop at iMVS.  To retain customer loyalty it is

absolutely vital that customer service is personal and second to none.

Experiences with amazon and audiostreet re: music shopping have been a

pleasure.  With iMVS a nightmare.  Dds did not arrive.  On emailing the

support department all I got was an automated reply, if anything.  I finally

resolved the problems by faxing the manging directors of the company

directly (having retrieved their names from an on line database), and even

then response was slow and inadequate.  The rest of the community should

watch out for operators like this.  A quick check with some of the 3,000

colleagues in my office, all of whom have on line access led to frequent

poor reports on iMVS.  

	

	One bad experience does more to damage the confidence of the user in

other sites than any fears about security.  When 	you are putting

faith in a computer order, it is vital for peace of mind that it is

fulfilled quickly, or that you are provided with a 	full and frequent

update if not.  ALL OTHER ONLINE RETAILERS SHOULD BE ACTIVE IN CONDEMNING

COMPANIES 	SUCH AS iMVS - THEY DO MUCH TO UNDERMINE CONSUMER

CONFIDENCE.


Kind Regards


Cosmo Roe


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