Are response times, shipping or returns the biggest consumer headache?
We talk a lot about the quality of customer service in this space, and it seems obvious that responding quickly to consumers is a big component of doing customer service right.
Yet, in a new study, only 18 percent of companies in the apparel/accessories category responded to an e-mail within four hours, and 32 percent of them took more than 12 hours to reply. On the other hand, overall top performer L.L.Bean responded to e-mails in less than an hour, on average. The Stella Services benchmark study involved 115 online retailers covering Q2 2015.
Stella’s study rated retailers across five categories: e-mail, chat, phone, shipping and returns. Overall, it explored three metrics:
- Response time: e-mail (response time to initial email); chat
(total time to live agent); and phone (total time to live agent); - Shipping: correct product arrival; checkout issues encountered; product damage encountered; package trackability; and total days to delivery;
- Returns: inclusion of label, prepaid label, adhesive label; refund type; return package trackability; days to authorization; total days to refund processed.
Source: llbean.com
L.L.Bean also did well on return orders checked by Stella Service analysts by including prepaid adhesive return labels, and processing returns in a week. And L.L.Bean ranked in the top 25 of retailers monitored in four of the five categories measured, and in the top six for three of the five categories.
Another stellar performer was bodybuilding.com, which took only 14 seconds to pick up the phone and delivered 100 percent of packages within two days. iHerb took only five seconds to connect to a chat agent, and Burberry was best at processing a refund, taking just over five days.
The top five performers overall, in order, were L.L.Bean, Mr. Porter, Shopbop, David Yurman, and Net-A-Porter. Other notables making the top 25 included Barneys, Ralph Lauren, Nordstrom, Brooks Brothers, 1-800 Flowers, Bass Pro Shops, Apple, Vitamin Shop, Cabela’s and Coach.
Discussion Questions
Which customer service pain-point metric (response time, shipping, returns) most typically gets short-shrifted by retailers and why?
Poll
BrainTrust
Ryan Mathews
Founder, CEO, Black Monk Consulting
I think the issue is almost always response, but time is just one metric.
Of course you need to respond in what customers see as near real-time, but it is the appropriateness of the response and the followup that matter as much as the speed. One could, for example, get back to the customer within an hour only to frustrate them by not addressing their issue or making them jump through an endless series of hurdles.
So yes a timely response is critical, but it is only table stakes. The quality of the response is, in the end, as important as its speed.
Experience suggests that response times to emails seem to be a lagging customer service issue with retailers. That being said, it is also a matter of perception. We live in a nanosecond world where immediate gratification is expected. When an email is written we expect a prompt answer. After one to two days the immediacy has already passed and we’re now frustrated. I’ve actually received responses days later and have to remember who I contacted! I do appreciate that they even responded.
Some retailers clearly indicate that you should expect a one to two day response time to an email which definitely helps to manage expectations. Apparently L.L. Bean has addressed this time gap and responds to emails very quickly. That clearly takes resources and management’s conviction to support this customer service channel.
That being said, almost every website has a “Contact Us” tab. If you provide and/or invite folks the ability to contact you, it is incumbent upon you to respond. Retailers can’t pick and choose who they respond to without repercussions to the brand.
All the factors play into what either is or is not a good customer experience. Answering a call quickly is important. But being able to understand and communicate with the person on the other end is equally important. Next is the return policy and ease of making a return. It is great that L.L.Bean puts a return label in their shipments. But there is a period of uncertainty from the time the return is made, received back and credited to the account. That is where retailers need to focus to assure customer satisfaction and good word of mouth conversations.
All of them. Consumers expect a response within an hour. If some companies can do that, consumers expect all companies can do that. Consumers expect shipped products to arrive within about 5-7 days with tracking available because some companies do that. Return labels need to be included or downloadable. Companies do not stay on top of what the best business practices are so they lose track of customer expectations. If you do not know the current expectations, you are probably not meeting them, thus disappointing customers. That makes them vulnerable and available for competitors to attract them.
When selecting from a list of things that are commonly identified as awful, you neither eliminate the consumers’ perspective nor anguish. Pointing to the problems and failed attempts to make changes is of little value to customers, employees or the company. Thus the takeaway from this discussion is a laundry list of problems that compel consumers to shop elsewhere and take their family and friends with them.
Adding to this are the unspoken amplifiers to these conditions as seen through the eyes of customer service representatives. Issues like returning product that is obviously ruined or damaged, or which might not have been purchased in the first place are time consuming issues that cause delays. Consumer inquiries by phone or email many times must be prolonged simply to accurately identify the issue or product needing to be addressed. The result of creating sides to a business problem is the initiation of a critical impasse that can only be tolerated by all parties and never fully resolved to the satisfaction of everyone.
With this in mind, it all suggests that the customer service tools that are used today are not inadequate at all, they are simply outdated or inept and in need of being replaced. The first order of this resolution might include facilitating a much closer involvement of the supplier(s). This could redirect the consumer frustrations to the manufacturer and “their” return, repair and replace policies as well as provide better assistance with proper use and expectation issues. This might be an additional goal for those wanting to create an omnichannel business advantage.
Response time is the space that must be dealt with in real-time. This is across all retailers and service providers.
Response time reflects on the retailer’s real care for the customer—whether they are or are not a paying customer. Would you leave a customer standing in your store, not shopping just standing there, for more than 15 seconds? NO WAY! So many retailers leave that same customer on the phone or checking email for 10 minutes plus!
Customer service must operate at the speed of checkout. Provide service at the same speed as you take their money!
TRedd…Fed up with phone service, Inc.
Companies keep training consumers to expect response that isn’t economically supportable over the long run. And that sets up disaster—because once we realize we can’t keep delivering that response, we are “taking away” something and consumers resent it (as they should).
To get on top of this: proactively set consumer expectations. When I’m seeking response and get a message that (a) my email is received and (b) expect a reply within x hours, then I am satisfied.
The consumers worst time is when they “don’t know.” When we handle phone customer service, we do not allow consumers to leave voice messages. Why? Not the technology (that’s easy). It’s the reality we’ve learned that no matter how proactive our agents, there’s very high risk of never reaching the consumer by phone.
So consumers are happier if we don’t allow them to leave voicemails, but are clear about the times when they can reach a live operator.
Sadly, too many digital endeavors have become over-enthusiastic about what “could be” done with digital and made big promises that can’t be kept. Recipe for disaster.
It’s hard to pick just one, but I think response time is usually a main pain point. A lot of retailers have implemented free shipping and returns, but not many are advertising how quickly they respond when contacted by customers. But as some have already said, time is just one way of looking at it. Not waiting on hold for long is great, but the quality of service customers are receiving must be high.
Response time is the most short-shrifted metric by retailers because it is so expensive to staff and difficult to predict. Shipping and returns can be managed on a daily basis; response time gets a grade based on minutes and seconds. Also, I have discovered that retailers often deny that there is a cost of business to delaying response to customers—as if those customers do not tell other customers and make future buying decisions based on past behavior.
Does it really matter? If the customer is experience a pain point for any of these three reasons the retailer risks losing the customer’s confidence. That said, response time to any issue, be it shipping, request to make a return, or any other issue, is of the utmost importance. It shocks me that some retailers take over 12 hours to respond. If I wanted my question answered in 12 hours, I would have waited 12 hours to ask the question.
It’s the response time and quality of response that’s the big pain point from a customer’s perspective. When an anxious customer does not get an instant response for a query before or after purchase, the whole experience of the customer plummets. Also there is nothing more frustrating then seeing a standard, automated reply.
Each of these metrics directly impacts the other. Receiving a reply to your email within an hour is meaningless if the question is not fully answered, or maybe there were two questions and the second was missed. Making shipping/tracking details available to the customer as quickly as possible would also reduce email/call volume, making it easier to turn around the balance of calls more efficiently.
Returns remain a large focus (and rightly so), but still affect a smaller percentage of customers. Again here, creating a clear/easy process for the customers greatly reduces the need for additional contact center/support communication.
Regardless, all retailers should be considering comparative metrics rather than solely reviewing their own. Camille makes a good point above in keeping a pulse on evolving customer expectations.
The response time metric is still one of the most important, and weakest parts of a retailer’s pain-point metric. Responses to email might rank as one of the most forgotten, since retailers focus on phone replies, but often neglect email, where hours and days without replies are considered OK. Why email doesn’t deserve the same level of attention, is a demonstrated weakness of poor “old school” marketing and customer service mentality, that is often embraced, organization-wide.
Response time, shipping and returning products are all important to customers. However, I think response time is the most important because a customer who sends an email to customer support/customer service usually needs an answer to help make a decision at that time—could be anything from sizing to company policy. Therefore, an immediate response is paramount to keep the customer from slipping away and choosing another venue where questions can be (or are already) answered.
Shipping is important to all consumers, although I would argue it’s most important to consumers who need something very quickly. Once a consumer has reached the point within the buyer’s journey to purchase a product, the shipping becomes the focus. Shipping is a secondary concern for many consumers.
Return policies can encourage or discourage a consumer to buy a product. Strict return policies limit the number of buying customers because return difficulties essentially require the customer to have 100% satisfaction with no guarantee.
Does it really matter? If the customer is experience a pain point for any of these three reasons the retailer risks losing the customer’s confidence. That said, response time to any issue, be it shipping, request to make a return, or any other issue, is of the utmost importance. It shocks me that some retailers take over 12 hours to respond. If I wanted my question answered in 12 hours, I would have waited 12 hours to ask the question.