66% of frustrated online shoppers turn to a customer service department for support

If you’re selling products or services online, it should be no surprise to you that a good customer service call center can reduce lost sales. It can even pull back departing customers before they leap off the ledge of despair, into the waiting arms of your competitors. However, a recent survey by Tealeaf gives us a better glimpse of how much online transaction problems are actually costing… and how much money your good customer service can save.

As this is written, the sun is rising on Black Friday, the biggest day of the year for many retailers across the United States and elsewhere as well. Cyber Monday will follow in just a few days, with Websites poised to pull in huge sales figures from buyers around the world. According to the survey though, for millions of shoppers the experience will not go as planned.

To give some background, the survey found that 66% of online adults had bought something online in the past year, and 56% had conducted financial transactions such as managing a bank account, paying bills, or investing in the stock market. Some 17% had conducted online insurance transactions. So these are consumers who know how to shop and spend online. And many of them are not happy.

The ultimate cost of lost sales

The survey results stated that transaction problems on retailers’ Websites may have cost those companies sales totaling an incredible $44 billion or more, in the past year alone. However, something the report doesn’t mention that we find just as staggering is that these billions of dollars were not potential sales way out there in the marketplace that maybe companies could have found. Instead, these were fistfuls of dollars that consumers had already decided to spend. People had gone online, made buying decisions, and actually tried to spend that money with those businesses, only to find problems on the Websites that kept them from handing over the dollars. Marketing had developed ad campaigns or promotions that worked, the company had probably spent many thousands or even millions of dollars to bring those customers onto their Websites, and the order was just about to happen. But suddenly a problem with the Website experience flushed the entire investment away.

To make the situation even more tragic, Rebecca Ward, CEO of Tealeaf, noted the potential for lost revenue can now even be amplified, since people can vent or broadcast their frustrations through social media like Facebook and Twitter. “The ‘echo chamber effect’ caused by frustrated customers who voice their displeasure on social networks can significantly damage an organization’s reputation,” she said.

Your customer service call center can save the day

The survey results note that a full 32% of the frustrated shoppers abandoned the purchase altogether, with most of them then going to competitors instead. However, there is actually some good news at this point… potentially. The report points out that when consumers run into problems while buying online, 66% of them will contact customer service, most notably by telephone, although email and Web chat are also regularly used. That contact gives online retailers the chance to gather incredibly valuable information from the customers:

• What exactly are they trying to do?
• What is frustrating them?
• What would they prefer to see on your Website instead of your current purchasing process?

Best of all, a well-prepared customer service call center can pull back the lost sale and turn it into revenue for you rather than your competitors. Amazingly, this can even help create greater customer loyalty than if the shopper had never encountered a problem in the first place. Don’t look at this as a marketing strategy though! Repeated frustrations will eventually dim the chances of success for even the most impressive customer service team.

Save money even if it means spending money

It’s worth the investment to get your customer service on track. Consider your call center as the intelligence-gathering arm for your marketing and Web development teams. And definitely nurture them as the best chance you have to pull back those lost sales. You may very well find that your call center can even be a profit center for your company. That’s a situation that leaves everyone happy, and your revenues growing.

Customer service is broken. Any customer or agent knows that. What can fix it?

In theory, customer service is easy.

In theory.

“Care.” That’s all there is to it. Just care about the customer and the business. Politely solve people’s concerns or frustrations quickly; make sure they’re satisfied, and then move on to the next customer. Easy, right?

Yes that’s the theory. But in reality, everyone ever involved on either end of customer service knows it’s seldom anywhere near as easy as it should be. What has gone wrong?

• First there are the automated systems that make it next to impossible — and sometimes literally impossible — for the customer to reach any real person by phone or in person. Poorly implemented technology turns frustrated customers into seething cauldrons.
• Next there are the policy manuals bigger than most monster trucks. In some companies employees have trouble learning all the steps that go into completing a product return or exchange in some places. Say a prayer for their customers.
• Then there are the limited budgets for hiring, training, and doing whatever is necessary to repair or replace a product, or resolve a service issue. The resources are just not there for some customer service departments to properly care for their customers. Some companies respond by outsourcing their customer service to low-priced offshore call centers with language or cultural differences that only heighten customers’ frustrations.
• In many companies, permanent workers have been replaced or rehired into contract or temporary positions. All too often, that means their paid vacations, sick days, health insurance, and other benefits are all toast. Add the pay cuts that often are part of the package, and you suddenly have a work force that is understandably just not that motivated to care for the company or its customers.
• After all the frustrations from past experiences and even similar circumstances in their own jobs, many customers walk in already feeling defensive and rude. That will of course only make a smiling salesperson or customer service representative harder to find. Customers who don’t complain effectively are not likely to get any happier.

It’s a volatile mix. Employees with not enough training or resources, working for companies they feel are not treating them fairly, are not likely to give all their empathy and effort to people rudely complaining due to the frustrations they feel in their own lives.

So, yes, customer service in theory is still easy. It’s just broken. Any company can easily fix it though, right?

No.

For some companies, the issues run deep enough and the morale is so low that fixing things would take nothing short of a major overhaul of policies, staff, and even the leadership. As much as consultants and bloggers like to sell the quick fix, the bad news is that for that type of company, a major improvement in customer service will not come easily.

However, the good news is that it can be done. And for many companies, it can indeed be easier than they might think. While this is nowhere near exhaustive, here are four ways to fix customer service in your company.

1. Let your customers and employees know change is coming, and why. Change management experts will tell you that people are always more accommodating and helpful when you keep them well informed. If they know what you’re trying to do, and how it will benefit them, they are much more likely to be patient, and will often even help you get there. But changes without explanations will only create more frustration and uncertainty.
2. Cool the hot points. In any company, for any product or service, there will be five or six or seven issues that generate the majority of all complaints. Identify them, and establish streamlined methods for quickly wowing those customers. The goal here is to not just remedy their problems, but to turn those customer-service encounters into big wins for your company, your employee, and of course your customer. Now you’re creating evangelists for your brand.
3. Track the issues and responses. In that second point, we noted that a small number of issues usually account for most of the company’s problems. However, if you also track the responses your company offers, you may be surprised to find that some of your policies may be creating their own complaints or bottlenecks. Identify the ones that turn your customer service into customer disservice, and fix them quickly. The needed changes may be surprisingly small, and the rewards surprisingly great.
4. Consider outsourcing your customer service, at least temporarily. Some companies do a very commendable job of handling their customer service in house. Others just never seem to be able to make it work, or make it work cost-effectively. If you’re realizing that some serious overhauls are necessary, or if your customer service always seems to cost more than it should, consider an outsourced customer service call center. A management team that has succeeded in helping other companies turn things around to care for their customers cost effectively may be able to give you the insights and skill sets to do the same. They might even be able to do it for less cost than you would spend to handle things in house.

For virtually any company, customer service will never be easy and care free. But with a few strategic fixes, it may be a lot less stressful and more profitable than you might ever have believed. It’s time to get started.