Consumer distrust could lash e-commerce

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Build consumer confidence by letting them speak to someone

John Thompson is on to something when he warns of a lack of consumer confidence when it comes to e-commerce. Part of the reason could be due to the usual customer anxiety of making complex, high value purchases. The normal protocol, in the offline world, is to have a sales person approach the customer to offer assistance. Unfortunately, most e-commerce sites don?t offer an online equivalent. But a growing number of retailers and financial services institutions are finding ways to dynamically engage their customers?using voice.

Click to call technology puts customers in direct phone contact with businesses at key points during the online transaction process. Analysts firms, including Jupiter and Forrester, have found that there?s nothing like voice for increasing online sales compared to other tools like text chat and e-mail. While the trend in e-commerce is towards customer self-service, retailers including Amazon.com and Dell are using click to call powered by eStara to reduce shopping cart abandonment and improve customer satisfaction. It?s the best way to build consumer confidence by letting them speak to someone if they want to - otherwise risk losing the sale due to fear of the online channel.

Best of all, it allows for a continuity of experience when the customer crosses over form the web to the phone. Through cross-channel data passing, the context of the customer?s web session is preserved when they decide to use click to call. This prevents the customer from having to ?start all over again? when they reach a pain point on the web and decide to make a call.

The customer maintains a sense of security and privacy, plus the benefit of a live voice interaction with a human being, and the customer service representative is equipped with information already provided on the web to assure a smooth customer experience and a higher likelihood of conversion. It?s a win, win for the customer and the company.

Posted by: notCraigslist   Posted on: 02/17/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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