Online videos – a new tool to raise online shoppers satisfaction

Customer satisfaction levels for Internet sites have stayed at lower levels despite colossal amounts invested in devising customer friendly technologies. ForeSee Results, a consulting and research firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich, surveyed 20,000 online shoppers to come up with the conclusion that customers expectations are higher and keep on increasing than the promises made and delivered by Internet shopping.

According to the ForeSee survey only five sites received scores higher than 80 out of 100, with no site scoring more than 85. In descending order they were Netflix, QVC .com, Amazon, Barnes &Noble and Drs. Foster & Smith. Similar scores were scored last year when only five sites exceeded 80 and no site scored higher than 85. According to Larry Freed, CEO of ForeSee, though individual sites have improved on their scores but the overall numbers have remained stagnant. He further added that the E-commerce companies, which did not made continuous efforts to shore up things saw gradual drop in their scores.

A decade ago online merchants and investors anticipated Internet stores to be inexpensive and hence far more profitable than offline stores and this new dimension has given a new life to them.

Future belongs to companies that can innovate like QVC whose sales staff thrusts the site’s merchandise with hi-tech and smart video presentations. QVC.com, with merchandise sales of over $1 billion in 2006, has from last five years has let visitors watch live feed of its network’s broadcast. As a new innovation QVC.com has made archives of all shows available online and soon it will make online videos from recent shows constituting individual products from its stock. In opinion of Bob Myers, senior vice president of QVC.com websites, video salesmanship is highly persuasive to the customer when integrated with detailed product information, customer review and multiple photographs. He cites an example where a customer had problems determining the size of the handbag from the height of model holding it. To make amends, with in two weeks, QVC introduced a new system that showed the bags with women of there different heights resulting in 10% increase in response from women who saw the photographs as against women who did not see them. Yet Myers consider video a particularly decisive element to garnering sales as e-commerce began with television commerce. Therefore, the site that can hold and entertain customer will lead in future. Similarly Drs. Foster and Smith, anticipating videos as a big move, in commerce, has also considered putting some of its product on video to offer 360 degree and hassle free view to its customers. Mr. Gordon Magee, head of Internet marketing at Drs. Foster and Smith says that company will rely on its vendors to make the video who will then send it as a code to put it on the site. According to Mr. Magee, company should maintain its customers satisfaction levels till it fulfills basic needs like pricing on website to be reflective of catalogue prices.

Despite passive customer satisfaction levels, customer service spending among websites has increased many folds. The survey by Forrester Research reflects that online retailers will spend 32% more on customer service than last year, which is double the expected increase.

Some like Lala.com, the online barter service for CDs and DVDs, have designed comprehensive customer service system on low budgets improving their overall customer satisfaction levels. Mired with shortage of service staff Lala.com started online discussion boards to garner sense of community among its customers. Soon customers were helping each other with problems and a veritable customer service team took shape. In view of Mr. Anselm Baird-Smith, cofounder Lala.com, the company has designated some volunteers as guides who help customers with their problems and feel loyalty to the community. Lala.com experiment has been a huge success.