A new report by the Direct Marketing Association shows that 75% of Web-based companies now integrate their Web/fax/telephone customer service systems. The DMA’s State of the E-Commerce Industry Report 2001-2002, set to be released next month, also found that 89% of respondents said their customer service reps and telemarketers responded to customers’ requests within 24 hours. Those targeting their Web site to business-to-business segments had a slightly better response time to customer requests (46% within one hour), compared to consumer marketers (34%). Many consumers still prefer to deal directly with a voice when returning a product, according to the DMA report. As a result, only 21% of respondents reported they offer online exchanges and returns for credit across for orders placed in other channels, and only 18% indicated they integrate real-time inventory status updates.
In total, respondents indicated their customer service reps and telemarketers have the capacity to communicate mostly through e-mail (79%) and voice/telephone (71%), both of which are mostly handled in-house. Fewer have the capacity to communicate across channels through interactive Web, remote operations or chat rooms.
Forty-seven percent of respondents indicated they set their shipping and handling costs to cover either outbound freight or some combination of that and materials or direct warehouse labor. Sixty-two percent of respondents offer product information and more than half (55%) process orders online.
“Traditional direct marketers who built their reputations on customer service were early adopters of real-time technologies,” said H. Robert Wientzen, president & CEO of the DMA, in a statement. “As a result, they are applying their existing customer service-fulfillment technology to realize economies of scale when conducting Web business.”
