I doubt we can do a case study or even talk much about it. These guys are paranoid about letting anyone know what they are doing.

@ Tim McGuiness – Thanks for the kinds words and mention Tim. We are noticing that customers tend to expect more (good response time, fast shipping, notifications, etc.) The world of Online selling is so competitive in some markets that we have all really raised the bar as far as customer expectations. Many don’t realize exactly what you said, CS is a major part of marketing too!

Your test sounds interesting. First, be sure to let me know how things work out, maybe I can even work in a case study post on the blog. How are you planning to track the different channels (email/phone)? One suggestion i might give is to use a different 800 number for the site, emails, print and any other markets where a phone number can be displayed (even local search listings like Yahoo or Google local can be used). Not only do you need separate numbers that all bring the leads to company staff members, but you can also utilize some of the great call tracking technology that is available to find out how many leads each number receives and how many of them turn into sales. You may already be doing something similar, just wanted to put the thought out there just in case and for other readers.

Some good ones I have heard of others using for tracking include…

FootPrints (www.unipress.com/footprints), Online SupportCenter (www.innovate.com/products/osc), BridgeTrak (www.kemmasoftware.com), CapturetheCall (www.capturethecall.com) and CallSource (www.callsource.com)

There are others, so be sure and research them all to find out the best one for your specific needs.

As I learned from eCopt’s site, 65% of all of Zappos sales are to repeat customers. For them, customer service is a MAJOR part of marketing.

I am working on a test with a customer who does about $2 million/month in sales without a phone number. They are very lean and don’t think it’s worth staffing to have someone to answer the phone.

We are going to look at conversion rates, how many calls are actually made and how much it costs to staff. The ROI will clearly have to be there for the number to stay.

I have no idea how it will turn out – I’m past making predictions – that’s why it’s fun to actually measure.

I know from previous work in customer service that customers are blown away by a fast email response. They just don’t expect it, which is kinda sad…

Great list, got one more for you…

I absolutely hate it when customer emails or phone calls are not followed up on by the merchant for days, bad practice. Store owners should make an effort to get back to customers who email or call ASAP. Instead of 48 hours, it should be more like 2 to 4 hours, ideally.

Merchants who do not follow this rule will find they are probably missing out on great new sale opportunities and certainly aren’t helping their word of mouth business.

Another good tip to remember is, knowing when to NOT service a customer or knowing when to send them somewhere else. Even if you don’t get the business, they will remember you for helping them and will most certainly tell others, and will hopefully attempt to buy again themselves in the future.

Oh, one other thing. Nice job on the ODD number list, they work a lot better than top 12, top 10 and other EVEN number lists, from what I can see.

Justin Palmer

Especially with the current dollar exchange rate, we Europeans like to shop abroad – and shipping as in do you ship at all to us – is one of the first lookups, and it seldomly there which is bad.