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Read more commentsCOMMENT: How NOT to do customer service
By Mark Walker
We are always looking for examples of good practice in web design, functionality and making the user experience as pleasant as possible. But all that is wasted if the web site owner fails to deliver the service the client expects. Today I want to showcase an example of how poor service has completely destroyed my faith in a well known web site.
First of all I think it's important to say that I am not going to name the web site in question. The reason for this is that the web site designers have done nothing wrong! The site works well; it is easy to get around and delivers what you would expect. What I will say is that it is a web site for Villa owners to advertise their holiday accommodation and generate enquiries. So.... as I was looking for a holiday apartment off I went to the site, credit card at the ready... how hard could it be to book a holiday?
I searched the web site using the availability search which worked well and settled on 6 separate apartments from 6 separate owners. I penned an email to each one giving clear requirements and asking 3 simple questions... if they had availability, confirmation of the cost and a request for any additional photos they may have.
Off I popped to get a coffee as I waited for the responses to flood in.
And I waited.... and I waited.... and I waited....
It is now over 24 hours later and not a single one of the advertisers has bothered to reply! Not even a “thank you for your enquiry, we will get back to you asap” email.
In this day and age it is important to respond to customers quickly. If you can't deal with the enquiry immediately that's OK, but do us the courtesy of letting us know. It takes but a few seconds to send an email so do it. I was ready to spend a couple of thousand pounds with one of these advertisers but not any longer, my faith in them has gone. If they are this slapdash about a sales enquiry I wonder how bad they will be if something went wrong on my holiday (you see how a customer’s brain works?)
So what's the lesson here? If you are going to use the web to promote your business make sure you have the ability to respond to enquiries quickly. Don't spend money on a web presence and then leave potential customers with a bad impression of you by not replying when they make the effort to get in touch. If any of the advertisers I emailed had responded they would probably have got the business, they didn't so Thomas Cook will.
Rant over, I feel better now!
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