Jupiter found that 55 per cent of customers expected accurate responses within six hours. Yet only 20 per cent of firms were meeting that expectation. Users' expectations about email response times were continuing to shrink so most users may soon expect one-hour replies. Budgets for email customer response were likely to tighten, not expand. If you can't see conflicting agendas here, you're not paying attention.
Customers expect more and better service.
But now that the easy money of the dot com boom has evaporated, many Web site operators want tighter cost control. And customer service staff cost real money. As Jupiter and others point out, some of the solution lies in better Web sites. You can cut email volumes simply by ensuring a Web site contains easily found information to answer the bulk of customer queries. And by classifying and examining the email that still arrives, you can write the recipe for making the site even better.