It also seems that while sites that have lead with books have dominated the category so far. The Dialscore results reveal that awareness is near complete for many of these emerchants. Speaking of customer service, Dialscore's Loyalty measure was extremely low across the board with the exception of Amazon, which scored 28 - 10 points higher that any of its competitors. Interestingly, according to digital idea, although Amazon clearly outperformed its competition in its Books, Music, Videos category, less than 3 out of 10 of their customers are considered loyal. This, according to the study's authors, suggests that significant upside opportunity exists for present and future competitors.
Customer service is a good investment.
The Internet, after all, provides a unique opportunity for merchandisers to build individualized relationships with customers and to make the purchasing experience fulfilling while building customer loyalty. The medium lends itself to the use of sophisticated database management, well designed email management and more efficient fulfillment systems in order to grow or improve a company's market share and increase its profits. Online customers are starting to clamor for good, old-fashioned human contact. A recent survey by NFO Interactive Inc. of Greenwich, Conn., an online market research and Web site evaluation company, revealed that close to 35 percent of the more than 2,300 online shoppers surveyed would buy more products online if they could communicate with a person on the other end. Of people who have not yet purchased anything online, nearly 14 percent said they would do so if they could speak to a customer service rep.