Posts tagged online shopping
An Argument for “Live Chat” on Travel Sites.
01 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
A recent Phocuswright report titled, “On Again, Off Again: Why Online Travelers Book Offline” shows that the biggest reason that consumer book offline is due to wanting personal service:
Certainly the growing popularity of using social media in the sphere of customer service should help drop this number, but does this not also show the potential for putting live chat prominently on booking sites to try to keep clients from leaving the web and transferring their shopping to a more labor intensive call center? I would argue that the next two reasons would be smoothed via online chat as well in that a company could assure their shoppers that there aren’t better deals available by calling and that customer service is just as good online as it is offline. Certainly this all assumes that a companies customer service is at an even level across all channels. Having dealt with a variety of travel companies I know that this is definitely not the case. Perhaps the solution is to simply concentrate on and ensure the same quality of customer service no matter how a consumer reaches the company, thoughts?
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How Custom Can Things Get Online?
31 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
I was reading through the NY Times online on Sunday and found a very interesting article called, “Putting Customers in Charge of Design“. It describes the possibilities that a consumer has with ordering a completely customizable dress shirt from a company called Blank Label. It also describes this companies’ focus on customer service, even going to the point of popping up an online chat option after a visitor has been on their site for a certain amount of time. Many other companies such as Zappos, Amazon and even Trek – check out their killer custom bike configuration tool called Project One – have taken great strides in really personalizing the online shopping experience.
My question is why haven’t ski resorts taken steps in this direction? It appears that most resorts offer some variety of planning tools along with information, but I don’t see that any have taken the steps that this very customer centric web presence demands. These steps would start with putting customer service at the forefront, whether online or offline. How many resorts offer live-chat options on their sites? How many resorts allow a consumer to really configure their own resort experience (I see vacation packages as more operationally defined than consumer defined)? And lastly, are there any ski resorts that are already doing this?
