My question is, why do companies publish an email contact address if they choose not to respond to customer queries? Perhaps it comes down to user needs analysis ... is there a need to have the web channel in the first place?

Posted by: Daniel Szuc on February 22, 2003 11:54 AM

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Emails are like telephone answering machines, it's not necessary to respond immediately as in case of a direct phone call. And people are comfortable and forgetful. The chance of an email reply is non-linear reciprocal to the time elapsed.

Posted by: Gerald on February 22, 2003 07:57 PM

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It won't change except temporarily when companies find their markets gobbled up by competitors who (for a while) offer better service. Customer service will never be the glamour end of a business.

Posted by: Philip Chalmers on February 23, 2003 08:20 AM

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Gerald, remind me never to e-mail you.

The only time I do not expect a reply to an e-mail is when I mark the message "no need to reply." I stop talking to people who don't reply to e-mails. Ignoring someone is an extreme show of disrespect.

If you don't like to, or can't find the time, or forget to reply to people, maybe you shouldn't give people your address in the first place.

Posted by: Pampers McGee on February 23, 2003 05:23 PM

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Have to agree with "Pampers McGee" - We aim to be as prompt as possible with email enquires, not always easy, but thats the aim.

Posted by: Daniel Szuc on February 23, 2003 11:38 PM

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I had to post a gripe this week about WebTrends, who has let 2 emails slip almost a week now with no response. I contacted them on behalf of a Fortune 500 company, who is interested in spending money on more WebTrends products.

If getting sales isn't the point of having a site for WebTrends, I don't know what is. They they claim to help other companies find the business value in their web sites makes their unresponsiveness just plain ludicrious.

My bigger gripe - people who respond to emails with phone calls. There are few things I hate worse than trying to figure out how to now document that conversation and not lose the thread of the email. I've resorted to emailing the summary to myself, which just seems silly.

Posted by: Boyink on February 24, 2003 09:29 AM

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I agree with Pampers McGee. Not replying to emails is the same thing as giving your phone number to the customer and pulling it off the plug.
Another thing I hate is when you email some company and get an automated reply message including all possible categories that a keyword or keywords in your email might fall under. That's totally ridiculous.
And worth mentioning while on the subhject, Amazon is usually pretty good in replying to their emails, I found.

Here's a thought though, as usability "promoters" in our companies, should we also question customer service in our projects? Usually, in the different projects, departments and companies I've worked in, we're not even allowed to go there. Any requests or questions are simply dismissed with something along the lines of "we'll leave that for the CS department to answer or consider..."
Doesnt good usability include good customer service? Usability doesnt end (or even begin) with just an intuitive, simple design right? When we put a "Contact Us" button, shouldnt we be concerned about what happens when it's clicked?

What are your experiences on the Customer Service Department's territory?

Posted by: Berna on February 24, 2003 09:48 AM

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I've had this happen on several Dell support requests. I can only guess that it is cheaper for them to let me hold on an 1-800 line than to respond to an e-mail.

-Jeff

Posted by: Jeff Albro on February 24, 2003 10:26 AM

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Berna -

I guess I don't pitch myself as strictly a usability person, but I definitely ask, when putting together a site for a client, what the plan is for staffing the site. I am concerned about it!

Posted by: on February 24, 2003 10:56 AM

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When my office upgraded to Windows XP I was prepared to make a bulk purchase of Zone Alarm Pro (firewall) because I'd used the free version at home for quite a while. When I installed the free version on XP for a demonstration, it wouldn't load after rebooting. The web site indicates it's compatible with XP, but I'll never know because the company never responded to my e-mails. Black Ice was more than happy to take my money though. Cha-ching!

Posted by: Betty on February 24, 2003 11:18 AM

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Thanks for the comment.

I dont think that any of us can be considered to be strictly a usability person. We should all be rightly concerned of how the website is staffed, and how the service is going to be provided etc. But my question is: What are the reactions you get when you ask "Who's going to reply to the emails from the CONTACT US section?"
Do you usually find that you are "allowed" (for lack of a better term) to comment on and suggest ways to improve the customer service experience? For instance, how the customer is notified if something in their order cannot be delivered on time. Or what the Customer Service Department is willing to do to meet the delivery date or negotiate with the customer, or providing an 800 number for the customer to be able to call if they want immediate attention... etc.

Posted by: Berna on February 24, 2003 03:41 PM

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Sure I'm "allowed to", at least as far as it concerns the connection between the web site and customer service. Maybe it's that I work with smaller companies, or that I once served that email meets CS role internally at a large company, but I've had very receptive audiences for that kind of coaching.

Heck, I even did a study and wrote up some guidelines to use as a marketing tool:

http://www.boyink.com/EmailCustomerService.html

Having said that I do work more in the B2B world, so have yet to deal with this area on a B2C level.

Posted by: Boyink on February 24, 2003 04:49 PM

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Agree Berna.

In fact, the usability/user experience of "customer service" areas as a wholistic channel (web,phone,shops etc) is very important. I have also experienced not getting access to "customer support" sections of companies, when these areas are probably a gold mine of obseravation in terms of - what customers are asking for, whether customer support applications actually support the interaction and for "task scenario" generation.

Posted by: Daniel Szuc on February 24, 2003 09:09 PM

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