Mystery Shopper Benchmark: Are the UK online customers kings?

By Salesupply - Our partners at Salesupply have produced an amazing Benchmark study to reveal the state of customer care in the UK. 

That’s why today we want to share Salesupply findings and insights to help your brand increase its profitability and turn your customers into kings! 

🔥Check here The benchmark done by Salesupply🔥

The benchmark revealed the state of customer care in the UK and highlighted the following finding:

• Missed opportunity: Over half of the web shops only offers customer service from 9 to 5
• Nearly 60% of the stores answers the phone within a minute
• 32% replies to emails in one hour
• Close to half of the webshops offer chat as a channel

Customer service is vital in creating an extraordinary brand experience, even more so in e-commerce. Speed in both reacting and providing a solution is key to keeping customers satisfied. According to the 2022 UK Customer Satisfaction Index, increasingly more customers even consider the rating/quality of customer service as a deciding factor for where to shop. 

What does that mean for British webshops? 

• How well do online stores in the UK perform on customer service? 
• How long does it take before consumers receive an answer? 
• What contact options do they provide to their customers? 

E-commerce customer service specialist Salesupply went undercover and contacted 75 of the biggest British e-commerce shops to discover the current status of British e-commerce customer service (see reviewed stores in the appendix). 

What are the most popular customer service channels? 

Most online stores offer multiple contact channels. Every customer is different and they all have their own preferred way of contacting customer service. With 89%, email is the most offered contact channel, followed by phone with 86%. This fits the European trend; since 2021, email is the most used customer service contact channel of the European consumer.

On average, the visited online stores offer 2.6 contact channels. Most of the webshops (45%) offer two customer service channels for customer queries, followed by three channels (24%). Only 2% of the analyzed online stores offer all five possible channels. 

Should online stores offer as many service channels as possible? 

According to Jonathon Huggett, Business Development Manager at Salesupply UK, the most important thing is that stores deliver top service via the channels that they do offer. "You should always focus on your customers: who is your target audience and what are their preferred contact channels? Per channel, make sure the waiting times are short, agents are professional, well informed, and emphatic, and – most important – make sure that the customers’ questions are resolved quickly. Preferably during the first contact moment."

Customer service: available when the customer needs it? 

One of the big advantages of e-commerce is the possibility to shop at any given time and place. The evening peak in online sales (between 7 pm and 9 pm) confirms that consumers fully embrace this advantage. For online stores, however, this can be a challenge. Customer service should be available during these peak moments to resolve the questions and doubts customers may have. The peak in cart abandonment (between 7 pm and 11 pm) shows this is not always the case.

The study shows that there is room for improvement with regard to customer service availability. In 52% of the cases, customer service was only available between 9 am and 5 pm just like a regular offline retail business. The customer service department of more than half of this group (27% of the respondents) is only available during the daytime Monday to Friday.

"A missed opportunity" according to Huggett. "The importance of customer service in the pre-purchase phase is often underestimated. Online customers are impatient. When a question arises, they expect an answer right away. If customer service is not available at that moment, they will not hesitate and go to a competitor. Nowadays, an online store can no longer avoid offering customer service during evenings and weekends."

Chatbot: live or hybrid?

Chat solutions are certainly not new but the technology keeps on evolving. 43% of the e-commerce shops visited during this survey, offer chat as a contact channel on their website. Of these online stores, most of them opt for a manual chat with live agents (44%). The automatic chatbot is the least popular option (21%) while 35% of the only stores with chat functionality offer hybrid chat. Hybrid chat is becoming more popular each year. The chatbot resolves the easier / standard cases, giving the agents more time to focus on the more complex customer service requests. 

Response times customer service channels - How do the visited online stores score on speed?

Response time phone

How long do online shoppers in the UK have to listen to the waiting music before being attended? We called the customer service departments of these 75 webshops on workdays between 9 am and 5 pm. In 30% of the cases, a customer service agent answered the phone within 40 seconds. For 10% of the e-commerce shops in the UK, it took the customer service department 5 minutes or even longer to answer the phone.

What difference does it make to wait a couple of seconds longer? Is it really affecting the customer experience? According to Huggett, waiting time is one of the most important aspects with regard to the phone as a service channel. "Online Consumers are becoming more impatient by the year." A study by Skopos showed that German consumers’ maximum accepted waiting time is 4 minutes. A worldwide study by Genesys showed similar results. 'Customer experience is very important, the longer you let your customer wait, the harder it becomes to change this negative experience into a positive one.’ 

Response time email 

Among both consumers and companies, email is the most popular contact channel. Research shows that 74% of customers expect an answer to their message within one day. How fast are the online stores in the UK? Well, quite fast actually. Of the web shops in this benchmark, 32% responded within one hour and 66% of the companies responded within one day. A small minority (2%) took longer than a week or never replied at all. 

Focus on customer service opening hours

There are many ways in which online stores can improve their customer service. Based on this survey, what should they focus on? According to Jonathon Huggett: "Within this benchmark, one finding stood out: the tested stores have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to their customer service availability. There is always the possibility to extend the number of offered channels or to upgrade to a hybrid chat, but that is not the most important thing. We recommend online stores expand their customer service opening hours. It should no longer be an option for customer service departments to not be available after 5 pm or during the weekend. This is where a lot of shops are missing out on extra turnover."

List of visited webshops

1. Fragrance Shop	26. Anne Summers	51. UK Flooring Direct
2. Jack Wills	27. All Saints	52. Walls and Floors
3. Phase Eight	28. Cath Kidston	53. Leekes
4. Joules	29. Coast	54. Molton Brown
5. Go Outdoors	30. The Cotswold Company	55. East Clothing
6. Alexander McQueen	31. The Works	56. Feather & Black
7. Aspinal of London	32. Emma Bridgewater	57. Fitness Superstore
8. Camper	33. Office	58. Joe Browns
9. The White Company	34. Clarks	59. Just for Pets
10. Tiso	35. Cotswold Outdoor	60. Victoriaplum.com
11. Games Workshop	36. Hamleys	61. Smyths Toys
12. JoJo Maman Bebe	37. Richer Sounds	62. Lululemon
13. Menkind	38. Selfridges	63. Seasalt Cornwall
14. Radley	39. Selfridges	64. Sweaty Betty
15. Boden	40. Home Bargains	65. Sofasworld
16. Bravissimo	41. The Original Factory Shop	66. Charles Tyrwhitt
17. Crew Clothing	42. Hobbs London	67. Crabtree & Evelyn
18. Dune	43. Sock Shop	68. Charles Clinkard
19. Fatface	44. Liberty of London	69. Foyles
20. Urban Industry	45. Misguided	70. Furniture123
21. Whitestuff	46. Monica Vinader	71. GAK
22. Wolf and Badger	47. Jigsaw	72. Brora
23. Build-A-Bear Workshop	48. Yumi	73. Scotts of Stow
24. Hobbycraft	49. Barbour	74. Sevenoaks Sounds and Vision
25. The Cambridge Satchel Company	50. Mamas & Papas	75. Smythson