Page 44 - CBM26

~ Salesupply ~

BENCHMARK:

STATE OF E-COMMERCE

CUSTOMER SERVICE IN

THE NETHERLANDS

Text: Phoebe Kamp, Ruud den Rooijen // Photos: Salesupply

Customer service plays a crucial role in the overall customer experience, especially in
e-commerce, where relationships are nowhere near as personal as in traditional retail.
The smallest friction can turn a positive experience into a negative one, with serious

consequences (think online reviews and social media). Customer service is the only chance
to save or repair the customer experience. E-commerce customer service provider Salesupply
put the customer service of the 300 biggest webshops in the Netherlands to the test.

ow did you find our number? and not every customer wants to be helped by a bot. We
Since May 2022, European e-commerce legislation strongly advise merchants to have representatives available in
Hhas required online stores to clearly display a the evenings to not miss out on sales opportunities.”
customer service phone number and email address on their
site. Not every online store is living up to the new legislation. Pick your contact channel
In 12% of cases, the phone number wasn’t listed on the Although the customer service of the top 300 online shops
website. In addition, 6% of online stores (incl 60% of the top has reduced their availability, they do offer consumers more
10) made sure their number was very hard to find. ways to contact them. On average, customers can reach
customer service through 3.2 channels, compared to 2.7
Reduced customer service opening hours channels last year. 41% of the top 300 offer three service
Being available when your customers are shopping is crucial. channels, followed by four channels (30%). Social media,
In e-commerce, this means both day and evening. Compared email and phone appear to be the three most frequently
to the ’21 survey, customer service opening hours seem to offered contact channels.
have declined over the past year.
The chatbot is here to stay
Of only 7% of all webstores, the customer service team is If there is one contact channel that has improved in recent
available on both weekdays and weekends during the day and years, it is the chatbot. By applying AI, the bot is increasingly
in the evening. Last year, this was 10%. able to help website visitors. The adoption of hybrid chat is
In addition, 14% are available during the day and evening
on weekdays and during the weekend only in the daytime
– compared to 23% the previous year.

Hans Siebum, Managing Director of Salesupply, suspects
there are two reasons for this development: “Apart from
the complexity of finding qualified personnel due to labour
market shortage, it seems that further developments in
chatbot and AI technology may also play a role. The latter is
not without risk; not all questions can be left to a chatbot,

44