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~ Salesupply ~

a positive development for customer service. Of the
surveyed online stores that offer chat, 38% of them offer
hybrid chat (up from 17% last year).

Hybrid chat offers the best of both worlds. Customers
with a simple, frequently asked question get an
automatic answer through the bot, and those with
more complex cases get to speak to a customer service
representative. “Almost everyone has an idea of the
possibilities of AI,” says Hans. “Hybrid chatbots
leverage the strengths of both technological innovations
and human empathy.”

Worth the wait?
Several factors influence the customer service
experience. Getting a solution to your question or
complaint as soon as possible is the most important,
followed by customer service responsiveness.

• Phone response time
On average, it took three minutes and 20 seconds before
the researchers got a customer service representative on
the phone. Stores in the top 50 took considerably longer
(4:10) than the top 51-300 did (2:17).
Almost half (49%) of the shops answered the phone
within 40 seconds; last year, this was 67%.

• Email response time
Compared to last year, email response time increased:
in ‘21, 47% responded within one hour. This time,
only 37% of all stores were able to do so. The average
response time by email was 30 hours and 14 minutes.
The top 10 took considerably longer, with an average
response time of 41 hours and 29 minutes.

• Social media response time
Remarkably, this time, the top 10 was many times faster
than the rest of the ranking, with a waiting time of
three hours and four minutes. The overall average was
12 hours and 40 minutes. The larger webshops are more
likely to have a webcare team.

Research methodology
For this study, Salesupply researchers examined the
customer service performance of the 300 largest Dutch
online stores according to the Twinkle100 of 2022. All
communication channels of the 300 web shops were
contacted once between October 18 and November 24
during office hours (excluding lunch breaks). ••

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