This article is based on a recent online shopping experience (horror) with an Auckland company. The ten tips that precede the article will assist your organisation to become more customer friendly and focused while online. Being customer centric online and offline are two very different areas.

As most Kiwis’ do these days, I do a lot of online shopping for the convenience and often the discounts. Not to mention the fact that New Zealand has some terrible lag time with products being released overseas and them becoming available in New Zealand.

Recently I heard of a natural product that could help a family member with their health problem. The product is made from New Zealand fruits and sold in New Zealand by an Auckland based company. The company has an obvious budget as they have spent advertising on at least one national radio station.

At this stage I am feeling confident about a purchase, so I proceeded to make the small purchase on my debit card.

After ten working days and no correspondence except an automated receipt about the same time of purchase: I wanted to ask the company if there was an issue with the order. I hit reply in the email that I received the receipt. It was a generic email with “info@).

To my surprise the email bounced back as the address did not exist. A Google search later, I found the web site and emailed the email address provided on the site. Yet again, shock horror!, the email bounced back – another email that didn’t exist. At this stage I was almost convinced that for the first time in my life I had been scammed with an online purchase. Why did this New Zealand company advertise an email address that did not exist ?.

After reading the web site “Contact us” page and “About Us”, I learnt that the web site that promoted the product and offered the online purchase, was in fact a product web site and not the company web site. The company web site had a different address with a different deign and branding.

After visiting the company web site I find an advertised email address and emailed it to enquire about my order. To some relief I received an email back the same day. In that email  I was told that the company did not realise I had a PO Box as the delivery address (it was in the order and receipt) and that the order had been sent through a courier that does not deliver to PO Box address. That the order would be resent straight away with extra product as compensation for my troubles.  At this stage, I thought that was good customer experience and I was willing to move on. But i was still annoyed that the company had stated that if I want to make ordering easier, I should use a physical address and not a PO Box.

Three weeks from the original order from Auckland to Christchurch, my order arrived but without the promised compensation.

As a customer, I will not shop with the company again and believe that I did more than was reasonable to try to rectify and gain information about the order. I am also now concerned that the product may have been made with the same lack of care and attention to detail as I experienced with the order.

Tips to avoid online purchasing disasters

1. Ensure that all email addresses you advertise are active and monitored by a staff member.
2. Provide clear contact details including: phone, email, and physical address on your invoice, email signatures and web sites.
3. Accept that some people will find it more convenient to have all parcels and correspondence delivered to a PO Box, much the same way most people prefer to be contacted via mobile phone. Cities such as Christchurch have many residents out of their own homes and some people do not have letter boxes. Apartments, and the fact that couriers deliver during business hours make a physical address an insecure option or a hassle when one has to drive into the courier depot with a card and retrieve the parcel.
4. Don’t tell your customers what delivery method is best. The customer will know the best form of delivery based on their own circumstances.
5. Choose a reliable courier company that can deliver anywhere in New Zealand cities and towns.
6. Provide clear contact details of how a customer can contact you.
7. Once you have shipped a product, a simple email to the customer should be sent stating the order has been shipped.
8. Give your customers an online tracking number.
9. Use Twitter and other online services that allow your customers to praise or complain about you. Good customer service will quickly make an online complaint into useful marketing and brand loyalty exercise.
10. When you make a mistake, an apology to your customer can go a long way.
11. Company and product web sites should be branded and easily identifiable to who your organisation is and how to make a complaint. This can be as simple as using the same contact details on both company and product web site.
12. Conduct a user experience test, or involve an experienced ecommerce consultant to evaluate your order and checkout process.