Saturday, May 19, 2001

Poor Customer Service Will Erode Online B2B Relations

Jupiter Media Metrix, the global leader in market intelligence, today reports that business-to-business (B-to-B) companies are missing basic customer service capabilities that can drastically improve online customer relationships and build trust. New Jupiter B-to-B customer relationship management (CRM) research reveals that only 41 percent of B-to-B companies respond to customers' e-mail inquiries within six hours—and of those that do, only half offer an accurate resolution. Furthermore, Jupiter Customer Service WebTrack Survey data show that only two percent of B-to-B companies have Web sites that feature an easy-to-search knowledge base for customers to use on their own. According to Jupiter analysts, B-to-B companies must improve their customer support competencies by leveraging online networks that allow for customers and service staffers to share knowledge.

"A recent Jupiter survey found that 45 percent of B-to-B buyers do not go online because they do not trust suppliers. Slow and nonresponsive companies are further eroding the opportunity to build trust in online relationships and are therefore missing valuable prospecting opportunities and disenfranchising their existing clients," said David Daniels, Jupiter analyst. "The low level of accuracy in B-to-B companies' responses will eventually drive customers to other, more costly communication channels and will lower confidence in e-mail as a customer service channel. Collaborative support networks can facilitate customer confidence by providing a repository of knowledge for customers to access."

Key findings and forward-looking analysis from the latest Jupiter CRM research—which will be discussed in greater detail at Jupiter's Ground Zero 5 conference, May 22-24 in Boston— include the following:

- While 96 percent of B-to-B companies offer e-mail customer support, only 67 percent post a toll-free customer support line on their Web site. Moreover, just four percent of the sites tracked offer text chat with collaboration. Though text chat can be a costly service channel, Jupiter analysts say that B-to-B companies can meet the expectations for real-time interaction by combining voice conversations with the collaboration aspects that text-chat tools provide.

- The Jupiter WebTrack data show that B-to-B companies are not using e-mail effectively as a customer service tool. According to the data, 65 percent of B-to-B companies responded to e-mail inquiries within 24 hours; 29 percent did not respond to basic customer service inquiries at all. Jupiter analysts say that businesses must realize that e-mail responsiveness forms perceptions of how committed a business is to customer service, which can be the distinguishing characteristic of how a buyer selects a supplier.

- While 65 percent of B-to-B companies offer online self-service, the WebTrack data show that all but two percent are nothing more than stagnant Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) pages. Jupiter analysts have found that this type of self-service offers no value to a complex B-to-B site because the pages are often long lists of text, which customers must scan to find their appropriate answer. Instead, Jupiter analysts say companies should leverage online service networks because they act as persistent collaborative knowledge repositories that can be queried by customers and service staffers alike.

"Previous Jupiter research has found that 70 percent of experienced Web users will leave a site if they can't find the information they need. B-to-B buyers will follow the same trend," Daniels said. "A highly collaborative customer-to-customer Meta-Service Network can capture the highly skilled knowledge of a company's clients and take the burden off their costly support engineers. Some companies leveraging similar systems have been able to identify a dozen customer enthusiasts that regularly answer customer support questions."