31 Dec The power of a number

The importance of a telephone number.

Out of a sample of 10,000 e-commerce websites in the UK, 60 per cent of UK online retailers provided no telephone number on their website. By simply having a telephone number clearly visible on your website it will increase sales and encourage repeat business.

We live in a world that consumers want instant answers to their questions. Offering great customer service is something that is overlooked by many online retailers, however by including a telephone number on your site you can start to provide the customer with the information that they need, when they want it.

If an e-commerce site does not clearly state the business’ phone number, it is at a risk of losing half of the customers it could potentially sell to. A recent survey revealed that 50 per cent of people would never purchase anything from a site that does not provide a contact number. It is an essential requirement to reinforce customer trust.

For many online retailers they might not have the time or the resources to employ a customer service team to handle telephone enquiries, however, don’t despair there are plenty of telephone answering companies out there that can help you out.

The company I run, called Time Assistant, is one of those telephone-answering companies, however, we go a stage further than most of our competitors by offering a complete e-customer service experience. Meaning we not only handle your calls, we can also take customers orders over the phone, deal with email enquiries or even online chat requests. Our aim is to free up your time by providing your customers with great service.

We currently work with a number of e-commerce sites in providing them with customer service solutions for their business. Most of the calls we receive are people who would prefer to order over the phone, therefore we can log into our clients system and place the order for them. We also help with resetting customer’s passwords, and dealing with general shipping and returns enquiries.

Our prices of our telephone answering service starts from only 75p a call and includes a free telephone number, which, put into context of the amount of money that could be saved from lost revenue, then really there is no excuse not to have a telephone number on your website.

Don’t underestimate the power of a number.