nickshanagher

On-line retailing still requires great customer service, Nick Robertson, chief executive of ASOS, told retail employers at a Skillsmart Retail seminar this week. Set up before the rise of social media (Facebook and Twitter and YouTube), ASOS has expanded internationally on the back of customer demand. It had no plans to launch in Australia but has huge sales there because social media helped shoppers to find ASOS. A key measure of customer satisfaction for on-line businesses is to measure the number of shopper contacts to orders. For ASOS this trends between 25 per cent and 30 per cent (which means a shopper asks a question about every fourth sale). Heavy snow in the UK last year caused this to spike over 40 per cent. Distribution problems caused it to spike over 35 per cent. Customer contact is driven by email. The call centre will only call back if the first two emails fail to solve the problem. Most emails are questions about colours and sizes which are easi...