Having shopped anonymously at 100 Websites during the fourth quarter of 2002, Chicago-based e-commerce consultancy The E-tailing Group has announced the top 10 marketers for online customer service.
In alphabetical order the marketers are jewelry and gifts pure-play Ashford.com; music pure-play CDNow; computer cataloger CDW; on- and offline cataloger Cooking.com; HPshopping.com, a division of computer manufacturer/marketer Hewlett-Packard; home shopping giant HSN; apparel and home goods cataloger Lands’ End; cataloger Musician’s Friend; office supplies superstore Office Depot; and retail giant Wal-Mart.
Among all 100 sites shopped, it took on average 18.7 hours to receive a response to an e-mail with a service-related question. The average number of clicks from purchase to checkout was 4.93. And it took on average 4.4 business days to receive an order.