The hidden cost of online customer service

The internet is often seen as the cheapest channel to serve, more cost effective than telephone or face to face customer service. Some websites hide their contact information, in the hope that it will force people to persevere with a bad user experience on the website. It’s a false economy. When companies cut too many corners, their service costs rise unnecessarily.

For example, I booked train tickets online recently. When they arrived, they were missing my seat reservation. I knew I’d entered my preference into the website, so I called the company to be told that I had to go to the station to reserve my seat, even though I’d already bought my ticket online. There was no hint about this on the website, and the company ended up paying for its website, call centre and station staff to sell me one measly ticket.

I had a similar experience with an airline too: I selected my seats on the UK site of a well-known US airline. When it came to the final confirmation, my order wouldn’t go through. The site threw out error messages but wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. When I phoned them up, it turned out those tickets weren’t available to UK customers. Again, the company paid for bandwidth and operator time, only this time they didn’t even sell a ticket.

In both cases, I would have preferred to resolve my problems myself by logging into my account but I couldn’t find out how to do that. Nor was there a support number I could call to resolve website questions within minutes.

Many people will end up negotiating their entire transaction by phone or in person because they can’t resolve minor issues with a website, or at least because they do not have faith they will be able to if they arise. Publicising a phone number can reassure customers. By supporting them as they use your website, you can cut the number that are forced to switch to a more expensive service channel and also cut the number that defect to rival websites that offer a better user experience.