Customer loyalty at Christmas: come all ye faithful

Christmas is upon us once more, and as usual this is accompanied by a raft of studies impressing upon us the importance of keeping your customer service tail up as jack frost nips at your nose.

Research by ABa Quality Monitoring, for instance, has revealed that whilst it is the season to be jolly, it is also the season for retailers to neglect basic customer service standards.

The mystery shopping provider found that time spent restocking, poorly trained temporary staff, illness and high demand all contribute to a dip in customer service levels in November and December.

In line with Murphy's Law, this customer service inadequacy coincides with the period when brand loyalty is at its lowest ebb, due to widespread panic and last minute buying.

Here's a handy checklist of consumer pet hates courtesy of ABa Quality Monitoring, so that you can stay on top of your customer service levels. The top five irritants are:

1) Poor availability
2) Long queues
3) Miserable staff
4) Poor product knowledge
5) Chatting staff

To put all this in perspective, Christmas is expected to accrue a combined spend of over £15 billion. A whopping third of this is online, as well, so its not just your staff you need to keep your eye on, but also your site.

The UK payments association APACS is estimating that a record £5.6 billion will be spent online in the build up to Christmas - a whopping 56 percent rise on the £3.6 billion that was spent in the month before Christmas last year.

Despite concerns over the economy, this should be no surprise to most of us, with the number of people shopping online having doubled to 30 billion over the past five years and a growing percentage of these now own broadband connections.

However, another festive study suggests that many sites are not prepared for Christmas (and by that I don't mean adorned with baubles, snowfall effects and amusing photos of staff wearing santa hats).

Research carried out by solutions provider Akamai suggested that a huge 75 percent of consumers would not tolerate an online wait of more than four seconds before looking elsewhere. But many won't be able to meet this target according to Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer at NetBenefit.

“The Christmas holidays are just around the corner, and this means a significantly increased sales opportunity for online retailers," he says. "However, bad customer experiences such as snail-like speeds during the purchase are just as likely to turn a potential customer away as a long queue at the check-out counter and can generate a significant amount of longer term damage to the brand."

But it's not all doom and gloom, and according to a study by Forrester Research, 58 percent of all customers in Europe will buy their Christmas presents over the internet this year, so for those retailers who can provide a smooth and hassle-free online shopping experience, bumper sales can be expected.

And on the topic of new sites, I hope you enjoy the new look MyCustomer.com! We'll continue to bring you case studies, features and interviews next year, and I hope you are looking forward to 2008 as much as we are - it promises to be the best year yet for us and our members.

So have a terrific Christmas and a happy new year, and we'll see you in January!