December 1997

Email equals Customer Service

How 50 Australian Organisations Respond to Emails

By Marc Phillips

Regardless of how much financial prowess your organisation has, Email, if used effectively, can provide your business with a tremendous benefit by ensuring that your customers are receiving prompt replies to their email queries. Whilst Australian organisations strive to improve traffic to their websites by employing the latest technology, many are focusing their attention using Email to improve customer relations and build strong virtual communities.

In Cyberspace, the excess supply of websites has led to a buyers market where price has been substituted for content appeal and customer service when users are interacting with a website.

In October, I conducted a survey on behalf of the Australian Net Guide to determine the responsiveness of 50 randomly selected large Australian organisations from various private and public sectors including Banking, Government, Information Technology, Media, Mining, Tertiary Education and Retail. Each organisation was emailed at the same time and asked to respond to a simple set of questions relating to Email and their organisation.

The objectives of the survey were to determine the level of responsiveness that Australian organisations provide their stakeholders who communicate with them via email and provide an insight into the formalisation of Email response policies that indicate the emphasis that is being given to Customer Service.

The rate of response was high with 34 organisations  (68 per cent) responding. For those 16 organisations (32 per cent) who did not respond, they typify those websites driven by technology without embracing the Internet as an interactive medium. In the wake of the Electronic Commerce age, these organisations represent how the malaise of Australian management is hemorrhaging the relationship that their traditional businesses have developed with customers.

Less than half of the organisations surveyed (46 per cent) responded within 24 hours after receiving the request. 8 per cent responded within 2 days, 10 per cent within 3 days and 4 per cent within 4 days.

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It is quite pleasing that almost half the organisations surveyed responded within 24 hours. However, with one in every three organisations not responding, this important Internet Email utility is vastly underutilised.

The best performing sectors were Banking, Mining and Tertiary Education. All major banks responded within 48 hours. According to Torben Fink-Jensen, Manager of Internet banking at the National Australia Bank,  our aim is to provide a response, either initial or final, within one business day of receiving email. Customer service orientated organisations are doing more than printing their website address on the corporate stationery. Only Macquarie Bank and AMP failed to answer from the banking and finance sector.

The worst performing sector was Media, with two thirds of media sites not answering the email request. Amongst other things, this points out the problems traditional broadcasters are having adopting to the new online medium. No longer can publishers merely broadcast information. The Internet is interactive and consumers not only want to talk back but expect to be answered. Those who did answer, including The Age in Melbourne, Foxtel and Fairfax s CitySearch, exemplify a customer focused marketing edge, being well positioned to capitalise upon the growth of electronic publishing.

No Australian retailer responded to the email request in 24 hours, a shocking indictment on their customer service policy in the online medium. The first email from a retailer came from Lowes, the general merchandiser, who replied three days after receiving the email. 4 days after the questionnaire, Coles Myer responded saying they were  unable to assist [you] with your request . Imagine standing in line for four days at Grace Brothers to have your query answered!

In the Information Technology sector, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Netscape and Apple Computer responded within 24 hours yet no response arrived from Microsoft, Digital and Gateway 2000, the PC manufacturer. Interestingly, of the State Government websites that were surveyed, only the New South Wales government did not respond!

Those companies that were successful in responding to email in 24 hours following the request include:

The number of emails received determined whether the Webmaster or systems response teams answered the Email queries. National Australia Bank initially receive emails via their customer service centre where 80 per cent of emails are answered compared with the 20 per cent that are distributed to a range of experts within the organisation. The smarter organisations are training their service centre personnel with new skills to answer emails, recognising that Email requires a different approach to the telephone.

Not surprisingly, the Mining sector receives an average of 25 email messages per week compared to the Information Technology and Banking sectors that receive up to 500 email messages per week. David Shaw, Product Marketing Manager of Netscape Communications, stated that it is not uncommon for Netscape to receive over 500 emails per week whilst Commonwealth Bank regularly receive over 400 emails per week.

According to respondents, the email requests which take the longest to process and respond to are employment related, as they often involve contacting organisation offices around the world and formally responding. The use of corporate websites to host job vacancies has always looked incongruous and their relevance has been hotly debated by online Job Classifieds and Recruitment web businesses.

Lastly, each organisation was asked if they had a formal respond policy for answering emails.

The Banking sector is very well positioned to enter the domain of Electronic Commerce with 80 per cent of the banking sector stating they had set down a formal email response policy. Amazingly, only 20 per cent of the retail sector had a response policy - a damning result for customers wishing to shop over the web.

In an increasing trend with the more serious web business, the formal email response policy is being written into Quality procedures. Sue Dixon from Charles Sturt University stated that all emails are answered  in accordance with our Quality Assurance guidelines.

The Internet allows any company to increase their responsiveness to customer requests by quickly and accurately answering email messages. Building a stronger relationship with customers is exactly what the Banking, and Information Technology sectors have done by formulating a 24 hour email response policy.

Internet consumers are rapidly developing cyber-personalities and are beginning to value intangible and digital assets, particularly if they are asset rich - time poor professionals! Quick email replies demonstrates your organisation s commitment to customers and that you are driving your Internet strategy from a customers viewpoint and not simply being the most cutting-edge website.

For further information contact APT Strategies at info@aptstrategies.com.au