27% online shops are available weekdays from 9 to 5
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27% online shops are available weekdays from 9 to 5

More than half of online shops in the UK close their customer service after 5pm. In addition, 27 percent of online shops in the country are only available during the day from Monday to Friday. “A missed opportunity,” says Jonathon Huggett, Business Development Manager at Salesupply UK.

Consumers are more likely to shop in the evenings, as evidenced by an evening peak in online sales between 7pm and 9pm. However, this is also when most carts are abandoned. Salesupply went covert and contacted 75 online shops in the UK to reveal the state of customer support in the country.

52% of stores close support too early

The e-commerce customer service provider already showed earlier this year that German and Dutch online shops are closing their customer support too early. At least 52 per cent of UK online shops are doing the same, meaning they are missing out on potential sales during the evening peak.

‘Customers expect an immediate response.’

“The importance of customer service in the pre-sales phase is often underestimated. Online customers are impatient. When a question arises, they expect an immediate answer. If customer service is not available at that moment, they will not hesitate and go to a competitor. Today, an online shop can no longer avoid offering customer service in the evenings and on weekends,” says Huggett.

Customer Service Availability
Customer service availability in 75 UK online shops. Source: Salesupply

Multiple contact channels

While online stores could improve the availability of their customer support, they score with the number of channels they offer. On average, they offer 2.6 contact channels. Email was the most common channel (89 percent), followed by phone (86 percent). As most consumers in Europe prefer email, these businesses are following suit.

In 43 percent of the online shops, the chat was also used as a contact channel. Most of them use live agents (44 percent), while 35 percent offer hybrid chat. This gives agents more time to focus on complex requests.

60% answer the phone within a minute

As e-commerce customers are notoriously impatient, fast response time is required. In 60 percent of the online shops, the call was answered within a minute. In 30 percent of the cases, the phone was answered within 40 seconds. However, some stores took 5 minutes or more to respond (10 percent).

‘32% of online stores answered emails within an hour.’

When contacted via email, stores can often respond within a day (66 percent). This is in line with consumer expectations. 32 percent even answered within an hour. Only a small minority (2 percent) responded after a week or not at all.

Response time of customer support via email
Customer support response times for emails in UK online shops. Source: Salesupply.

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