719 Better Customer Service On Line? Think Again
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Dynamic Chiropractic – January 1, 1999, Vol. 17, Issue 01

Better Customer Service On Line? Think Again

By Editorial Staff
Customer service on the World Wide Web falls short in many areas. Jupiter Communications conducted a survey of 125 major websites. Forty-two percent of the sites either never responded to customer inquiries, took more than five days to reply, or didn't offer e-mail responses to problems.

"A lot of sites don't recognize it's a problem they should be servicing, and we found a large number were failing entirely," said Ken Allard, director of Jupiter's site operations group.

Responding to inquiries quickly is key to a website's success. Prospective patients will click to a rival's home page if their questions go unanswered. If your practice maintains a website, make sure to check for e-mail messages at least twice a day, or set up an automated response to all incoming messages followed by a detailed personal response later that day. Small steps like these could go a long way toward improving patient recruitment and retention.

Reference

Clark T. Customer service an oxymoron online. C/Net News (www.news.com), November 9, 1998.


Dynamic Chiropractic editorial staff members research, investigate and write articles for the publication on an ongoing basis. To contact the Editorial Department or submit an article of your own for consideration, email .


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