Product category:
Lifestyle data
News Release from: Lifestyles Online
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 06 February 2008
How to answer consumers' online
enquiries fast
Lifestyles Online, the pan-European data capture agency, has conducted research with over 7,000 consumers on their expectations about response rates to online enquiries.
If you were in a shop and asked a member of staff a question, how long would you stand there and wait for their help? No one likes to feel like a lemon offline and research suggests we don't like to be hanging fruit online either Lifestyles Online conducted research with 7,637 consumers and found that 85 per cent of consumers expect online enquiries to be answered within 24 hours
The results suggest businesses need to respond to online enquiries within at least 24 hours to retain their customers.
If making an online enquiry, with a specific product question or request, 84 per cent said they would like a response within at 24 hours.
Just 16 per cent felt that a response after 24 hours was satisfactory.
And although the majority, 49 per cent, expect a response within 24 hours, 36 per cent consider an answer within the hour more timely.
If you contact a business via their website with a specific product request (not a newsletter sign-up form or customer service) how long before you expect a reply? Within 24 hours - 49 per cent; 15 minutes - 17 per cent; after 24 hours - 16 per cent; half an hour - 10 per cent; an hour - 9 per cent.
The research went on to question how long people are prepared to wait, after making an online enquiry, before they contact a competing business.
Again consumers demand a speedy reply with 42 per cent claiming to shop elsewhere after an hour.
If you have made an online enquiry with a business how long are you prepared to wait before you make similar enquiries with a competing business? Within 24 hours - 44 per cent; 15 minutes - 19 per cent; after 24 hours - 15 per cent; an hour - 12 per cent; half an hour - 11 per cent.
And if online queries are ignored that could prove the end of any business with that customer.
Some 85 per cent of consumers say that if their contact is ignored they will not bother with that same business again.
If you have made an online enquiry with a business and they don't get back to you, do you contact that same business again? No - 85 per cent; yes - 15 per cent.
Craig Carr, co-founder and Director of Lifestyles Online, commented: "A business wouldn't survive very long if it ignored customers' questions on the shop floor; the same is now true online, as this research proves.
"Online leads, whether gathered from your website or captured externally, have a real prospect behind them and need treating as such.
"In fact we encourage, and facilitate, real-time responses to all online requests".
Bath-based Lifestyles Online was founded in February 2006 by Craig Carr and Stacey Dunstan, who together offer 15 years of direct and online marketing experience, working for companies such as IPT, QXL and Chase De Vere.
Lifestyles Online has pioneered the technology and the processes to deliver consumer data in real-time so that as soon as a prospective customer expresses their interest in a company, that brand can immediately continue the conversation, be that via email or telephone.
Lifestyles Online has offices in the UK, Spain, France and Germany.
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