

Some approaches worked better than others in enabling customers to efficiently locate the information they needed. Others focused on providing links to specific customer-service topics like privacy policy and return policy, rather than including a high-level customer-service page.Some sites relied heavily on an FAQ page, while omitting a customer-service page altogether.Some websites used the label Customer Service, while others used the word Help.Consequently, our study participants were often unsure where to click first when looking for the answer to a question. The lack of a standardized framework for the delivery of customer-service information across the web meant that users encountered different experiences on nearly every site. Though similar information was provided across a lot of the sites we studied, the labels used in global navigation and the structure of service-related pages on these sites varied tremendously. Eventually, participants were able to find the customer-service information in the utility and footer menus, which included links to customer-service pages for all the sites in our study.
#Web gourmet customer service number trial#
Many study participants had to work hard to find the information they sought, and this process often included a lot of trial and error as users unnecessarily visited many different pages on the site. Research FindingsĪlthough users were generally successful at finding customer-service information on websites, the path to this content was not always straightforward. Standardizing the presentation of customer-service information is important because it allows users to easily access this information when they need it and indirectly builds up trust in the company. Though this model came from research on ecommerce websites, it can be applied to all types of sites providing customer service and support to their users. These studies have helped us identify many best practices for delivering customer-service information on websites and develop a model for the organization and delivery of this information. Each participant was given a subset of 57 customer-service–related activities across 23 unique business-to-consumer ecommerce websites. This more targeted study consisted of eight 90-minute remote moderated usability-test sessions with participants from across the United States.

A second study was designed to specifically gather data for the fourth edition of our report on the customer-service user experience, which is part of the overall ecommerce-report series. We conducted one large-scale study to discover general behaviors and usability across all areas of ecommerce websites, including customer service.

As part of our recent research for the fourth edition of our Ecommerce User Experience report series, we conducted user studies to understand how people approach customer-service–type activities on the web and how websites provide support.
