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For many online retailers email has always been the most preferred customer service channel via the web, this has closely been followed by order tracking and Frequently Asked Questions. Over the next 12 months online retailers look set to expand their online customer services, focusing on live chat / live help, mobile and social customer service.

A 2009 survey of 291 ecommerce executives identified that 96% of those polled offered email as a touch point for customer service, closely followed by order tracking with 83% and 82% offering phone support. The survey also reported that retailers were either investigating or implementing more sophisticated customer service tools within their online presence to provide enhanced customer support, pre and post sales advice and more importantly identifying ways to reduce operational costs.

One such channel that is enjoying significant growth is the use of Live Chat or Live Help as an alternative to traditional customer service contact methods the survey indicated that 28% of respondents had implemented a reactive chat solution, which provides a website visitor the ability to click to chat and a further 26% were looking to implement this within the next 12 months. Figures were also included for pro-active chat, whereby chat invites can be sent directly to website visitors based on a rules engine, for example if a visitor lands on a specific page, or spend x amount of time on a page, or visited x amount of pages then an automatic chat invite is sent to the site visitor to engage them. 5% of respondent currently offer the pro-active chat with 21% looking to implement within the next 12 months.

It is clear that the majority of US retailers value customer service and that they see that this forms an essential part of their brand, and that it also forms an integral part to their company culture, however it is evident that there is still a shortfall in that retailers online customer service is not being driven by their brand, unlike their offline offering. This lack of alignment between offline and online often leads to negativity from the consumers as they often feel that the brand expectation has been compromised. As a result the implementation of Live Chat as a customer service channel is helping retailers align their online/offline strategies more closely which in turn helps meet their customers increasing expectations.

WhosOn allows retailers to provide both reactive and proactive chat to help improve customer support and increase online conversions. In built visitor tracking and analytics help to analyse customer data and improve market intelligence for retailers so they can facilitate future improvements for their online customer service channels.