It’s been a torrid few months for Vodafone Australia, with class actions, customer complaints, security breaches and privacy investigations all hammering the company.
But chief executive Nigel Dews and his besieged management team can take solace from one victory – the company’s website came on top of the Customer Experience Industry Benchmark report on the mobile phone sector, compiled by customer experience research firm Global Reviews for SmartCompany.
However, the message for the broader mobile sector is clear – your websites are barely meeting customer expectations.
The Benchmark, which appears every month in SmartCompany, measures the online customer experience by examining a website's content, features and functionality. Typically more than 400 individual criteria are evaluated.
Important criteria for the mobile sector includes the presentation of content such as offers and product specifications, support functions, tools to help compare and choose phones and plans, and the purchase process.
The end result is an Index score, which is presented as a percentage. A website with a score of below 55% is considered to have failed to meet expectations; a score between 55-68% is considered to have met expectations; a website with 68-83% has exceeded expectation; and anything above 83% is marked as outstanding.
The mobile sector posted an average customer experience of 60.3%, which lead analyst Karen Grinter says shows that mobile companies are just meeting customer websites – and not doing much else.
Grinter says prospective and existing customers were generally under-served by the mobile websites.
“Most providers lack helpful tools to make it easy to find a suitable plan,” she says.
“Instead, customers are forced to read through pages of information and try to work out which would match their usage.”
Another problem area can be found at arguably the most important part of an eCommerce website functionality – selling.
“The industry fails to meet customer needs in the final stages of the online purchase process. There are a lack of options for delivery and payment and even a lack of explanations about these processes,” Grinter says.
Existing customers were also poorly served, with poor explanations of bills and a lack of information about damaged or lost phones.
Vodafone was the top ranking site of the six companies surveyed (Optus, Orange UK, Telstra, Three, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone) with an Index score of 65.3%.
Telstra came in second with a score of 63%, while Three was ranked next with 61.4%.
“Vodafone strengthened their lead in this Index by adding an advanced selector tool to help customers find a suitable phone and plan,” she says.
Five key lessons
Grinter highlights a number of key tips from the Benchmark research:
- Know what real customers want. Grinter says that phone companies must offer tools that allow customers to match their typical phone usage with suitable mobile phone plans.
- Know how real customers talk. She says it is crucial to use customer-friendly descriptions for easier product matching. “Customers think ‘how many calls do I make’ and ‘how many emails do I check’ not ‘2MB of data’ and ‘$500 of total value.’”
- Avoid jardon. It’s crucial for websites to avoid technical terms and jargon, or at the very least offer an explanation. “How many customers know what ‘PXT’, ‘TXT’, ‘MMS’, ‘GSM’ are?”she asks. “If a customer can’t understand it, they will lack the confidence to buy it.”
- Provide flexible eCommerce options. “If a customer is willing to buy online, ideally let them pay in whatever way they prefer and choose a delivery method that suits their lifestyle.”
- Customise. Grinter advises website operators to provide more relevant support for existing customers by offering a support area that is personalised for their products and typical needs.
SmartCompany will feature a Customer Experience Industry Benchmark each month, exclusively compiled by Global Reviews, an independent customer experience benchmarking firm.
Global Reviews measures online customer experience by examining a website's content, features and functionality. Typically more than 400 individual criteria are evaluated. Criteria are determined based on best practice usability principles, research on conversion analysis and annual surveys of customers' needs and expectations when completing specific tasks within an industry.
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written by phonesandplans.com.au, April 17, 2011
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