CiscoÂ’s David Critchley looks at the changing face of online retail

Cisco’s David Critchley looks at the changing face of online retail

“When High Street retailer, Next recently announced that it was set to focus on online growth over the bricks and mortar route, the number of people expressing surprise could probably have been counted (and recounted) on one hand. In an uncertain market, online has long been seen as the low-risk route to growth; the cost of virtual failure being markedly less severe than it can be when physical sites are involved.

“Nonetheless, there’s still something of a perceived disconnect between the realms of the internet and the core of what high-street retailers “do”. Traditionally, High Street retailers have sought to differentiate themselves by providing great, in-person customer service. While we’re a long, long way from the un-maintained and flat-paged days of early internet retail for instance, can you really get the same quality of customer service from a website – no matter how well designed – that you can from a real person?”

“That’s something that we were interested to find out when we put together our recent Customer Kings research report,’ continued Critchley. “The research, part of a wider campaign that Cisco runs to recognise customer service brilliance in British small business, surveyed 1,000 UK SMEs [small-to-medium sized enterprises] on a range of subjects that related to customers. As a company that has a lot to do with the development of the internet ourselves, we were understandably interested to see what small businesses thought about its impact on customer service.

Listening to customers proves crucial

“We thought that the simplest, clearest way to find that out would be to ask our audience who they thought offered the highest standard of customer service. We figured that local shops, with their homespun, hugely personal and friendly customer approach would place highly. We thought the same of High Street retailers, with training and development programmes in place that help their people create a customer-centric environment. What we weren’t prepared for was for online retailers to top the poll.

“Nonetheless, they did. 64% of our respondents said that online retailers offered either “good or exceptional” standards of customer service, compared to 58% who cited local shops and just 44% who said High Street retailers. On its own, that’s a pretty interesting stat. But it’s made even more so when you correlate it with the fact that 52% of our survey also said that customer service is based on ‘the personal touch’.

“At first, those findings seem to be incongruous. Great customer service comes from a personal touch – whether real or perceived – but at the same time, online retailers offer the highest standard of customer service. What this actually points to however, is just how far online retail has come in terms of being able to offer a rich, rewarding and – perhaps most importantly – repeat customer experience. With the growth of web 2.0 innovations, such as rich video and social media, online retail is rapidly becoming business’ best method of engaging with and retaining customers. With enough time, investment and understanding into what it is your customers want, the personal touch really can live online,” he concluded.

“So while we might not be surprised that Next sees its immediate future online, we perhaps should be that it’s still taking time for others to catch on.”

David Critchley is director of Cisco’s commercial and small business in the UK & Ireland.