ONLINE SHOPPING, AN EXPERIENCE BUILT TO LAST OR A TOTAL SHAM

So online shopping is becoming if not totally a craze in our part of the world. I’ll say it is part of social advancement which is a good thing.

As much as it is a social advancement, I believe you my cherish reader can attest that there are some positives and negatives about it. I see you nodding to that.

It makes life super easy if you get the right product or service you’re searching for, the right company to offer and deliver at the “nick of time”. Same way it can be quite frustrating if things do not go well.

There are a couple of good online shops out there doing a good job and there are others that are super terrible at what they do. Sometimes not entirely their fault but there should be some measures put in place to manage the situations as they come.

They do offer some great stuffs but they have “?” with some of their T&Cs and processes.

A very recent experience was when I had challenges with payments after my purchase and needed to get to the team to rectify. None of the 5 phone numbers they provided to their customer service worked. I tried the lines for 3 consecutive days at different times of the day and the lines were unreachable. How do they intend grow a business like that?

There was another experience where the delivery man sent me a message to be at the pickup point and never showed up. No answering of calls and an attempt to speak to a supervisor who promised to assist proved futile because I never heard from him again.

And still another experience where my orders were cancelled without my knowledge.

Some patrons share bad experiences where they made payments and their orders were either undelivered or what was delivered was not the order. If these are experiences from customers then there is a reason to worry over whether these are new ways to scam and con people. My question is must we always turn good and successful ideas that works perfectly in the outside world to ideas and avenues to take advantage of people and systems?

Whiles we think through the question I should add that there were a few successful experiences during my early days of patronage. I acknowledged that it was good and encouraged the company and people involved to keep it up.

As I mentioned early on, some of these is not entirely their fault which is true. Take instances where we do not have street names in every location and those with names are not popular. Added is the fact that most Ghanaians are very poor at giving directions to places. These delivery guys end up getting lost or spending more time on the road than usual. Another reason is the fact that we have very bad roads as well. Fragile items end up getting damaged one way or the other.

With all these said, there are controllable and uncontrollable factors to be dealt with. I encourage owners and operators of these online shops to keep it up and continue with the effort put in their businesses to make this trend one that is lasting.

Suggestions

Owners and operators of these online channels need to look at the few points mentioned and I believe customers would be happier.

• They must ensure the customer service lines are active and working
• They should always confirm orders and not cancel without customers’ knowledge
• Delivery personnel should always keep to appointments
• They must keep to their promises to customers
• They must be ready to take feedback and work with them.

Share with us your own experiences and how you think this channels can be improved for better experiences. Thank you

I am Ivy Zelda A. Yeboah, a graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from UPSA and Social Media Marketing  from Northwestern University. I have lots of experiences in customer service, Marketing and Social media. I have a passion for Advertising and Branding and have studied around those areas. I am a manager in a contact center and I am currently looking forward to new challenges in the same field or other fields of interest. Feel free to contact me LinkedIn on http://bit.ly/2fVXNlY (Ivy Akosua Yeboah), Twitter handle @Zeldayeb (Ivy Akosua Yeboah) and Facebook - Zelda Yeboah and The Royal Group - Customer service experts @customer101