October 2000

BY AMY S. ABRAMS, TELERX

We all know the Internet will continue to have an impact on us both as individuals and in our businesses in ways we cannot yet imagine. Yet, most of us are unprepared to handle the demands this ever-evolving technological revolution is placing on our customer care programs.

To begin evaluating our offerings and outlining our plans for the future, let's take a look at some universal e-service market trends. Obviously, Internet use is growing. In the first quarter of 2000, 75.8 million adults went online -- up from 72 million in the fourth quarter of 1999. Of these users, 63 percent use the Web daily.¹ It is projected that by the end of 2001, 25 percent of all consumer contacts will be Internet based.²

Most companies, however, are not prepared to meet consumers' e-service needs. This is evidenced by the fact that 87 percent of companies fail to provide adequate e-mail response, and 38 percent of companies have no e-mail support mechanism. Furthermore, 46 percent of high-traffic sites take longer than five days to respond to e-mail -- or never respond at all. Only eight percent of the United States' 69,500 call centers are Web-enabled (e-mail only), and only two percent use voice or text chat.

Providing company/product information and mechanisms for self-service only are not enough. Most consumers (78 percent) check the "frequently asked questions" (FAQ) section of sites before they send an e-mail to the company. E-mail auto-responses are incorrect 30 to 50 percent of the time -- they provide responses that don't answer the questions asked by the consumers.

A recent study shows that customer satisfaction is 28 percentage points lower when only self-help is provided compared to customer service that combines self-help with live support.³ In addition, a generally recognized statistic is that 67 percent of shopping carts are abandoned before completing the sale. These facts demonstrate that consumer needs are not being met, and automated solutions alone are not effective.

Chat and voice over the Internet (VoIP) are on the way. These technologies will continue to be developed and perfected. However, less than one percent of sites currently offer live support and only one to three percent feature live chat. This number is expected to increase significantly and reach 80 percent by the end of 2003 -- bringing us back full circle to human interaction via voice. Thus, the replacement of human interaction with automated solutions/ technology as originally predicted is not likely.

Relationships And Service Remain Most Important
Relationships remain key to business growth and consumer/customer loyalty, and service continues to make the difference. Consumers and patients increasingly value and judge the quality of customer service on the ease and immediacy of contact as well as the options available for contact.

Web-savvy consumers demand multiple ways of obtaining service and expect instantaneous response. Consumers expect companies to know about them and their previous contacts. They don't want to have to spend time explaining their issues more than once.

The Internet enables consumers to effortlessly move to competitors' Web sites with just the click of a mouse. It also affords them the opportunity to quickly and easily compare service offerings. Consumers won't differentiate the type of service they expect by industry or type of product/service. Unlike the phone, where customers might not have multiple customer service experiences in a day or even a week, the Internet enables these experiences to occur within seconds. This provides consumers with the ability to make service comparisons and the expectation that all sites will provide the best customer service. What message does it send to your consumers if Lands' End chats with them and you don't? If not satisfied, your consumer can, with a click, go the competition's site. This means our customer care programs must offer all channels of communication and enable consumers to select the ones that best suits their needs.

Trends In The Health Care Industry
General trends in Internet use specific to health care provide us with additional insights that should be considered as we formulate our customer care plans. The first of these trends is that health care is the fourth most popular Web topic, with 40.9 million adults engaged in health-related activities on the Web in the first quarter of this year. Forty-four percent of these online consumers seek additional information about a prescription product after seeing ads.⁴ Of these consumers, 72 percent rely on the Internet to find more information about these products -- compared to 43 percent who ask their physicians and 17 percent who choose to call the pharmaceutical company's toll-free number.

Not only are consumers seeking information about products on the Web, the Web's influence on consumer prescription requests is clearly growing. Health-related information seekers are influenced more by the Internet than any other medium. For a growing number of Americans, the Internet convinces them -- more than any other medium -- to ask their doctors for a brand-name prescription. Of those who ask for a specific product and seek online information, 15 percent first learn of the product on the Web. Only nine percent first learn of the product on television and five percent in print.⁵

How Does The Pharmaceutical Industry Measure Up?
Before we can evaluate the pharmaceutical industry, let's highlight the five elements that are critical to achieving excellent e-service. They include:

• Offering customers the ability to self-serve by providing a complete knowledge base and comprehensive FAQ section,
• Creating a system that efficiently handles all e-mail messages and responds to them in a timely manner,
• Using text chat so online users can have immediate access to customer service representatives if they need help,
• Clearly displaying your toll-free number so online consumers can call your company if they require further assistance, and
• Providing live support around the clock.

In addition, it is equally important that you clearly set customer expectations as to your response time, hours of operation and the method of communication your company prefers for different types of inquiries.

We reviewed the top 20 pharmaceutical company corporate Web sites and at least three of their top product sites (61 sites reviewed) to evaluate their adherence to these guidelines.

Regarding self-help, we found that 70 percent of corporate sites provide some type of self-help, while only 54 percent of product sites do.

The study showed that 57 percent of companies offer e-mail as a contact option on both their corporate and product sites. Of the corporate sites, 35 percent provide a form for e-mail, while 13 percent list an e-mail address only. Product Web sites follow the same pattern.

While we know that 73 percent of Internet customers prefer e-mail as the primary way to obtain service, only eight percent feel e-mail consistently meets their expectations. Their reasons for dissatisfaction include auto-reply messages that don't address their specific concerns, lack of response in general and the inability to resolve their individual issues.

A test conducted of each company's actual e-mail response time frames found a less-than-stellar performance. Very few of the sites (eight percent) provided any type of acknowledgement as to the receipt of our e-mail. Product sites are more likely (21 percent) to provide this service. In addition, only a small number of sites (eight percent of corporate and 12 percent of product sites) set expectations for the response time we should expect.

The average e-mail response time for the top 20 pharmaceutical companies varied. Eight percent of the corporate sites responded in less than one day, eight percent within one day, and 17 percent within two days. Sixty-seven percent did not respond by the end of seven days.

Product site performance is worse. Six percent responded within one day, nine percent within two days, and six percent within three days. Seventy-nine percent did not respond by the end of seven days.

Compare this to the findings of a general e-mail response study that revealed 31 percent of the sites tested provided e-mail response within one day, 34 percent in two days or more, and in 25 percent of cases, no response was ever offered. In this general industry review, only 10 percent of the sites evaluated did not include an e-mail address -- compared to 40 percent in the pharmaceutical industry study.⁶

Nearly two-thirds of the corporate sites provide either a toll-free or toll number for consumers to contact them -- compared to 50 percent of the product sites. On the corporate sites, most companies provide both numbers, while the product sites offer toll-free numbers most often.

The most common placement of a phone number is in the "contact us" page or section. Hours of operation are rarely posted. Where they are, the most common hours of operation are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. or 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST. Only one site posts round-the-clock hours of operation, and none of those reviewed have chat capabilities.

Now that we have examined each of the communication channels, let's look at these sites' customer service offerings as a whole. Seventeen percent of corporate sites and 30 percent of product sites provide no mechanism for consumers to contact them. The most common number of contact options on a corporate site is two, while product sites are more likely to offer only one method of contact. Corporate sites tend to offer phone and e-mail contact options, while product sites most frequently provide self-help options as their most predominate mode of customer support.

The pharmaceutical industry is below the general industry statistic of 37 percent of businesses that provide three or more customer contact channels on their Web sites. Only 26 percent of pharmaceutical corporate sites and 19 percent of product sites provide three or more methods of communication.

Planning For The Future
What can we conclude from this study? The pharmaceutical industry lags behind general industry in its provision of Internet customer service. While there are significant reasons for this, our consumers expect the best -- and we need to find the optimum balance between meeting our industry's regulations and providing the highest level of customer service. There are no wrong ways to do this. Whatever mechanisms you choose, be sure to establish clearly defined service expectations and communicate them to your consumers.

As you develop your plans for Internet customer service, consider the following:

Clearly define your objectives for your customer service strategy and specify response mechanisms that align with those goals.

Clearly identify and determine the appropriate uses for each channel of communication available on your Web site.

Clearly establish, communicate and adhere to the consumer expectations for response and availability of each communication option.

Develop contingency plans as you will more likely be wrong than right when it comes to predicting response volumes.

Provide searchable self-help options and update them frequently.

Most important, deliver what you promise.

¹ Cyberdialogue
² Gartner Group
³ Brigade
⁴ Cyberdialogue
⁵ November 1999 study by SimStar Internet Solutions
⁶ eGain Communications, June 2000

Amy S. Abrams is president of Telerx, a service agency that specializes in customer care. The Horsham, Pennsylvania-based outsourcer forms long-term partnerships with many Fortune 500 companies by focusing in health care communications, consumer affairs and customer service.

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