Should I hire Customer Support staff?

I am just starting up an ecommerce site

[Habtom]

Hello,

I am just developing an ecommerce site and want to know if hiring customer support personnels is worth of it. I heard, when customers get quick reply the revenue of the site increases. How far is this true?

Habtom

[moneymancn]

We have done the same as if we were starting a main street shop.
At first it was 2 people(man and wife/girlfriend?) then we hired more people as soon as we could not handle it to the customer's satisfaction.
Need to allow for a lead time for trining though!
I was always told to hire "just before you need them" but it is sometimes difficult to juge when!

MM

[diamondgrl]

Totally depends on your scale of operations. If you plan to sell $40 worth of merchandise a day and take home $15 a day in gross profit, then it would be foolish to hire a customer service person.

My guess is if you ask the question in this way, you should wait and test the market before you how much reaction you're going to have to your site before you hire anyone. Customers don't just pour in overnight.

[Shak]

nothing, repeat nothing impresses a customer or potential customer more than quality customer service.

in a lot of cases, this is more crucial than price.

go for it

Shak

[lorax]

I agree with Shak on this for sure. Customer service is the number one selling point.

The web is anonymous and providing human points of contact like live customer service you help the potential buyer feel more secure. While you are still largely anonymous (they can't just walk down the street and see you face-to-face) there's a feeling of security imparted by having access to a real person(s). It makes all the difference to someone trying to decide on whether to give your their credit card number or not.

[derekwong28]

I agree with diamondgrl that you should test the waters first unless you are absolutely certain of success. It is actually much more difficult to judge what you will need on the Internet. Unlike a bricks and mortar store where you can have a fairly good idea right way on what customer flow is likely to be.

If anything, I would do as much customer service by yourself as possible, and hire staff to do the backend work in order processing.

[Habtom]

Hello,

Thanks for your responses.

I really got a clear idea how I should proceed.

Thanks guys

[DROvas]

Hello!

My opinion may not be very impartial, as I provide customer support outsourcing, but anyway...

Among my clients are companies who operate with 190-600 USD goods. They say, that outsourcing their mail support helped them to focus on the business itself and marketing.

And while our job we recieve a lot of letters like :

Thanks for quick reply

Thanks for professional answer

I appreciate your professionality

and so on....

I believe that such messages are clear signs at least of good attitude to this shop and site...
So, I really think it`s a good idea to outsource mail support. But, of course it depends on your product and profits.

<snip>

Regards!

[edited by: lorax at 12:56 pm (utc) on Dec. 8, 2004]
[edit reason] No self-promotion please. [/edit]