Bad online Experience.

Sridhar is my friend and colleague at Infor, who shared his bad experience he had with Indiatimes.com website. He wanted to buy a book for one of his friends. He got the book on the catalog, then added to the cart and then preceded with shipping address and credit details. While choosing payment options, cash on delivery option was not provided, but in the help they have mentioned cash on delivery is also one of many options. He had to choose credit card since he didn't have cash on delivery option and proceeded further, at the end some problem occurred in the website hence he could not not complete his order. Therefore has to approach customer service (CS) for placing the order.

When he rang CS to learn that he was not the right person but he was unable to transfer the call to the right person either instead he told him to dial the same number and choose the option 2. When he called up again customer service person informed him that he can not take the order and asked him wait till the site will be up. He didn’t even provide any other alternatives.

These solutions would improve users experience with the site.
1) Be consistent – If you have mentioned few payment options in Help or at introduction make sure they all will also available while placing the order.
2) Provide sufficient training for CS people - In the above case the first person himself should be capable of provide the details what concerned person would provide. At least he should have been able to transfer the call to the right person instead to ask customer to call again.
3) Give utmost importance to user’s time – Make sure users concerns are addressed without fail when they call up, keep in mind that each second will cost money to them when talking over phone. If you are not clear about the possible solutions immediately collect user contact number and inform them that you will contact in few minutes and then call and provide the solution. In the above case he should have taken the order by noting it in a paper or in his personal system instead of telling user to wait till the site is up.