Can I place the order over the phone please...?

[Blagger]

We get quite a few calls to order over the phone. We are happy to take them and to be honest it doesn't really take that long to process them. These are both from the website/ebay.

Sticking a phone number on your ebay listings actually saves you in ebay and paypal fees.

We get quite a few that have been referred by friends and haven't even seen the product online.

Should be happy you are getting a sale no matter how the order is being processed.

 

[movietub]

Should be happy you are getting a sale no matter how the order is being processed.

I AM HAPPY!!!!

 

[JElder]

Thing is, people arn't intelligent enough quite yet to spot a dodgy site against a legit site. Althrough this is changing.

nothing to do with intelligence - it's training and experience. A lot of people now know to look for the 'little padlock' due to some concerted effort by some online retailers advising them to always check (as obviously they used HTTPS).

You also need to train people to do things like general searches for reputation, how to identify possibly fraudulent sites, phishing, and similar.

 

[StallionComms]

I am new here and was just having a quick read through. Sorry if this is answered somewhere along the way. There were so many pages I didnt read all of the posts. But wanted to ask. We are a B2B company but we do have a select line of products that we can sell to consumers as well. So in order to boost sales we have recently added this feature to our site. People can now purchase those items online. However we havent received any phone orders as of yet but as I said we just began.

We dont really have the task of taking phone orders delegated at the moment? Is this something we need to do? Or just wait to see how it goes? Do you use a virtual terminal or do you simply click on the item and go through the process of ordering as if you were the person? Which option is best? I wouldn't want to lose business simply because we were unprepared for customer demand. Since we don't offer phone orders on our site we just "assumed" it wouldnt be a problem.

Your advice is most appreciated.

 

[Vision2]

nothing to do with intelligence - it's training and experience. A lot of people now know to look for the 'little padlock' due to some concerted effort by some online retailers advising them to always check (as obviously they used HTTPS).

You also need to train people to do things like general searches for reputation, how to identify possibly fraudulent sites, phishing, and similar.

What I ment was that people have learnt the hard way in outdoors life not to buy things from dodgy people / places etc, this isn't transfered as much to the online world yet, but it's getting there.

I didnt mean intellegence as in people are thick Just ment that people are too relaxed and don't carry of the same rule of thumb that they use offline as they do online.

 

[JElder]

Oh, alright then...

The 'if it's too good to be true' warning is one that has probably saved me from being conned, online and offline a few times.

I remember a dodgy auction I went to where he was offering a sackful of goodies worth £500 or so for the first people to give him £30...I declined, as I didn't believe a business could run like that - I think I was only 16 or 17 at the time!

Looked it up later and apparently it was a well-known form of bait and switch scam, where the first 2 or three people that get the really good bundles are his assistants, and the rest get a bagful of random rubbish.

 

[Vision2]

Oh, alright then...

The 'if it's too good to be true' warning is one that has probably saved me from being conned, online and offline a few times.

I remember a dodgy auction I went to where he was offering a sackful of goodies worth £500 or so for the first people to give him £30...I declined, as I didn't believe a business could run like that - I think I was only 16 or 17 at the time!

Looked it up later and apparently it was a well-known form of bait and switch scam, where the first 2 or three people that get the really good bundles are his assistants, and the rest get a bagful of random rubbish.

They used to be all the rage years ago. They setup store outlets to draw in the public, and do so called 'crazy' prices for crap basically.

The new example of this is that madbids or equivlent sites. I'm surprised the advertising watchdog hasn't twated them.

Basically, each bid is 1p in value but costs considerably more. 100 bids = £50, i'm sure anyone can do the math that 100 bids worth 1p each does not equal £50 in worth

It's also pushed up, and i'd very very much doubt they haven't got something automated or something stopping a car going for less than retail price.

It's a form of pyamid scamming in my opinion, no real difference. Spreading the cost of something worth £100 over hundreds if not thousands of people retail cost of the product then becomes 10x if not more in value than it was originally.

Crazy stuff, and people buy into this crap.

That's my point through, people haven't transfered this intellegence online. But there are always stupid people out there, and there is always people who do these things. Like the late night stuff on ITV or any of those casino's.

The casino always wins

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

OK. I've look at it in it's basic rawest terms - given the OPs first post; And say (putting on hard hat and taking a deep breath) that your website doesn't give people the confidence to buy off it.

It's not so much about training your customer, but instead about ensuring that the website pulls together all those intangible things that add up to warm comfty trusty feelly.

And tbh, you're probably completely the wrong person to be looking at it and wondering why people chose to order over the phone and not online.

And would follow up, with if they order over the phone rather than online. This will only be a proportion of thse that decide not to buy online - the majority will simply have gone elsewhere.

(dives for cover).

 

[James1980]

A lot of people now know to look for the 'little padlock' due to some concerted effort by some online retailers advising them to always check (as obviously they used HTTPS).

A lot of people now know to look for a little padlock icon - I've seen them as Favicons and simply displayed on the page as a normal image.



James

 

[Setfire]

I agree with sandiep.

I have been known to call / contact an ecom business with a relatively pointless question just to gauge the company. If the website has done a really good job, I have the confidence to order online.

However, some people always prefer to phone.

 

[Dawg]

A lot of people now know to look for a little padlock icon - I've seen them as Favicons and simply displayed on the page as a normal image.



James

Yay! What a cool idea for a favicon for my new snakeoil site. Muchos gracias, or whatever 'thank you' is in Nigerian.

 

[Rainbow Chasers']

I don't think it is laziness at all, maybe a little lack of confidence in some people - but that doesn't make them, their custom or their money less value.

Others may have other reasons - to verify your delivery dates, ask an extra question about the website - or sometimes to even check the site still operates in a world where so many businesses are going down.

I have on occasions where a website had a payment system that just never worked properly, just kept crashing. Phoning was easier than attempting online payment for the 5th time.

If you get lost of questions regarding items, delivery times etc - then treat it as feedback, as in that scenario, the site is not giving the info they need to commit to purchase - and they are committed to purchasing the item, or they wouldn't have bothered phoning!

I get lots of people asking for booking forms to be sent to them. Some are people that just prefer paper, others are those cautious about giving details. It doesn't annoy me really - but has made me look into simpler and easier forms.