Competition for customer dollars is fiercer than ever this holiday season, but there are certain steps that retailers can take to ensure that they not only get the sales during the holidays, but retain customer loyalty into 2008.

Recently, E-Consultancy posted “10 Tips on Improving Online Customer Service,” an article filled with advice that’s easy to implement and will keep your customers happy without raising customer service costs. It’s not too late to take some of these tips to heart, and give your customers a great customer service experience this holiday season. A couple of my favorite tips are below:

• Acknowledge the Receipt of a Customer Email
  This will eliminate needless customer frustration by ensuring that their questions are being dealt with.

• Detailed Product Pages
  As with providing a good FAQs section, providing accurate and detailed information on product pages can avoid the need for customers to call or email. Provide detailed information of delivery costs and times, as well as general information about the product on offer.

Do you have any tips not mentioned in the list?

If you are reading this on Varien.com you have probably noticed, but for all you RSS subscribers, the redesigned Varien site is now live.

The new site reflects the first phase of Varien’s re-alignment towards focusing on Magento.

The homepage now communicates the latest from the Magento blog and the eCommerce Cache, along with a look at Varien’s recent work at a glance.

We also changed the top navigation to bring visitors the information they want quickly.

Visitors can now easily find information about Magento in the products section, learn about our services and request a quote for a project.

We also have quick links to view our past work, learn more about the company, contact us and last but not least, read the eCommerce Cache.

We would love to hear what you think in the comments, so please let us know.

A quick recap of the much discussed Cyber Monday:

• According to comScore,
  

  “Cyber Monday saw $733 million in online spending, representing a 21-percent increase versus last year…”

• Yahoo Merchant Solutions’ Stores went down under the strain, leaving many small-business owners high and dry on the record day, according to the New York Times blog Bits and TechCrunch, who also noted that Sears.com went down.
• And CNN notes that High iPod demand yesterday drove Apple’s stock up, but other tech stocks didn’t fare as well.

After months of anticipation, the new Zend.com site launched this week. The site for Zend, the PHP Company, was thought-up and redesigned from the ground up by Varien on the basis of criteria gathered during a site audit on Zend’s previous site. The feedback from the site-audit illuminated the need for an overhaul to the information architecture of the site as well as urged more focus in the overall messaging of the site.

Working closely with the Marketing team of Zend based in Cupertino, Germany, and Israel, Varien set to architect a site that would account for much of Zend’s existing multi-lingual content, their new content and integrate content dispersed in different Zend entities online.

The new design established a clear information hierarchy and visual language with type, color and composition used consistently on every page. From a marketing standpoint, the call out banners throughout the site were given ample space, refined messaging and a matching look and feel that communicates Zend’s image as a professional, modern, tech-savvy company. New features such as Product Showcase and Browse by user type were added to give users yet another way of finding relevant information fast.

Another goal that the new design set to accomplish was to make major processes on the site such as Downloads, Store, Support and My Account more efficient. To achieve this, Varien collaborated with specific departments at Zend to accommodate their unique customer or product-related needs.

A quick update on the world of eCommerce, as seen from the perspective of mass media.

• Reuters points out what any eCommerce store owner already knows, and what we reminded you of the other day. Cyber Monday Doesn’t Really Exist.
• The New York Times looks at the increasing use of alternative payment methods such as PayPal and Google Checkout by retailers. Retailers are using promotions to push customers to use these methods as they save on the processing fees in place for credit card transactions.
• And all of this comes on the heels of the release of PayPal’s new Secure Card software today.

The big news today is that PayPal will begin offering new software tomorrow which will allow PayPal members to generate a one-time credit card number for online purchases, according to Reuters. Customers will download the software, called the PayPal Secure Card, and when they land on the billing page of ANY eCommerce site which accepts MasterCard, it will allow them to generate a credit card number to make the purchase.

A few points on this:

• The software was made in conjunction with MasterCard, so if your site accepts MasterCard it will accept this new one-time card number. I assume that the billing address will need to be the address tied to the PayPal account, but I am curious how this and the CVV number will work.
• Reuters claims “It answers an innovation by Google Inc, which a year ago introduced Google Checkout…”, but I disagree. Google Checkout was an answer to PayPal integrations on-site, but this is a definite step ahead of Google, as it allows ANY eCommerce site which accepts MasterCard (and who doesn’t?) to let PayPal customers make a transaction.
• The article also states that “Secure Cards is the latest measure from eBay to curtail “phishing’”, and I just don’t see the connection. Can anyone help me out in the comments, because Reuters just starts listing out statistics on phishing and doesn’t explain this bit of PR at all.
• The whole software package is a plug-in, only available to PC users on Firefox and IE at the outset. The Reuters article claims that “Users of Apple’s Safari browser have only partial access to the service for now.” I don’t understand what partial access would mean, you get the first 8 digits of the card maybe, but I am curious to find out tomorrow.
• Commenters on TechCrunch point out that this is not an entirely new idea, Discover and Citi have long offered one-time virtual cards, but I think the fact that this ties to a PayPal account, and the added ease of the plug-in, will make the pick-up of Secure Card fairly high.

What do you think of this new software?

Amazon is currently featuring a clever holiday promotion that I’m sure will attract attention from Amazon’s sizable customer base. Instead of simply advertising the moderate discounts that the average shopper has come to expect from Amazon, the online retail giant has once again implemented “Amazon Customers Vote,” giving a limited number of customers significant discounts on products of their choosing. The ingenious aspect of the promotion is how it brings thousands of discount-hopefuls to the site to vote on which products will receive the discount, and THEN invites them to visit the site each day that “winners” of the promotion are revealed. Products range from a $79 Nintendo Wii or a $150 Toshiba DVD player, giving potential customers plenty of incentives to return multiple times during the holiday shopping season to see if they’ve “won.” Overall, it’s a great way to get customers excited about the Amazon brand as they debate where they’ll be spending those holiday dollars.

This is the kind of fun promotion can raise your store above the pack during the holidays. What’s the best promotion you’ve seen so far this holiday season? Tell us in the comments.

Are you ready for Cyber Monday? You know, that “biggest online shopping day of the year,” which comes around the Monday following the traditional Black Friday windfall for brick-and-mortar stores? What? That’s not your biggest selling day?

You’re not alone.

The term Cyber Monday was coined in 2005, and was reported on by the media as if it had been around for years, much to the surprise of eCommerce retailers. According to comScore, the day wasn’t even in the top ten, with the biggest shopping day falling on December 13th in 2006. In fact, as we mentioned last year, Cyber Monday hasn’t been the biggest shopping day in any of the past seven years. However, with websites like CyberMonday.com reporting on the incoming deals, and news stories already touting headlines like, “Getting the Best Deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” it can’t hurt to attempt to take advantage of the hype, and get your store into the Cyber Monday game.

Here are a few simple ways you can get a piece of the Cyber Monday buzz:

Whether or not Cyber Monday exists, you at least get a little bit more excited, media-influenced traffic to your site, and move a few more products before the REAL holiday rush begins.

Since 2001, first-time customers who visited Borders.com expecting an experience unique to the bookseller were in for a bit of a surprise. Thanks to a deal inked between the two in the early part of the 21st century, the retailer’s online venture has simply been Amazon in Borders’ clothing, featuring Amazon’s inventory, site content, fulfillment and customer service capabilities. At the time, it seemed like an ideal solution; Borders’ online store was struggling to make eCommerce work for them in an era when online commerce wasn’t as pervasive as it is now, and Amazon was under pressure to finally turn its first profit. However, in the last few years, the relationship has gone south, as Borders’ profits have dipped and the inability to do exactly what they want with the site has become more pronounced. The site can’t, for example, give Borders Rewards members loyalty points for purchases, aggravating the retailer’s repeat customers who want to shop online.

The new site attempts to change all that. Although the site doesn’t officially launch until early 2008, it can already be viewed in the Beta stage, and though Borders will face a challenge luring customers away from Amazon’s established reliability and low prices, the results of a revamped Borders are already promising.

Along with an entire section of the site devoted to Borders Rewards and its perks, one of the most useful new features for book-lovers is the Magic Bookshelf, a flash-based tool that allows customers to customize it to reflect their favorite genres, interests, favorite authors, etc. Visitors can’t yet register to start the customization process, but if the tool works as promised, it will give book-loving customers a clean, fun way to discover their new favorite title. When coupled with author book lists and attractive, functional product pages, I’d say Borders’ new dot-com has a good chance at success in the crowded marketplace.

After exploring the new Borders site, do you think the bookseller is primed for success, or will they continue to struggle? We’d love to hear your opinion in the comments!

We talk a lot on the eCommerce Cache about the importance of going above and beyond in customer service, but more often then not, these words of wisdom usually follow an example of truly terrible customer service that demonstrates what NOT to do. However, there’s a reason we keep reiterating that point over and over again; according to a recent survey by customer analytics company TeaLeaf, 42% of customers who have a bad customer experience in an eCommerce transaction abandon the sale or make the purchase with a competitor, while 52% who experience terrible service from a call center following a problem online will never shop with the company again. Of the customers who did try again after a bad experience, almost half of them didn’t have their issue resolved. Rebecca Ward, Tealeaf’s CEO, cautions,

“We’re in a ‘perfect storm’ as users’ dependency on eCommerce grows and their patience for bad online experiences wears thin. More than a decade into eCommerce, we’re increasingly savvy online consumers, and we’re no longer willing to put up with experiences that do not live up to our expectations. Companies doing business online must pay attention to their customers’ experiences and help them to succeed, or risk losing them entirely.”

Addressing customer service issues should be the first priority for eCommerce retailers right now, especially for small-to-midsize companies that don’t have the upper hand on low-price giants like Amazon. With the holiday season rapidly approaching, it’s the perfect time to evaluate your own company’s customer service and see where you can make some improvements. Hire more people for your call center, iron out issues that have been a problem in the past, and streamline your shipping, return and order inquiry processes to ensure that you’re gaining customers, not losing them.