6 Consumer: post-purchase service, evaluation and feedback. Company: support
product use and retain business
The Internet also provides great potential for retaining customers, as explained in
Chapter 6 since:
value-added services such as free customer support can be provided by the web site
and these encourage repeat visits and provide value-added features;
feedback on products can be provided to customers; the provision of such informa-
tion will indicate to customers that the company is looking to improve its service;
e-mail can be used to give regular updates on products and promotions and encour-
age customers to revisit the site;
repeat visits to sites provide opportunities for cross-selling and repeat selling through
personalised sales promotions messages based on previous purchase behaviour.In this section we have reviewed simple models of the online buying process that can
help Internet marketers convert more site visitors to lead and sale; however, in many
cases, the situation is not as simple as the models. Mini Case Study 2.3 ‘Multi-site online
car purchase behaviour’ indicates the complexity of online buyer behaviour, suggesting
that it is difficult to develop general models that define online buyer behaviour.ONLINE BUYER BEHAVIOURFigure 2.25Comet product comparison facility (www.comet.co.uk)