Mystery shoppers
Real-world measurement is also important since the Internet channel does not exist in
isolation. It must work in unison with real-world customer service and fulfilment. Chris
Russell of eMysteryShopper (www.emysteryshopper.com), a company that has completed
online customer service surveys for major UK retailers and travel companies, says ‘we also
needed to make sure the bricks-and-mortar customer service support was actually support-
ing what the clicks-and-mortar side was promising. There is no doubt that an e-commerce
site has to be a complete customer service fulfilment picture, it can’t just be one bit work-
ing online that is not supported offline’. An eMysteryShopper survey involves shoppers
not only commenting on site usability, but also on the service quality of e-mail and phone
responses together with product fulfilment. Mystery shoppers test these areas:
site usability;
e-commerce fulfilment;
e-mail and phone response (time, accuracy);
impact on brand.To conclude this section of the chapter, Table 9.4 summarises key offline measures of
Internet marketing effectiveness.As part of the process of continuous improvement in online marketing, it is important
to have a clearly defined process for making changes to the content of a web site. This
process should be understood by all staff contributing content to the site, with their
responsibilities clearly identified in their job descriptions. To understand the process,
consider the main stages involved in publishing a page. A simple model of the work
involved in maintenance is shown in Figure 9.9. It is assumed that the needs of the users
and design features of the site have already been defined when the site was originallyThe maintenance process
Table 9.4 Some offline measures of Internet marketing effectivenessMeasure Measured through
Enquiries or leads(subdivided into new Number of online e-mails
customers and existing customers) Phone calls mentioning web site
Faxed enquiries mentioning web site
Sales Online sales or sales in which customers state
they found out about the product on the web site.
Sales received on a phone number only publi-
cised on a web site
Conversion rate Can be calculated separately for customers who
are registered online and those who are not
Retention rates Is the ‘churn’ of customers using the web site
lower?
Customer satisfaction Focus groups, questionnaires and interviews
Mystery shoppers
Brand enhancement (brand awareness, Online controlled surveys
favourability and purchase intent)The maintenance process