In celebration of National Customer Service Week, Lands’ End Live will now enable users to communicate with personal shoppers via voice (headsets or built-in microphones) or text chat (type in questions using the computer keyboard) for a more personal shopping experience at the Dodgeville, Wisconsin based retailer best known for their cold weather gear.
The online video chat tool is on the customer service page, and by pressing the button Live Help, users first get a brief welcome video, and to continue on to how video chats work can then press the Find Out More option. The brief welcome video was narrated by Joan Conlin, vice-president of customer care. I then connected to my personal shopper Tina. There was no wait, and Tina told me that the calls had been steady all day. Personal shoppers are able to demonstrate product features, describe details, and help customers to navigate the web site. Keyboard shoppers can also supply their home phone numbers, and a personal shopper can call them direct. I don’t have a microphone to speak with anyone directly from my laptop, but I did note that I could only hear every other word Tina stated even though I had the volume turned up to the maximum level.
The video capability is described as a mini broadcasting studio called Vee desk which is built into a touchscreen PC. All the customer needs is a PC or laptop and broadband internet service. This new technology gives face to face online customer service. Tina is a real person; as an online shopper I immediately felt the personal touch much as if I had walked into a brick and mortar store. At the end of my Video Chat, a window appeared asking me to rate my customer service experience.
Land’s End boasts as being first in customer services dating back to the early 80?s and being the first retailer to offer toll-free phone ordering. It will be interesting to follow the success of real-time human assistance on the Web especially as the Christmas shopping season approaches. Will there be enough personal shoppers at Lands’ End to accommodate the needs of online shoppers? Let’s see what happens.
photo credit: alh1
