Sun.com Customer Experience and Stuff: Notes from the Sun.com customer experience team.

One of our biggest challenges on sun.com (or any of our venues) is how we bridge the gap between customers and sales. Traditionally, supporting a customer journey that starts on the web and ends up at a real, living, breathing sales advisor is something like building a rope bridge over the Grand Canyon. Without a rope. Increasingly, however, the expectation on any consumer site, be it selling blade systems or Dolce & Gabbana, is that there should be an option to speak with somebody, immediately, right at the point you need help or have questions you don't see the answers to (or just don't have time to look). I often refer to this option as an 'escape route' on a customer journey, but in reality, there's much more value in providing that option than just a way to help a customer when they get stuck. Its one of our primary customer touchpoints, and we're just starting to understand the value to our customers as we increase the availability of these services across our sites.

A little over a year ago, we launched chat, call back and toll-free services on limited sections of sun.com, without fanfare, or champagne, in order to connect customers directly with expert sales advisors. You may have come across our small widgets on sun.com, or some of our country sites and online stores and catalogues. You may have also been invited to participate in a chat or call by some of the rather clever technology deployed on the site. Either way, behind the scenes, there was a huge customer experience challenge to pull multiple component parts together to ensure the customer journey was as consistent and transparent as possible, but I think we're doing pretty well so far.

We continue to improve the availability and scope of the services (you can talk to a sales advisor during business hours, Monday to Friday, anywhere in the world) and are beginning to get much better at integrating the services into our core content. Most recently, we've embedded the service provision into our web launch pages, so if you have questions, need advice, or simply want to know more about what's being talked about, you can access a real, living, breathing sales advisor directly from the launch site. No hunting around for a contact number for a local sales office. Want to have a quick chat instead? In French? Its right there. Oh, and the advisors are really nice people to talk to. Why not try for yourself?

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