how important is phone number on ecommerce site?

[mavwrx]

just started my ecommerce site and landed several sales!

however all my customer communictaion is through email. because the business is part-time, i can't really answer the phone since i'm at my other job. and so i don't have my phone number listed on the site.

how important is it? any recommendations for a service that will take phone calls and enter orders?

 

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[CarrieW]

Personally I wont order from somewhere that doesnt have a phone number. unless its a purely digital product. if it needs to be delivered in the mail I need to have a number.

if you dont have a phone number on the website at least list one to the credit card companies. if you dont have a contact number and anyone disputes the charges then they will automatically get their money back w/o an investigation.

I am sure there are many many others on this board who have ecommerce sites that can help you better then I. just thought Id share my perspective as a consumer.

 

[mavwrx]

do you care if it's tollfree number?

i could just get a 2nd phone and setup voicemail prompts.

 

[CarrieW]

nope it doesnt have to be an 800 number. I dont care about long distance cause its mostly free on just about every cell phone and most home phones. you can just have a number with prompts or even a message with specific hours they can actually reach someone.

 

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[mavwrx]

thanks for your input.

 

[trnkyit]

how important is it?

Very important... Its one of the first things I look for on a new vendor site. If I can't find one, I go somewhere else...
Corey

 

[mavwrx]

would u care if it went to voicemail? i would return the call within the next 30 min.

 

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[CarrieW]

personally I wouldnt care about having to leave a message to have someone call me back or even a recording with specific hours you could be reached. just keep in mind that some people actually call the numbers with questions and such before they purchase as well.

even if it was only a few hours a day as long as I can talk to someone eventually I am good~

 

[trnkyit]

would u care if it went to voicemail? i would return the call within the next 30 min.

No I wouldn't mind voicemail, as long as a call was returned.

You might look into something like googlevoice or ringcentral . I use ringcentral.com and like it. It will ring to my office, then cell phone, or cell phone then office. I can also get it to ring to a group of people or just turn on Do Not Ring and it will be sent directly to voicemail. The VM's are then sent to my email, and or I can pick them up on my iPod Touch, iPad or iPhone via the free app.



Corey

 

[mavwrx]

thanks. i'll look intogoogle voice.

 

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[CarrieW]

google voice as far as I know doesnt have the features that ringcentral has... a company I used to work for used ringcentral and it was awesome!

 

[AcquireCurrency]

You don't need a phone number.

Many retailers don't include a phone number.

Personally I wont order from somewhere that doesnt have a phone number. unless its a purely digital product. if it needs to be delivered in the mail I need to have a number.

if you dont have a phone number on the website at least list one to the credit card companies. if you dont have a contact number and anyone disputes the charges then they will automatically get their money back w/o an investigation.

I am sure there are many many others on this board who have ecommerce sites that can help you better then I. just thought Id share my perspective as a consumer.

lol, this is horrible advice.

If you provide a good service, a customer should NEVER have to contact you.

 

[CarrieW]

You don't need a phone number.

Many retailers don't include a phone number.






lol, this is horrible advice.

If you provide a good service, a customer should NEVER have to contact you.

I happen to know that its not bad advice. I know several people who will not purchase anything w/o a phone number on the site, that call to see just how long it takes to actualy reach a person before they order, and I personally know someone who bought something from a site which had no phone number and had an issue with the product and called the credit card company and had the charges reversed immediatley when the credit card company had no contact info for the website. so the website got beat for the money!

besides the fact that I POSTED MY OPINION WHICH IS NEVER WRONG THATS WHY ITS CALLED AN OPINION NOT A FACT!

 

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[jbuckingham]

Just make sure the message line doesn't come off sounding like a ratty old answering machine. Check out this product Free Home Phone Service | Ooma . I set up my home land line through this and I pay about $3.50 a month. They say no business lines but look at their FAQ's and they clearly state that you can have a business line as long as it doesn't exceed a certain volume (15,000 calls a month I think it was).

 

[MJ DeMarco]

While this experience is years old, when I put a toll-free # on my website, conversions improved dramatically. Just displaying the # tells the customer, "we support our product and if you have questions, call us" -- any website that shows a toll-free # is overtly telling me "We aren't afraid of serving the customer!"

Do you need it? No, but do you need to have your tires filled to manufacturers specs to have them work? A toll-free number makes your ECommerce site (or any site) work better.

 

[Brootal]

+1 for only ordering from sites that have phone numbers.

Andrew Warner from Mixergy has done numerous interviews with internet entrepreneurs who have talked about the importance of having a number on their site and how it has improved conversions.

 

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[advancedyn]

I use eVoice and haven't had any problems with it.

 

[BeachBoy]

I would get a virtual PBX for people to leave a message, and/or talk to you if you're available.

 

[mavwrx]

While this experience is years old, when I put a toll-free # on my website, conversions improved dramatically. Just displaying the # tells the customer, "we support our product and if you have questions, call us" -- any website that shows a toll-free # is overtly telling me "We aren't afraid of serving the customer!"

Do you need it? No, but do you need to have your tires filled to manufacturers specs to have them work? A toll-free number makes your ECommerce site (or any site) work better.

who did you use? i'm looking at ringcentral for the toll free num

 

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[CarrieW]

You don't need a phone number.

Many retailers don't include a phone number.






lol, this is horrible advice.

If you provide a good service, a customer should NEVER have to contact you.

Just because they should NEVER HAVE to contact you doesnt mean noone will ever want to know THAT THEY CAN contact you.

 

[James Fake]

Very important. That's the second thing I check for after landing at an e-commerce site I know nothing about. Pretty much, if you're not Amazon.

Doesn't have to be a 800 number. But I will call to make sure it's legit before ordering. I just want to be assured I will get my shit. A physical address helps too; because I'll often times Google map it to see what kind of operation it is.

 

[mavwrx]

Very important. That's the second thing I check for after landing at an e-commerce site I know nothing about. Pretty much, if you're not Amazon.

Doesn't have to be a 800 number. But I will call to make sure it's legit before ordering. I just want to be assured I will get my shit. A physical address helps too; because I'll often times Google map it to see what kind of operation it is.

thanks eveyrone, i added my google voice number to test today on my website. i got one call today which converted into a $500 order.

I am going to go with a 1-800-number at the end of the month.

 

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[James Fake]

Congrats!

 

[DustinCA]

Has anybody used Phone.com? my web designer said he uses it. It is $15 a month for a 1800 # and about 300 minutes of call time. i asked about google voice, and he said that a lot of times it will come in on caller id as google voice. is this true?

 

[mavwrx]

i'm getting regular caller id with google voice.

 

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