eBay are surveying sellers to ask how they’d like eBay support to be shaped in the future. Questions included how important would 24 hour telephone support be to you and how would you feel if eBay scrapped email support.
The survey also covers topics like better email support so that you could send screen shots instead of purely text based emails. Another option would be a mobile app to allow you to communicate with eBay from your mobile phone – this could be either text based or even an app which initiated a call which would be billed as normal minutes through your network provider.
In the survey eBay invite opinions on wait times for phone calls – would you prefer to go straight through to a customer service rep who might not be best placed to help and have to transfer your call, or is answering some basic automated questions to route your call a better option? Are you happy holding for a customer support rep and would you prefer to be told an expected wait time or perhaps schedule a call back when the rep best placed to help you is available? Are you happy with the current support hours or do you consider it essential to have 24 hour access by telephone?
eBay also asks about Facebook and Twitter – would you like to be able to contact eBay support through social media tools? I have to say I’m ambivalent about this, I’ve seen more companies being proactive to customer complaints on social media platforms than I have seen using social media as first line customer support. After all if you can access Facebook or Twitter surely you could just as easily access eBay or email?
I’ve heard a lot of complaints about eBay customer support over the years, but the complaints have normally centred around inconsistencies between support reps than the manner in which eBay users contact support. Does it really matter whether you can telephone eBay 24/7 or is it more important to route your call to a knowledgeable support rep who can assist you, and regardless of which rep you’re connected that the support and resolutions offered are consistent?
13 Responses
It matters little if they state that they are considering 24 hr support, because a 25 minute wait is still a 25 minute wait whatever time of the day you call.
its very important that contact is very quick concerning any account suspension /interfearance,
other than that a support rep that has discretion to act and the will to help is most important,
I can read the rules I dont need them to be repeated by a human voice
we would even pay for fair and sensible support
as losing TRS because a rep cant be bothered or does not understand can be very expensive
eBay need to analyse why contact with customer service is made.
This will help them understand where the real issues are with eBay.
Address the issues to reduce contact with customer service which then frees up time for staff to be more productive in other areas that are revenue generating for ebay rather than expenditure generating.
I suspect eBay had fewer calls from sellers before they introduced TRS and DSR’s. Return to the old simple (fairer?) feedback system and calls could drop by 50% overnight!
Its all about taking ownership of a problem and seeing it through to an full resolution. However that is done should ultimately be decided by the customer
I think Glenn is generous with his 3rd rank amateur rating but like him I always found the reps friendly.
Gary hit the nail on the head, ‘eBay need to analyse why contact with customer service is made’ otherwise you are just going around in circles.
Hard to run a business when your head is spinning
Their sales support lies. They had a glitch in the shipping services (it was just reported today in google news).
I have been trying to get a supervisor and they ALWAYS say none is available and take my number saying one will call you within two hours.
It never happens. There seems to be systemic lying in their program.
I tried to email them and all emails are good. If anyone has an email for ebay please let me know.
patronising attitude is their worst fault
if they cant help at least treat you as if your not daft
On occasion I have wanted to send an attachment usually an image in order to expedite resolution of a dispute, eBay’s excuse for not receiving attachments has always been fear of malware. This said to me they are incompetent as programmers, they should be able to code to sandbox emails, and that they are not up to date with technology for Macs or Linux on the incoming emails would eliminate the malware threat.