[Infographic] E-Commerce: Who's Calling In?

Customer support is one of the biggest pillars that an eCommerce business stands on. Especially in India, where the growth of eCommerce companies is throwing up problems like payments, logistics and the need for good customer support. Indians still like to talk over the phone than sending email. Exotel, a startup from Bangalore provides cloud telephony services to many such eCommerce startups. Exotel has serviced over 100 eCommerce companies over a period of six months and came up with some interesting insights.

Karnataka accounts for more than 50% of eCommerce companies, next comes NCR at 12%, Maharashtra at 7% and Tamil Nadu & Andhra Pradesh at 2-5% each. NCR, TN, AP, Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal together account for 87.6% of calls for eCommerce companies. Surprisingly first three days of the week are not busy for eCommerce companies and they receive the bulk of their calls either on Thursday or Friday. 3 PM to 6 PM is the time when phones are always buzzing – 28% and about 25% of the calls come between noon and 15.00 hours. The average duration of calls is 1.2 minutes, which goes up to 1.38 minutes for a cash-on-delivery verification call.

There is a huge spike in call volumes around October, just before holidays and the numbers remain constant post the spike – an indication that a lot of buying happens around Diwali/Pooja time. Another encouraging sign is that customers who come in during the festive season continue to shop online and there is not much churn. “We have repeatedly been asked about what the standards are for calls received, how many calls do companies get, how many agents should we have and so on,” says Shivakumar Ganesan, co-founder at Exotel about the effort behind the survey.

To understand more about the eCommerce space in India, what is happening and what is the future don’t miss the biggest congregation on eCommerce in India – eSparks 2013 – tomorrow February 16, at Hotel Royal Orchid, Airport Road, Bangalore.