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Some companies claim 24/7 access or shopping, why is this rubbish? 24 hour grocers or supermarkets combine access and availability 24 hours a day as do Internet search engines, your business or Internet site even if e-commerce enabled may not be true 24/7. 24/7 means different things to different people. Does this matter, not a lot. True 24/7 business operation is not suited to all types of business but if it is suitable for your business be careful how you implement it. If a business claims prominently as some do that they are open for business 24 hours a day 7 days a week, this gives the impression that all their operations work all the time. So if you contact them by their blinding 24/7 website and try to buy their product at 2am on Sunday morning, you could rightly expect no problem in actually getting hold of them and their goods and services. The sad truth is that many companies rushing to benefit from the Internet plaster themselves in the 24/7 banner while the only thing that works outside normal office hours in their country is their website. Just because I can place my order with your company at 2am on a Sunday morning does not make you special. If you can only deliver in office hours or worse still only after 2 weeks of waiting and not within a specific time frame then you may as well shelve your 24/7 website because I will not be buying from you. Supermarkets which open 24/7 are 24 hour businesses because the goods and services are there and available all day. Software that you can buy over the net which does not require much configuration or assisted setup can also be described as 24/7 (a good example is www.winzip.com you can buy the full product from these people on-line anytime, download it and use it right away). Do not be impressed by companies allowing you to place your order with them anytime unless you carefully read all the terms and conditions, they may require you to take time off work for their delivery "which is handled by a third party so they cannot be held responsible for precise delivery times" well they can and they are. If you are a customer, never forget "the customer is king",Take your hard earned money to a company that does care. [Author mark@sticky-marketing.net date 20/02/01] |
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