ICL warns of the negative affect of having a popular web site.

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IT services company ICL says that in the race to get online, many companies have not considered how they will cope with the millions of visitors a popular e-commerce site might attract and have become victims of their own unexpected

According to ICL, customers finding a company's web site slow or unresponsive can easily move to a competitor's site and might even doubt the first company's abilities in other areas.

In order to make sure their web site is up to the standards expected by consumers, ICL recommends that companies adopt a three-step approach - including planning, scalability and integration (PSI). This basically requires companies to plan ahead for future demand to ensure IT infrastructure is easily scalable and to integrate e-commerce operations into corporate systems.

In similar news, Jupiter Communications has warned that web-based businesses must implement privacy measures and gain the trust of consumers if they are to avoid losing out to their competitors.

A new survey undertaken by the Internet commerce research organisation indicates that 60% of European Internet users who do not currently buy online would be motivated to do so with better security of credit card and personal information. The survey also found that over two-thirds (68%) of European Web businesses collect information on their customers, but just 10% of these publish their privacy policy online.

Jupiter recommends that companies keep customers informed about their commitment to privacy issues on the home page, promote their ongoing efforts on ensuring privacy of information and develop their own privacy standards in order to exceed the regulatory requirements.

Finally, in bad news for web-based companies hoping to keep customers, Jupiter Communications has found that many web sites are failing to provide adequate customer service. Jupiter's survey, which targeted 125 top web sites in the content, consumer brand, travel, retail and financial services categories, found that 46% of sites only responded to a request after five days or never responded or didn't even post an e-mail address for customer inquiry. The corresponding figure in an identical survey by Jupiter in 3Q'98 was 38%.

Jupiter advises web ventures to adopt a multi-channel, automated customer service strategy, choosing the channels most appropriate for their business model.

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