Recruitment of customer center counselors… Strengthening responsiveness
The effectiveness is questionable… Criticism of ‘show-and-show approach’
It has been confirmed that Chinese e-commerce company AliExpress has recently been adding staff to its domestic customer center.
It is interpreted as a measure prepared in response to continued criticism of the controversy over counterfeit products and lack of consumer consultation on quality issues.
According to the industry on the 23rd, AliExpress is hiring customer center employees on a large scale until the 28th.
The field of recruitment is customer chat and phone consultation regarding orders, delivery, payment, returns, etc. for the AliExpress online shopping mall.
After one week of training starting on the 28th, they will be deployed to actual work around early to mid next month.
Last month, AliExpress supplemented its customer center staff in the Gyeonggi area and Seoul.
Recently, as controversy continues among domestic consumers about counterfeit and low-quality products sold in Chinese e-commerce, it is interpreted that the company has decided to strengthen its consulting staff in response to continued criticism that AliExpress has a poor customer center to resolve problems.
In fact, according to data released by the Consumer Federation of Korea, the number of consumer complaints related to AliExpress filed at the ‘1372 Consumer Counseling Center’ was 465 cases last year, a 400% increase compared to the previous year (93 cases). The increase continues, with about 150 cases being filed in January of this year alone.
In most damage cases, it was found that it was difficult to connect with the customer center by phone during the process from product ordering to refund, and communication difficulties occurred during chatbot counseling due to low understanding of the Korean language.
There were also complaints from consumers that they repeatedly received outbound-only emails when they requested a solution to the problem.
An AliExpress official explained, “The scale of customer service will continue to increase,” adding, “It is difficult to disclose the exact size of recruitment to the public, and there are no concrete future plans yet.”
Meanwhile, Ray Jang, CEO of AliExpress Korea, announced in December last year that he would invest a total of 10 billion won over three years to strengthen domestic companies’ intellectual property rights (IP) and customer protection.
Specifically, if the purchased product is suspected to be counterfeit, we will take measures to ensure that you can receive a 100% refund within 90 days without the need for additional documentation. We will also work with third parties to introduce counterfeit product inspection systems such as ‘Mystery Shopper’ and form a team dedicated to protecting Korean brands. I plan to do it.
Although AliExpress is preparing institutional measures to eradicate ‘counterfeits’, such as introducing a counterfeit product inspection system and forming a dedicated Korean brand protection team, it has been found that counterfeit products are still being sold on the site.
As it appears that AliExpress’s consumer protection policy is not functioning properly, some are questioning whether customer complaints can be calmed simply by increasing the number of customer service centers.
An e-commerce industry official said, “Domestic consumers are accustomed to same-day returns and refunds, so it is difficult for them to adapt to AliExpress’ customer service process.” “To achieve this, we need to improve the overall process for refunds, returns, and exchanges.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.