Customer Satisfaction and Security Online

We all love to shop online because it’s fuss-free, there are no queues (especially important in the lead up to this festive season) and you can easily find what you are looking for.  Our online team’s mission is to make shopping online as easy and safe for you as possible. We were therefore really proud and delighted when we found out this week that our website came top in Which? magazine’s biggest online shopping survey. It was really amazing to receive a customer satisfaction score of 95% in addition to very high scores for delivery and ease of ordering!

As long as you take sensible precautions, online shopping can be just as safe as shopping over the phone, or in shops. However, for those of you who are a little concerned, here are a few of my top online shopping safety tips…

Never include valuable card or bank information in an email
Never give away your Personal Identification Number (PIN) or secure passwords in a response to an email. Sensitive information should never be requested via email, so although an email may look very convincing never give this information away.

Only shop at secure websites
Ensure that the security icon (this is usually a symbol of a locked padlock or unbroken key which appears in the bottom right hand corner of your web browser or on your address bar) has appeared, and look at the retailers web address which will change from ‘http’ to ‘https’ when you have reached a secure connection.

Consider setting up an internet only credit card
If you regularly shop online, you could consider opening an internet only credit card, allowing you to monitor transactions at a glance and set up additional consumer protection just in case something goes wrong.

And finally…..

Sign up to ‘MasterCard SecureCode’ when you are given the option whilst shopping online
Increasingly, when you go to make a purchase online, you will be given the option to sign up to a scheme that gives you extra security when you’re buying online.  This scheme is very similar to entering a PIN when you buy goods or services in person, but involves setting up a username and password that confirms your identity when you buy online.  Our own website uses ‘Mastercard SecureCode’ when using Maestro as a payment method online.

I hope you’ve found these tips useful and they make you feel more confident whilst shopping online and remember, if you ever have any questions about shopping on our own site, our friendly customer centre team are only a phone call away on 01983 813913.

In New York city today for press appointments, including meetings at the offices of Vanity Fair magazine and Allure, the leading beauty magazine in America. I also met with an interesting journalist who is launching a new eco-website in the States, called Sprig. It sounds very good and aims to be the biggest and best resource site in the States. I did a very lengthy and detailed interview for one of their launch pages, all about trying to be ‘green’ and what we’re doing as a company towards being part of the solution and not part of the problem. I also included lots of hints and tips about what I do at home to. You can take a look by logging on to www.sprig.com

Snow, snow, snow everywhere in London! Thank goodness we decided to postpone our first London store talk with Liz this evening – it’s really bad in places, with some customers telling us that they have 5 inches of snow in their gardens! Local train services were disrupted across London, but those who did venture out seemed to head our way. Lots of cold, red cheeks and sore hands to be seen – many customers commented on how much they enjoyed being in our shop, with the biting cold outside and how we made them feel warm and radiant again!

We also sent out a fun and topical ‘Cold Weather Warning’ e-news today (e-new is our special email service that keeps customers in touch with our latest news and offers) – “You never know, you may have to make a snowman in the next few days. Superbalm protects and nourishes your lips. Hand Repair naturally comforts, protects and nourishes chapped hands (useful before and after a snowball fight!) And we can deliver, you don't even have to go outside to stock up…” This went down a treat and I’m sure reminded many fans of how hard these products work at this time of the year!

Spent the weekend in Cardiff attending the Soil Association annual conference. Under the banner heading Post Peak-Oil, we listened to speakers discuss the problems facing the global community in a world where our oil reserves are dwindling and there is now less oil in the ground than we have extracted. The phrase ‘peak-oil’ refers to reaching the highest amount of oil that can ever be pumped. We can think of the topping-point, or peak-oil, as the time when oil production with thereafter decline. The date of this is controversial, with experts ranging in view from 2005 to 2030, but the overall opinion is that our oil reserves are running out and this will cause significant global problems in all aspects of our lives – unless we change the way we live.  Topics for the weekend’s conference included re-localising our food production (something which as a rural organic farmer myself is close to my heart) and oil-free agriculture. The organic farming movement leads the way here as it does not rely on petro-chem based agrochemicals such as fertilisers and pesticides.
On the Saturday evening we were rewarded with a delicious Slow Food dinner (everything was organically produced, much of it from farmers and producers around the Cardiff area). The idea behind the Slow Food movement is that it takes time and care to grow and produce good tasting food - and we should make time to sit, relax and enjoy it. A great concept. I sat next to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, of River Cottage TV fame. Sadly I had missed his catwalk debut the night before at the fashion show, when apparently he strutted his stuff wearing little more than a pair of organic cotton underpants!

To find out more on some of the issues we explored, I recommend the following resources:

Useful books include Jeremy Leggett’s Half Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis and Richard Heinberg’s The Party’s Over, Powerdown.

Useful websites include:

www.soilassociation.org
www.transitionculture.org
www.slowfood.com

Just a quick up-date on some exciting news from last night – I went across to the Island to attend the annual Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce Awards. We took a table for some of our team, as we’d entered for two awards this year – the Green Business Award (headed by our Green Team co-ordinator Jemma) and the E-Business Award (entered by Rob’s brilliant web team). We were completely thrilled to win both awards and members of each team joined the heads of the Chamber of Commerce to receive their very well-deserved awards. We were all clapping and cheering so hard that we barely heard our surprise nomination for one of the top awards of the evening – Business of the Year 2006, so imagine our shock when we heard our name being read out! Kim and I went up to receive the biggest silver cup I’ve ever seen and there was such an amazing buzz. We were then ushered off the stage to have our pictures taken for the local paper and give a couple of off-the-cuff interviews, when we heard our names being called again and again from the stage. For a few moments we ignored the commotion – after all, we’d just won the main award – then we realised that we were being called back for yet another accolade – this time it was Business Person of the Year 2006. Kim and I hastily scrambled back to the podium to much cheering and foot stomping from our table – and a few others too! – to take possession of yet another magnificent cup. We were told later that it is the first time in the Award’s history that the Business Person of the Year has been won by two people together – and Kim and I were really pleased to have our business partnership recognised in such a wonderful way. Our managing Director bought a huge magnum of champagne and we all toasted the rest of the team and our entire company, who all make such awards like these possible. I then had to leave the celebrations to continue without me as I slipped away to catch the last Red-Jet back to the mainland to pack my bags, ready for the States tomorrow.

Back in the UK I spent the day working with our fabulous web-team. There’s so much happening here – it’s one of the fastest-moving and buzziest areas in the whole company. Our German website went ‘live’ today and there was a real hum of excitement as we waited for our first on-line order. We’ve actually had a German translation on a few of our web pages for a while, but we had to wait until we had a fully trained bi-lingual Customer Care person able to speak to callers from Germany or to reply to emails properly. Germany is such a vast country and I found when I was there a real commitment to eco-friendly products – especially cruelty-free. I hope we are well received and get some good feedback, even though I won’t be able to read it if it’s in German!