Dive Brief:

• Seventy-seven percent of respondents to an Intercom survey said they were concerned about experiencing problems while shopping online this year, according to the company's Holiday Shopping Experience Report. The company surveyed 1,000 U.S. customers and 500 customer service representatives. 
• Among the top concerns online shoppers had were gifts not arriving on time (45%), their items being unavailable (33%) and their items being more expensive than they anticipated (42%), Intercom's survey found. 
• Nearly all (94%) respondents said they expect companies to inform them about delays before they have to ask. Additionally, 79% said they want companies to notify them about delays and backorders before they enter the checkout or buy the item, per the survey findings.

Dive Insight:

Consumers not knowing when their purchases will arrive has been a problem throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a Narvar report released in October 2020, 36% of survey respondents said their items were substantially delayed, but only 19% of them were made aware of those delays by retailers.

Besides shipping holdups, 76% of customer service rep respondents in the Intercom survey said they were worried their company doesn't have enough staffers to manage customer inquiries during this holiday season. 

Shoppers aren't the only ones worried about supply chain issues disrupting their holiday. A study from First Insight and the Wharton School's Baker Retailing Center released in October found that all of the retail executive respondents anticipated supply chain disruptions impacting the holiday season this year and would continue through 2022. 

Other studies have also found that shoppers are worried about products running out of stock or arriving late. A Coresight Research report released in October found that more than a third of U.S. consumers were concerned about their purchases running behind. Plus, Deloitte released a report that same month indicating that 75% of shoppers were concerned about their desired items running out of stock.

"Companies want to do right by their customers, but support teams are always stretched during this time of year and the global supply chain issues are causing an even greater strain for both the support teams and the consumers they're supporting," Des Traynor, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Intercom, said in a statement.