It's official. The results are in, and e-commerce is a hit. For the first time last year, online purchases made up a significant portion of holiday sales. Leading e-tailers such as Amazon.com are now topping $100 million in annual revenues, and consumers in all age groups are hailing the conveniences of digital shopping. However, another more ominous trend threatens to derail the e-commerce boom. In the midst of all the euphoria, studies of popular Web sites are beginning to show what many cyber-shoppers have already discovered: that a significant number of e-businesses are sorely lacking in basic customer service. This spells trouble for all online merchants, because it's service - the quick and ready responsiveness that today's consumers have come to expect - that will turn first-time e-shoppers into profit-generating, repeat customers.

If you're one of the millions of people contributing to the sudden boom in e-commerce, chances are you've experienced one or more of these problems firsthand. You're clicking merrily along - a visit to Gap.com for your daughter's school clothes, a quick trip to OfficeDepot.com to order office supplies - when suddenly, you have a question. Maybe you want to know a little more about a product you're thinking of buying and you can't find the information on the company's Web site. Or your credit card has just been rejected and you want to know why. Or perhaps your shopping experience went smoothly, but when you received the product, it wasn't quite what you expected.

Since you're already enjoying the convenience of digital shopping, you decide to send your question electronically. So you fire off a detailed e-mail with your name, account number and the nature of your problem, and you wait. And wait. If you're one of the lucky ones, you might get a response telling you that you'll be contacted in 24 hours, or in two to three business days. However, it's even more likely that you'll never get a response at all. According to a recent review of 125 leading Web sites by research firm Jupiter Communications, 42 percent of the sites either never responded to e-mail messages, took more than five days to respond or provided no e-mail address. Since your question is a little more urgent than that, you give up on e-mail and decide to call the company's 800 number, where you wait on hold for 20 minutes. There, you reach an agent who only deals with phone orders and has no view of your e-mail or any record of your Web transaction. Suddenly, your digital shopping adventure isn't quite the hassle-free experience you thought it would be.

One of the biggest frustrations today's e-customers face is the failure of companies to effectively use technology to improve service. How many times have you called a company, entered your account number and waited on hold - only to have an agent finally come on the line and ask for your account number? Rather than speeding the transaction, the technology simply wasted your time and effort. This situation is compounded in the online world, where e-commerce sites are seldom integrated with the company's other communication channels, such as the telephone or fax. That means you can spend half an hour on a site, entering personal information and filling your shopping cart, but if you decide at some point in the transaction to call the company, chances are you'll have to start at the beginning - with your name, phone number and the nature of your question.

Which brings us to another much-hyped promise of the Web - personalization. You've heard a great deal of talk about using the Internet to achieve one-to-one marketing: products and services tailored to your particular needs. And again, some forward-looking companies are blazing trails in this arena. Amazon.com greets you by name when you visit its site, and recommends books based on your past purchases. Lands' End lets shoppers "try before they buy" with an innovative virtual model that displays clothes and acts as a personal shopper.

But these trailblazers are still the exception rather than the rule. Consumers' needs often change much faster than most companies can respond in a Web environment. In a retail store, the salesperson is able to watch you browse, see which items catch your interest and make suggestions based on your feedback. This give and take between the shopper and the clerk happens in real-time. To deliver that kind of service over the Web, e-businesses need to be able to interact with customers in real-time and analyze and respond to changes in customer behavior instantly.

The shortcomings of service on the Web will become even more pronounced to consumers as they adjust to the world of e-commerce. According to Zona Research, of the millions of people who shopped online last holiday season, nearly 60 percent were first-time cyber-customers. As the novelty of the experience wears off, expectations for faster, more responsive service will begin to rise. As innovative companies begin to address those expectations, consumers will be less inclined to do business with others that don't live up to that standard.

The good news is, the technology exists and is being used to make the Web a truly viable environment for business, in some cases providing an even more proactive and efficient process for the shopper. But if you're not already working to improve your service on the Web, you're putting your investment in e-commerce at risk. Because as every cyber-shopper knows, your competitors are just a click away.

Tim Guleri is CEO of Octane Software, Inc. , a developer of customer care solutions for e-businesses. Founded in 1997, Octane is focused on helping its Digital 1000 customers use real-time, interactive customer care to compete in today's high-speed Internet economy. The company's Octane 99 front office suite features patent-pending technologies that enable companies to easily unite new and existing communication channels, such as the Web, e-mail and phone, into a single customer care solution; use real-time business intelligence to personalize interactions; and quickly adapt e-commerce sites to address changing market and customer demands.