Ecommerce has experienced the greatest boom in the last decade, and one of the industry’s most complex challenges is retaining customers’ trust. Customers who receive good customer service are more likely to stay with you, but if you do not value your customers through customer service, you will lose all of them.
Customers’ attitudes have changed, as have the times. With so many options, consumers will not hesitate to switch to your competitor if they do not receive value. When deciding whether or not to trust a brand, 96% of consumers look to customer service. – source
Ecommerce websites must therefore increase customer support and assistance to exceed customers’ expectations and, ultimately, retain them. To accomplish this, eCommerce businesses must adhere to a few practices to provide robust customer service.
But first, what is eCommerce customer service?
What is Ecommerce Customer Service?
Ecommerce customer service refers to how online businesses assist customers with making online purchase decisions, solving issues, and resolving concerns. The goal of eCommerce customer service is to provide a quick, easy and convenient way for your customers to receive help.
You must offer fast customer service if your customers have questions while completing a purchase or require assistance after making one. There are many different ways to provide excellent customer service. You can offer live chat, email, and social media support; you can even have a phone number on your website for customers who prefer to call. Most importantly, you’re available when customers need help with their shopping experience.
Why is eCommerce customer service needed? It highlights issues for the business which need to be revamped to get more customer satisfaction. Some common issues are:
- Issues while completing the checkout process, unable to add products to the cart, invalid coupons, etc.
- Common questions about product returns, refunds, or delivery.
8 eCommerce Customer Service Best Practices
Exceeding your customer’s expectations is the best way to provide excellent e-commerce customer service. Customers will leave positive feedback about your store at the end of each transaction and will not stop saying “Wow!”
A strong customer service strategy is essential for your company because it can help you improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. Here are the top 8 eCommerce customer service best practices:
1. Omnichannel support
With the rise of mobile devices and social media, customers have more options than ever before when it comes to contacting your company. They’re always on the go and constantly using different communication channels to reach you. It would be best if you offered support across multiple channels, including email, live chat, and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Not to mention that there are various algorithms on how to get Twitter and Facebook followers.
Offering support through multiple channels is a must in e-commerce. Customers can contact you via email, phone, live chat, and social media. It’s essential to provide customers with the option of choosing their preferred channel for communication. For example, if a customer wants to talk to someone on the phone, make sure someone is always available.
Your customer service team should be able to handle everything from basic inquiries about your products to more complex issues that require follow-up over several days or weeks.
The omnichannel strategy combines a company’s different sales channels to make the customer experience more seamless and enjoyable. It also creates customer loyalty through personalized interactions that highlight memorable brand experiences. In today’s rapidly changing world of e-commerce, if done right, an omnichannel approach can have serious advantages over competitors who aren’t using it.
2. Real-time support with live chat
Live chat is a great way to provide real-time support for your customers. It allows you to answer common questions quickly and efficiently while offering more personalized service for more complex issues requiring follow-up over several days or weeks. In addition, live chat can reduce the time it takes for customers to get an answer from your company by filtering out inquiries that don’t require immediate attention.
Communication with a live person in real-time is critical for increasing customer engagement on your website. Furthermore, your customers will have a better experience using live chat in your eCommerce customer service for the following reasons:
- You can have live conversations with your customers, which helps you understand their problems and provides an opportunity to solve them.
- By solving multiple customer queries, your agents can improve their skills and become more efficient when answering chats.
- Customers prefer to message for customer support, and it’s more convenient—and cheaper—to implement messaging software than hiring a dedicated personal assistant.
3. Provide Self Service
Customers prefer fixing their issues rather than relying on customer support to do it for them. Present-day customers are concerned about selecting the right products over the internet and exploring multiple websites as they try to resolve issues by avoiding contact with customer support.
Self-service is a great way to help customers resolve their issues without calling in. Self-service can be as simple as an FAQ page or a knowledge base where you provide the answers to common questions and problems. You can also create a page on your website that provides information about all aspects of your business to customers who want more detail than your homepage affords.
Kapture’s self-serve is a modern-age tool that supports numerous eCommerce sites with an online self-service knowledge base. As a result, customers will understand anything related to your business. Also, it helps customers perform actions to find easy resolutions on their own, driving greater customer experiences.
It’s a great way to reduce the number of calls you receive and save your customer support team some time.
4. Customer reviews and feedback
Today’s customers are more informed and empowered than ever, so they demand a say in purchasing. They want to read reviews of products or services offered by other customers—not just company advertisements.
Besides the fact that reviews influence purchase decisions, they can also serve as a resource for improving an organization’s customer experience. When customers can access reviews, they can make more informed decisions about what products or services they want to purchase. Reviews also give customers a sense of security because they help them determine if a company is reputable and trustworthy.
As soon as you’ve provided the customer’s desired service, solicit feedback from them. They’ll be happy to tell you how things went (or didn’t) and what they’d like to see changed in future interactions with your company.
If you regularly interact with customers, make sure to classify their feedback. Even if they criticize or insult your company (often this will happen), take the opportunity to improve your customer service in response—even though it may be harmful and even hurtful at times. Reviews can help you prioritize which issues to fix first.
5. Maintain consistent customer service
The importance of good customer service in the eCommerce industry cannot be overstated. Pleasant interaction with your business during a first purchase is often enough to convince people that they should come back for more.
You can increase the likelihood of repeat customers by providing excellent customer service and continually improving your business. This will allow you to reduce marketing costs and increase profits over time. On the other hand, a negative experience can turn customers away from your brand forever. As a result, paying attention to customer service interactions and ensuring that you are doing everything possible to improve the quality of your customer service. The more satisfied customers you have, the better!
How to measure eCommerce customer service?
- KPIs – Identify which metrics are most important for measuring the success of your e-commerce operation, and then monitor these metrics regularly.
- Analytics – Ensure that you track the success of your campaigns by measuring all engagement metrics possible.
- Standards – Before setting any e-commerce KPI targets, create a clear picture of what success looks like and how you’ll measure it.
6. Improve response time
Online shoppers are impatient and more likely to shop elsewhere if they don’t feel their needs have been met. According to Statista, 12% of Americans rate their number one frustration with customer service as “lack of speed”—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg regarding poor treatment by businesses in general.
It isn’t enough for customers to be able to reach your customer service team using different channels. Speed and convenience are key factors in a well-performing team. If you want to build a service that customers love, consider how much time they spend waiting for their questions to be answered. If your company has a high-touch approach, this is especially important—and it can be difficult for some companies to adjust.
When you’re able to serve customers with a consistent quality level in a short time across different channels, you’re on the path to providing a fully functional, multichannel customer service strategy.
7. Use help desk software
A help desk ticketing system is essential for businesses that handle customer support inquiries. A good ticketing system simplifies customer management and interaction by categorizing requests. It also automates tasks such as form filling or information gathering from stored knowledge bases (also known as “Solutions”). It creates an audit trail in case issues arise that need to be addressed in the future.
A good help desk software makes it easier and faster to resolve customer complaints, which increases customer satisfaction. It unifies your customer service team’s efforts, which improves the experience for customers who contact you from different channels.
If you’re using an external help desk software, choosing one that offers multichannel support is essential. This will allow your customer service team members to monitor and manage requests across all channels.
Kapture’s help desk management system enables your agents to manage their contact center, service center, and field force from a single platform. Kapture’s help desk software includes:
- Ticket managing system
- Omnichannel support
- Self-serve
- Report and analytics
- Task automation
- Seamless integration
8. Make proactive customer service
The best customer service is proactive, not reactive. A proactive approach means identifying potential issues before they become problems and then taking action to solve them. You must understand your customers’ needs and how they use your products or services. You can then identify areas where improvements could be made so that you deliver a better experience overall.
Proactive customer service is also more cost-effective. Because you’re addressing issues before they become problems, you can save money on staffing and avoid costly repairs or replacements. 9. Use data to improve your customer service. The more information you have about your customers, the better equipped you are to meet their needs.
How to offer proactive customer support?
- Be transparent with your customers: Announce problems as soon as they occur, and don’t wait for customers to run to you with support issues.
- Follow up with your customers: Set up an automated email campaign to follow up with customers a few days after receiving their order, even if the customer indicates they are satisfied. This way, you can address any lingering issues before it becomes more difficult for both parties to communicate about them.
- Own up to your mistakes: In business, as in life, we all make mistakes—even superheroes. But by admitting that you were wrong and explaining how you’re going to fix it (if possible), people will appreciate the transparency of your honesty!
Raise Your Game in Customer Service
Customer service is key to succeeding in eCommerce. Customer experience depends on how well companies handle their interactions with their customers.
Kapture’s e-commerce help desk software provides a single inbox for all incoming support tickets received via email, phone, website, app, chat, and social media platforms. It consolidates and manages all service-related communication on a single platform and more.
Contact our product team at Kapture to learn more about Kapture’s One Suite, which can help you optimize your customer service processes.
About the Author | |
 | Chandan Das |
| Chandan is a Content Writer at Kapture CRM who enjoys writing about various niches that help businesses achieve their mission and vision. | |
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