Last Updated on September 1, 2023 by David
For an eCommerce business to stay top of mind for customers, it’s important to be able to adapt to an ever-changing buyer’s landscape. While there are many tactics to ensure you accomplish this, offering stellar customer service is one of the most sure-fire ways to do so.
It can be very challenging for businesses to ensure they retain customers and ensure those customers are happy. Remember — happy customers are loyal customers! While you might be thinking you have customer service down pat, a recent study revealed that 80% of businesses believe they have a great customer service offering while only 1/10 of customers agree.
If customer service isn’t a core function and goal of your business, that’s okay too — it’s never too late to start.
Here are six ways you can improve your eCommerce customer service game and build a robust customer service strategy for your brand.
1. Get Organized
Getting your customer service team organized is one of the best things you can do to empower your team to better serve your customers. Without the right tools, even the most motivated team will struggle. Collaborative tools such as a shared inbox to keep track of customer conversations and keep your team on the same page will help ensure nothing falls through the cracks. It also ensures you don’t have multiple agents responding to the same query and will enable your team to resolve customer issues in an organized and efficient manner.
Re:amaze Inbox is a shared inbox that can be used by your entire team to manage conversations with your customers via multiple channels including email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, and text messages.
2. Meet Your Customers on Their Terms
Meeting your customers where they are is very important since there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all customer service strategy. Personalized customer service ensures your customers feel heard and valued which makes them more likely to choose and stick with your brand. The first step in accomplishing this is understanding where your customers are. Are they are Facebook, do they prefer messenger or email? Do they utilize live chat on your website?
Once you understand this, you should focus your efforts to empower your customer service agents to avail themselves in these channels. Research indicates that customers tend to use at least 3 channels to contact a business’ customer service. A shared inbox is a great way to create a multi-channel strategy, but first, you need to identify how your customers prefer to communicate with your brand so you can exceed their expectations.
3. Offer Real-Time Support Using Live Chat
It probably comes as no surprise that the majority of customers prefer to contact a company via live chat and get real-time responses. Live chat not only makes your customers happier, but it also reduces customer response time which in turn can increase conversion rate and sales.
Re:amaze chat allows you to respond to customer questions and concerns quickly, ensuring they remain on your website and increasing the odds of them making a purchase. Another benefit of live chat is that when there is a problem, it can often be resolved in that first contact which will make customers very happy with your customer service. Live chat is also very efficient, allowing your agents to handle multiple conversations at once.
4. Provide Self Service Support
Despite a customer’s preference to utilize live chat, the reality is most customers would prefer to resolve an issue by themselves without needing to involve your customer support team. Rather than make them search Google, YouTube, or chat forums for an answer, bring self-service customer support to them.
You can do this by adding videos to your website addressing common issues your customers face or by adding an FAQs page. Re:amaze FAQ allows brands to create knowledge-based content that can be embedded in their website or app which will provide their customers a high-quality self-help experience.
Chatbots are another great way to provide self-service customer support since they can respond 24/7 and often provide basic information to your customers. When necessary, a chatbot can escalate an issue to a live agent.
Finally, creating a knowledge base that contains information about your company, products/services, or anything that customers may be interested in is another great resource to add to your website.
5. Make Shipping and Return Policies Clear
One of the easiest ways to upset your customers is by not having clear shipping and return policies. Your customers should be able to review your policy page and understand:
- Approximate processing and shipping times
- Policies for items damaged during shipping
- PO Box shipping policy
- How long returns are accepted for
- The conditions items must be in for a return to be accepted
- How refunds will be given
- Refund policies on defective items
- What items cannot be returned
6. Utilize Customer Feedback
Customer feedback provides you with information like customer satisfaction levels, how you can improve your products or services, how to provide better customer service, and much more. Whether you send out a post-purchase survey, refer to online reviews, or send out emails asking for customer input, it’s important you put any information you gather to use.
Both positive and negative feedback can inform your customer service offering by letting you know what you’re doing right or wrong. Acting on this information is a great way to build customer loyalty and retain customers.
To learn more about any of the services offered by Re:amaze and how they can help boost your customer serving offering, or to schedule a demo, contact us today.