Ways to Provide Stellar e-commerce Customer Service
In this digital world, e-commerce customer service is not simply nice to have but rather a prerequisite for success. Data from Microsoft shows that for 95% of consumers, customer service is important for brand loyalty.
However, it’s not enough to say that you have customer service. Bad customer service is worse than none at all. There is a significant discrepancy in the perceptions of companies and buyers when it comes to the quality of service, as 80% of businesses believe they provide excellent customer service, but only 8% of customers agree.
Why Stellar Customer Service is Crucial for E-commerce Success
Today’s customers have sky-high expectations. Even though fewer customers may be experiencing problems, more customers are inclined to complain about customer service problems than ever before. Companies must adapt to the changing buyer landscape. Being at the forefront of a business, the customer service team plays a key role in building relationships and trust with customers. That’s why creating stellar customer service can be a game changer for your business.
7 Ways to Step Up Your Ecommerce Customer Service Game
1. Get Organized
One of the essential aspects of a successful customer service department is organization. You might have an efficient process and a highly motivated team, but without organization, things will likely fall apart. Keeping track of customer conversations and equipping your team with tools that help them collaborate keeps everyone on the same page (so nothing slips through the cracks).
2. Meet Customers on Their Terms
In e-commerce, one size fits none. Customers expect a personalized approach that makes them feel special. Businesses today have to interact with their consumers to get to know them better and form meaningful, ongoing relationships.
Embracing “Me-commerce” means meeting a customer’s ever-changing and increasingly demanding expectations and habits. While there are customers who still want to call to talk to a customer service representative, others are interested in live chat or email, while some simply want to send you a tweet.
3. Enable Self-Service
One of the most underrated tactics of good ecommerce customer service is self-service. Over 60% of U.S. consumers prefer automated self-service, such as through a website or mobile app, for simple customer service tasks.
4. Stand Out from the Crowd Using Personalization
Unlike situations when customers just want quick answers to basic questions, there are times when they are looking for a personalized approach and expert advice. According to Accenture, 33% of customers who abandoned a business relationship did so because personalization was lacking.
Introducing a personalized, knowledgeable service is what sets leaders apart from other online businesses.
5. Harness the Power of Customer Reviews
Today’s customers are more empowered than ever to make informed decisions. They want to be heard, and they want to hear other customers’ opinions about products and services. Besides the fact that reviews are among major purchase decision factors, they’re also a great source of ideas for customer experience improvement.
6. Improve Your Response Time
E-commerce is all about speed and convenience. Customers who choose to shop online are expecting a fast reaction and prompt answers. According to Statista, 12% of Americans rate their number one frustration with customer service as “lack of speed.” Allowing customers to reach your customer service team using different channels is not enough. The key to a well-performing team is the balance between speed and convenience. When you’re able to serve customers with a consistent level of quality in a short period of time across different channels, you’re on the path to providing a fully functional, multichannel customer service strategy.
7. Measure, Optimize, Repeat
No customer service approach is set in stone. Companies have to be proactive in solving customers’ problems while constantly improving processes based on data. Evaluating your team’s volume by channel, tracking busiest hours, and following trending topics among your customers are just some of the things that you can refine by measuring and optimizing results.
Having a process in place to track performance will serve as a foundation for making future decisions, which is the first step toward successful customer service. Customer service is the backbone of your ecommerce business. As customers’ expectations for the ideal online shopping experience increase, customer service becomes essential to thrive in a competitive ecommerce landscape.
Reinventing the online buying journey and incorporating some of these highly efficient customer service best practices will pay dividends across multiple parameters. It’ll help you retain customers and grow their lifetime value while also acquiring new customers, which is crucial in any industry.
