Strategies to Enhance Customer Support Experience in E-Commerce
Customer support is the key to ecommerce success. Here at MindMateDigital, we believe that by following the three strategies we’re about to describe, you will up-level your customer support experiences.
Provide them with as many methods for reaching out – email, chat and social media – as possible: autoresponders to save time and let them know immediately you’ve seen their message.
Offer a variety of support options
Customer service is just as important online as it is offline, and customer satisfaction hinges on the ability of a business to quickly and effectively resolve issues. From technical bugs that affect the customer’s experience with websites or apps to questions about the features of a product, or any other misstep – quick and effective customer service makes or breaks a purchase. Not only does the ability to offer different kinds of support allow you to cater to every customers needs but also to meet the expectations everyone has. And since some customers would prefer to serve themselves via help centres and FAQs, while others would rather talk to a rep directly, having different kinds of options to offer your customers means that you’re providing those who serve themselves exactly the level of help that they want, while at the same time decreasing the number of inquiries that will come in. Encourage your customer support team to be empathetic and use active listening skills with customers. Rebuilding this dialogue feels warm, positive, and constructive. By mirroring back exactly what customers are saying or – better yet – putting it into human-sounding terms, you help customers feel understood and connect with the brand. This also makes them feel seen, respected and cared about, which, over the long run, leads to increased rates of engagement and purchase. If you strengthen your customer support team, you’ll see an increased return on sales. Taking customer feedback and feeding it back into a system shows customers that their feedback has value.
Ensure that customer questions are answered in a timely manner
Customers expect that when they interact with your business across multiple channels, they will receive consistent and timely service – from responding to email queries to addressing comments on social media, and inbound calls. Group questions by urgency and customer experience (eg, a fraud report should be dealt with before providing an order status) and send similar questions to the same agent. Make use of auto-responder templates, scripts or canned responses to promptly attend to the inquiries of your respective prospective and actual customers, decreasing their potential anger and frustration. Automating from customer enquiries, acknowledgement and an outline of estimated response time can show customers that company cares about its relationships and satisfaction with its products.
Make it easy for customers to contact you
Establishing customer trust is an investment in your agents’ talent so they can provide the right support etiquette, develop product knowledge and learn your internal processes to be consistent when dazzling your online shoppers. Make sure you provide multiple paths for your customers to get help, ask a question, or find the information they’re looking for – whether that’s on a dedicated FAQ page, in your help centre, or through live chat which is fairly easy to set-up on an e-commerce site using tools such as Help Scout (which allows answering of repeat questions via saved replies). Lastly, share customer feedback with your customers on a regular basis. This will help to identify and resolve problems before they become unbearable. Also, suggest that customers rate their experience after every interaction. This is a more human experience.
Make it easy for customers to leave feedback
If there’s one thing that governs ecommerce, it’s customer feedback. On the one hand, you can use customer feedback to identify why you might be losing or failing to retain customers, and thus where your opportunities lie. On the other, you can use that feedback to demonstrate to your customers that you care about what they have to say. In emails to customers, it might be helpful to request feedback and provide links and instructions on how to do so. In fact, research shows that response rates increase based on how you personalise this request – for example, a request with a first name or using previous purchases to frame it (e.g., ‘Thank you for purchasing [product]. Please let us know if you have any feedback.’). So these kinds of prompt and essential help services are highly essential in maximising your customer experience and loyalty. In my opinion, this will ensure that whenever your customer interacts with your brand, he/she will have satisfaction. So, happy customer will come back to make an order again and again, carry on the good work!
