ustomer service is the backbone of every eCommerce business. And while eCommerce websites can be highly convenient, the lack of face-to-face contact can sometimes result in poor customer service. And hence, an overall unsatisfactory customer experience.
Besides, it is right now if there has ever been an excellent time to improve customer service in the eCommerce industry.
According to a Microsoft survey, 95% of the participating consumers have admitted that customer service is a key part of earning their loyalty.
A PWC report also revealed that 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for a better online customer service experience.
Fortunately, there are numerous ways you can improve the customer service experience in your eCommerce business.
But before we get to that, let's quickly revisit the ABCs of eCommerce customer service first.
What is eCommerce customer service?
eCommerce customer service generally refers to how eCommerce brands assist their online customers throughout their shopping journey while providing a seamless customer experience across all channels and platforms.
It addresses the customers' questions, needs, and concerns — before, during, and after the purchase.
The customer service team must ensure an overall satisfying online shopping experience for both new and existing customers.
What makes for excellent eCommerce customer service?
When it comes to eCommerce customer service, participants from PWC research shared the following four factors as the most important:
- Speed
- Convenience
- Friendliness
- Helpfulness
If you think about it from the consumers' perspective, these elements actually make perfect sense.
When shopping online, every one of us wants to receive help that is quick, effective, and easy to understand, and we want the overall online shopping experience to be pleasant.
But if you're still unclear about how to offer great customer service in your eCommerce business, here are some quick tips.
Top 5 eCommerce customer service tips
The customer service team plays a crucial role in building and nurturing customer relationships in an eCommerce business.
Here are the top 5 tips for improving customer service in your eCommerce business.
1 - Develop an omnichannel strategy
In the eCommerce industry, there are no one size fits. Instead, today's customers expect a personalized approach that makes them feel special.
That's why having just one or two communication channels is not enough. Instead, you need to be available on every channel where your customers are.
In fact, data from Microsoft research shows that over 66% of consumers use a minimum of three different communication channels to contact customer service.
One way to offer personalized customer service is by developing an omnichannel strategy.
A study by Aberdeen Group discovered that businesses with a concrete omnichannel strategy have a customer retention rate of 91%.
Here are the three core elements of developing a solid omnichannel strategy:
- Identify customer touchpoints
- Understand your customers' shopping journey and create a strategy to engage with them at those touchpoints
- Deliver a quick and consistence customer support at every touchpoint
The objective of an omnichannel strategy is to unify all your customer touchpoints across the entire customer lifecycle and bring them under one platform.
2 - Optimize and automate order fulfillment
If you already haven't optimized and automated order fulfillment in your eCommerce business, you should consider doing it immediately.
Manual eCommerce order fulfillment systems are often slow, time-consuming, and inefficient. Besides, they're more vulnerable to human errors.
But, by partnering with an eCommerce order fulfillment company, you can automate the entire process from stocking & warehousing to packaging & delivery.
This, in turn, will save you a lot of time, sky-rocket your productivity, and increase your overall customer satisfaction rate.
3 - Offer self-service options
Self-service is one of the most underrated yet highly effective tactics of good eCommerce customer service.
Self-service is about making important information about everything available online. This could include general information about your products and tutorials to exchange and return policies.
Ideally, the three best strategies to begin with, are an AI Chatbot, FAQs section, and knowledge base. According to Forrester's research, consumers prefer knowledge base the most of all self-service channels.
Plus, a knowledge base allows you to not only answer your customers' questions but is also good for SEO. So, it's ultimately a win-win.
4 - Keep a close eye on customer reviews
Customer reviews are one of the core elements of any business growth. This is because satisfied customers will likely recommend your products and advocate for them with positive feedback.
Moreover, customer reviews are one of the significant factors in purchasing decisions. Today's customers not only want to be heard, but they also want to hear other customers' opinions about particular products or brands.
Customer reviews give an unbiased and transparent view of how well your business is doing. But more importantly, they're also a primary source of ideas for customer experience improvement.
5 - Focus on customer retention
Customer retention is one of the major challenges for eCommerce businesses.
But, there are several reasons why you must focus on improving your customer retention rate.
- For starters, acquiring new customers cost almost 5 times more than retaining existing customers. So you can save costs by focusing on customer retention.
- Secondly, increasing the customer retention by just a mere 5% has proven to increase profits by 25-95%.
- The success rate of selling to a new customer is just between 5-20%, while the success rate of selling to an existing customer is a whopping 60-70%.
- An American Express study discovered that 33% of customers would immediately switch brands after a single poor experience.
The good news is, that high customer retention is almost always the result of impeccable customer service and an overall satisfying customer experience.
So, if you can improve the customer service experience in your eCommerce business, you can rest assured that your customer retention rate will undoubtedly increase with it.
Concluding thoughts
As you've just learned, the quality of your customer service significantly impacts your eCommerce business's success. In fact, customer service has a direct relationship with the shopping experience in your store.
So, it's vital to have a strategy that helps to provide a positive customer experience with your eCommerce business.
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