We’ve all heard the saying the customer is always right. Whether you’re just starting out or have spent decades growing an eCommerce business, you know this adage rings true.
Happy and loyal customers are the single most important asset in building the success of your brand. But how can you ensure your customers are happy? The simple answer: ramp up your customer service. No matter how long you’ve spent in the game, there’s always room for improvement.
The following tools and strategies can help you build customer loyalty and give the overall performance of your eCommerce business a boost.
Ticketing System
Let’s start with the most important tool of all: A ticketing system. Perhaps no tool can do more to increase the success and efficiency of customer service. When a customer requests help, a ticket is opened. The ticket serves as a kind of log where all of the interactions between the rep and the customer are recorded. This makes it easy for a support team to coordinate with one another, and also helps make offering help to the customer more efficient.
Tickets are used to define roles for reps, manage the status of customer requests, and ensure that all members of a team are working in harmony with the customer and each other. In addition to optimizing workflow, ticketing systems can also improve compliance among employees, because it makes it easy to review performance and track how individual members of your eCommerce support staff are working.
FAQs Page
Offering support to customers via an FAQ page helps increase conversions at the same time that it relieves pressure on your support team. What makes this such an effective tool? Studies show that the majority of customers actually prefer self-service to communicating with a sales rep.
FAQ pages help the customer know they’re making the right choice by going with your product. You can also use them to highlight your brand’s values. Take the FAQ page for Nespresso Coffee. After the company came under scrutiny in 2015 for all the waste created by their single-use pods, they included a sustainability section on their FAQ list that highlights the company’s efforts to reduce waste and protect the environment.
FAQs can do more than deliver essential product information to your customer. They can also show off what your brand is all about — all the while freeing up valuable time for your support staff to answer more pressing queries.
Live Chat
A great live chat is like the sales employee who stands attentively in the corner of the store, not pestering you, but always ready to answer any question you may have.
Incorporating a live chat makes customers more likely to purchase, and more likely to be satisfied with the product they choose. 80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase when offered customized support, and almost half would purchase an unplanned item because of a personalized recommendation. Live chat can unlock these increased sales for your company by helping them understand the value of a service or product that meets their needs.
Live chat isn’t just about the pre-purchase phase of customer engagement; it can be wielded in a number of different ways, like sending a gentle reminder to a customer who abandoned their shopping cart on their last visit. In the post-purchase phase, live chat can be the most convenient way for customers to receive product set-up information, track a package, or to take a quick product survey.
Surveys
Surveys are usually an afterthought for customers, but they definitely shouldn’t be for your eCommerce company.
Surveys are the most effective way to gauge customer experience. Not only do they make customers feel heard and offer space for constructive feedback, but they also increase customer loyalty, retention, and repurchase value.
That said, a good survey isn’t always easy to craft. Having trouble knowing what to ask? Experts recommend making surveys as short as possible. When in doubt, make questions direct and to the point. Yes or no questions are the best choice to ensure precise and actionable feedback. The net promoter score (NPS) has been viewed with favor for some time now, especially for B2B eCommerce companies that have clients who are usually too busy to take long and complex questionnaires.
Worried customers will click past surveys? Try using live chat to send feedback reminders. You can also offer incentives like a discount or freebie to customers for completing the survey.
Smooth Product Returns
We all know that repeat customers are the key to a company’s success and that customer happiness leads to increased revenue. But too many businesses are working against their own interests by neglecting a key customer service tool: building a comprehensive and generous product return policy. A fair return policy may increase revenue without actually increasing the volume of customer returns.
Here are three pillars of a good returns policy:
- Be transparent. Your return policy should be easily accessible, particularly when it comes to return deadlines. Transparency builds customer trust and prevents the incidence of refunds and one-star reviews.
- Make returns simple. Offer returns via shipment or in store (if you have a physical location, that is). Make return labels easy to print and offer free return shipping, as long as you have a built-in order minimum to cover the cost.
- Continuously revise your policy. Keep your eyes open and see how other online retailers are making returns simple and comfortable for their customers. Revising frequently also ensures that you can stay up to date with consumer protection laws.
Conclusion
As you consider ways to help your customers in a constantly-shifting eCommerce landscape, it’s important to remember that the right tools will help your workflow and improve outcomes. But don’t lose sight of your goal: to make customers happy. A good product, no-BS fine print, and the ability to listen and empathize will always take your business the farthest.
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This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jake Rheude.
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