Customer Service in eCommerce | Importance & How To Improve
customer service in eCommerce is important. As Microsoft’s report indicates, 54% of consumers now have higher expectations
As the world changes rapidly, businesses in the e-commerce space are benefiting. A study conducted by The Global Consumer showed that more than one-third of global consumers purchase products online at least once a week. This means that it is more important than ever to focus on the e-commerce customer.
The new statistics demonstrate significant potential for growth in e-commerce. For retailers, excellent customer service is key to acquiring new customers. Therefore, it is essential that customer service teams are well-trained and up-to-date with the latest information and best practices.
What Is E-Commerce Customer Service?
E-commerce customer service is the backbone of supporting shoppers on e-commerce platforms and throughout their customer lifecycle. Providing support for online businesses must take into account the unique challenges involved in serving digital consumers. For example:
High volumes of service and support requests are common, as are questions related to products, fulfillment, and returns.
The need to monitor multiple channels with fast response times is also essential.
Even with all of those concerns, the customer experience is still the most important thing. Your service team is responsible for being the voice of your brand and the only human contact in an otherwise digital world.
What is the Importance of Customer Service in eCommerce?
As Microsoft’s “State of Global Customer Service” report indicates, 54% of consumers now have higher expectations for the level of customer service they receive than they did in the past. This underscores the importance of delivering excellent customer service.
The following are key reasons why customer service is important for eCommerce:
1. Increasing sales conversions
83% of online shoppers need assistance to complete an order. By providing real-time support with live chat or deploying an eCommerce bot, customers can make faster sales decisions.
2. Improving customer retention rates
It costs seven times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. By resolving customer queries in a timely manner, you can create a positive customer experience and encourage loyalty.
3. Maintaining customer loyalty
A well-executed customer service strategy can help to retain existing customers, attract new customers, reduce turnover, and increase customer loyalty. By driving profits, businesses can ensure their long-term viability and success.
Your brand’s central voice will dissipate away from the core stakeholders unless you take steps to keep it consistent. This is where many e-commerce stores fail. They accept this as an inevitability and focus on process rather than emotion. Because it’s easier to scale. But it’s possible to do both. Moreover, it’s necessary.
How To Improve Customer Service In eCommere
1. Create an Omnichannel Customer Service Strategy
Today’s customers expect to be able to connect with their favorite brands over social media, email, real-time messaging, offline support channels, and phone calls. By meeting them on their preferred channels, you can ensure that they have a positive experience with your brand.
An omnichannel strategy coordinates all customer touchpoints across the customer lifecycle under one platform, to engage them across their buying journey and deliver a consistent experience. Seventy-three percent of customers use multiple channels during their shopping journey.
To build an omnichannel customer support strategy, you should focus on three core elements:
- Identifying the touchpoints preferred by your customers,
- Understanding your customer journey for creating a strategy to engage them across those touchpoints.
- Providing a consistent experience throughout the customer journey.
The legacy of omnichannel is to provide customers with a streamlined and optimized shopping experience that builds lasting relationships with brands. By developing the right channel strategies, businesses can ensure their long-term success in an ever-changing marketplace.
2. Deliver a Real-Time Support by Implementing Live Chat Feature
According to Econsultancy, 79% of customers prefer live chat because it offers immediate responses compared to other channels. With live chat, you can reduce customer response time, increase sales, and conversion rates.
Great eCommerce customer service experiences can be achieved by using live chat software and engaging live tools that boost customer satisfaction rates. Having a live chat can help reduce the average response time, delivering answers to customers and increasing satisfaction.
Some key advantages of live chat compared to other channels are that:
Live Chat Support is Real Time
Live chat allows you to connect with customers in real time and resolve their issues quickly and efficiently. By identifying the complexity of the problem, you can resolve it in the first contact.
Live Chat Support is Multitasking.
Live chat helps in improving the efficiency, as agents are able to handle multiple conversations simultaneously. Multiple options for chat distribution and utilization also help increase efficiency.
Messaging is generally the preferred channel.
Customers prefer to communicate with support via messaging.
3. Provide eCommerce support that is self-service based.
More than half of your customers prefer to solve their problems independently, rather than contacting your support. They prefer to search the web or use other self-help options, rather than talking to a service agent. Great customer service is about anticipating problems and solving them before they arise.
Being proactive in your customer support is one of the best ways to improve the customer experience. By reducing support interactions and building customer trust, you can improve customer retention and you can reach out to your customers to make their journey a beautiful experience.
To provide self-service-based eCommerce service, you can use:
AI chatbots For Customer Service In eCommere
AI chatbots can be used to hold real-time conversations with customers and provide 24×7 support. This way, you can provide excellent customer service even when you or your team members are not available.
FAQ’s
You can use a chatbot template for an eCommerce carousel. Alternatively you can also add detailed FAQ pages that cover information on topics such as billing & payments, shipping, returns, and refunds information policy.
Customer Knowledge Base
You can create a knowledge base containing information about your company, products/services, or anything else customers might be interested in.
4. Maintain a consistent level of customer service every time
It is essential to maintain consistent customer service in the eCommerce industry. When a customer has a positive experience interacting with your business the first time, they will expect the same level of service in future interactions.
Customers should receive consistent customer service across all communication channels to avoid confusion about the conversation’s outcome. Additionally, customer service must be of the highest quality during crucial and urgent times, such as a sale.
The importance of consistent customer service lies in:
- its ability to help reduce the average response time,
- gain a high first contact resolution rate, and
- get deeper insights into customer profiles and journeys.
How can you measure your Ecommerce business success
KPI’s
It is important to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) for your e-commerce business and track/measure the corresponding metrics
Analytics
Analytics is critical to accurately measuring all of these metrics, so be sure to have a robust analytics system in place.
Standards
Set standards for your e-commerce business KPI’s to ensure success.
5.Take action on customer feedback to improve business
Customer feedback is essential for effective advertising. Satisfied customers provide positive feedback and recommendations that help promote your product and brand. Keep an open dialogue with your customers to ensure their continued satisfaction.
Customer feedback is essential for business growth. It provides a clear view of how well your business is performing and what areas need improvement.
Customer feedback is essential to businesses in the following ways:
- It measures customer satisfaction
- It helps improve products and services
- It delivers a better customer experience
- It improves customer retention
- It enhances your customer communication
When is the best time to ask customers for feedback?
The best time to ask customers for feedback is immediately after a customer service conversation, product demo, or while they are using your product. As you are already in a conversation with the customer, it gives a natural feeling to ask for feedback.
What is the way to analyze customer feedback?
Categorizing the feedback comments:
Categorize the feedback comments according to delivery speed, after-sales services, customer service approach, etc.
Nature of feedback:
Positive feedback can help build customer loyalty, while negative feedback can identify areas that need to be improved.
Analyze the result to plan your next move:
After analyzing the results, plan your next move in terms of how you intend to respond to each of the issues raised.
Afterwards, measuring customer satisfaction is done through various metrics. The most common ones are CSAT, CES, and NPS. They help simplify the process of collecting customer insights and provide an accurate gauge of customer satisfaction. This is important for understanding how well your business, product, or offer is received.
6. Make Proper Use of Automation
Automation can be a great way to improve the efficiency of your e-commerce business. Properly implementing automation can help improve customer service.
Some of the ways to use automation for your e-commerce business
Email notifications
An email marketing strategy is required for every online business to generate leads and to gain new customers. Email notifications can help you maintain brand awareness and spread promotions to new and existing customers.
Customer Reviews
Customer feedback helps convince potential customers to make a purchase. Automating the collection of customer reviews and testimonials can be done easily with tools like MailChimp.
Inventory management
Inventory management is a crucial but often tedious aspect of running an e-commerce business.
By integrating your e-commerce platform with Quickbooks accounting software, you can automate certain tasks.
Invoicing
This will save you time and frustration, as well as improve your accuracy. Invoicing can be a frustrating process when done manually. You can create automated invoices through payment gateways such as PayPal, which can save you time and hassle.
Conclusion
Customer centricity is key to building a resilient business, as Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, says. By focusing on customers and their needs, companies can create a stronger, more resilient business model that is better able to weather any storm. So, if a customer reaches out with an issue, do everything you can to help them.
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