11 Proven Ways To Improve Customer Service For eCommerce

There are so many things an eCommerce business owner should take care of to engage more clients and boost conversion rates. It’s not only about managing a well-polished product page, adding intuitive navigation patterns, and facilitating the checkout process. Although the factors above also play a significant role, improving customer service for eCommerce brings significant value. How do you ensure your company delivers the utmost customer support services to every client who needs them? Let’s explore the key challenges of delivering exceptional eCommerce customer services and proven ways to face those challenges.

eCommerce customer service refers to providing qualified assistance to online buyers before, during, and after they place an order in your web store. It involves but is not limited to, replying to customers’ questions in chat, by phone, on social media, or by email. Every business chooses its unique approach to arranging customer support services on its website.

According to Missive’s findings, 92% of customers rely on a knowledge base for help when shopping online, while 83% say they would better refer to a community forum for help. At the same time, 77% of business leaders agree that delivering personalized customer support results in a better user retention rate.

The importance of providing expert customer support services is indisputable. The way eCommerce customer services are delivered to the buyer also depends on a web store’s functionality and technical specifications. One of the most convenient ways to deliver qualified customer care help is by integrating your website with an online chat, which allows your team to exchange instant messages with a buyer. However, you may also opt for other ecommerce web development solutions, including chatbots and online forms, which are also widely used by customer support specialists.

Small companies and startups that cannot afford hiring customer support teams may consider using customer support tools like chatbots. Using AI and ML technologies, chatbots should help you automate communication with your customers by using your website’s knowledge base. Chatbots will help you manage common user inquiries, while more complex requests should be handled by a human.

Stats speak louder than pure words when we speak about the proof of the importance of delivering qualified customer support services. Here are several findings confirming the significance of delivering professional eCommerce customer support.

1. According to Meteorspace, 75% of customers prefer talking to real human representatives of a company over robots and AI, emphasizing the importance of human touch during online shopping.
2. The same report indicates that 90% of customers say their purchasing experience is directly influenced by their experience with a brand’s customer service representatives.
3. 80% of customers with positive customer service will likely make repeat purchases.
4. According to Forbes, 96% of customers will abandon a brand after a poor customer support experience.
5. The findings shared by Forbes also indicate that 60% of customers switch brands after unsatisfactory interactions.

The importance of providing qualified custom support services is indisputable, no matter how big or small your business is and what industry you belong to. An online customer has a growing demand for timely and efficient communication with client care representatives of your brand.

eCommerce customer support services differ from the way your business provides help to clients at a brick-and-mortar store in many ways.

• The first and foremost difference is the way customer assistance is delivered. Instead of face-to-face communication at a brick-and-mortar store, eCommerce businesses should look for ways to compensate in-person interactions by digital means, like live chats and chatbots.
• One of the major benefits of buying online is that the eCommerce customer support team is available 24/7. Unlike a brick-and-mortar store available at fixed working hours, customers can contact an online store representative whenever such a need arises, allowing eCommerce brands to boost customer loyalty and business profit significantly.
• Besides multiple benefits, eCommerce customer care also faces the challenge of failing to meet buyers’ high expectations. eCommerce giants like Amazon are known for their excellent customer service, which small businesses strive to compete with but hardly manage to beat. Falling behind on customer expectations poses eCommerce brands with the risk of losing customer loyalty and revenue.

Since we’ve already discussed eCommerce customer support issues, let’s consider a few other challenges of delivering online customer care.

• The lack of in-person interaction makes businesses seek alternatives to create personalized experiences.
• Customers expect your company’s customer service to be accessible 24/7, which is challenging for startups and growing businesses. To compensate for the 24/7 human support, companies opt for alternative methods of providing users with support services when the customer support team is unavailable. One of the most popular alternatives is using chatbots.
• Multi-channel availability. Users expect your brand to be accessible through various communication channels, like email, chat, phone, and social media. It may be challenging to deliver the same quality of customer support across all of these channels unless you have a big team.
• Data privacy and security considerations may be difficult to maintain, especially given the increased demand for eCommerce personalization.

The list could be expanded to include customer support issues individual brands face. The challenges we listed above are the most common for online stores of different sizes and industries.

Considering all the benefits and challenges of delivering eCommerce customer support, let’s discuss several proven ways to improve eCommerce customer service.

Customers should find it easy to contact you. It is a common practice to share all contact details on a separate page, which should be easy to access via the main menu or footer menu. A hidden contact page will frustrate your audiences because they will not be able to reach you.

Besides making the Contact Us page easy to access, ensuring the contact details are well organized is important. Your contact page should offer users a variety of ways to reach you. Email and phone number are the basics. You can enhance the contact page with a contact us button, which allows users to get in touch with you instantly. Besides, integrate your website with a contact form and integrate social media links, introducing users to all channels where they may submit their inquiries.

If your business provides multi-channel support, specify it on the Contact Us page. If not, consider integrating such a possibility into your customer service. Your customers will have varying preferences, and your team should do its best to cater to every client’s request. That’s why it’s important to deliver multi-channel support.

By providing customer support services through diverse platforms, you make it likely that customers’ requests will be handled in the shortest time. For example, if your business offers customer support via email only, you may also add live chat support for immediate assistance (if you have enough support agents on your team). If you provide support via email and chat, adding social media platforms to your customer support channels should be a wise move.

Time is of the essence in eCommerce. The quicker you reply to your customers’ requests, the likelier they will buy from you. Slow responses are among the major concerns for customers worldwide, resulting in their negative perception of your brand and overall frustration with the quality of your services.

When providing eCommerce customer support services, ensure you clearly state expectations regarding response time. If you have a live chat, set up an automated response with the average response time on your website. It is also a good idea to add the respective information on your contact page so that users will have an idea of how fast they will get an answer.

In a perfect scenario, it’s recommended that you respond to emails and live chat in 2-3 hours. However, we also understand that it may be challenging to achieve such a quick response time. So, you’d strive to provide users with an answer in up to 24 hours and work on delivering faster responses during peak business hours.

A customer can feel when you provide them with a template-based answer and write a personalized response. When working on delivering personalized customer support services, the least you can do is address a customer by name when responding to their requests in an email or live chat.

Do not sound like a machine when writing your answer. Instead, take your time to understand their concern and write your response accordingly. If you have enough time, personalize your communication by reviewing their purchase history and providing product recommendations based on their preferences.

You can significantly optimize and streamline the delivery of customer support services with customer relationship management (CRM) software. Zendesk is one of the most popular solutions, helping you manage customer requests, collaborate with your team, manage and track tickets, and streamline your support workflow.

Customer feedback is a goldmine of valuable tips and insights on improving customer service. Train your team to ask customers questions during live chat sessions or emails. Besides, you can integrate your website and email with surveys and feedback forms encouraging users to share their opinions.

Both positive and negative feedback counts. While positive reviews help you build better trust with your audience, negative feedback will provide valuable insights on how your company and your services could be improved.

You may have the best customer support team ever. However, you won’t be able to achieve better results and increase conversions unless you continuously work on improving your team’s skillset. Working with people involves a thorough understanding of your products, user psychology, industry trends, and marketing approaches that can influence their decision-making. Proper training ensures your customer care team can resolve users’ issues efficiently.

Besides ensuring your support team delivers exceptional customer services, it’s a wise move to manage shopping cart abandonment notifications. This way, you may drive users back to your website when they accidentally close a browser window or face any other distraction.

Shopping cart abandonment emails are gentle notifications sent to customers who got sidetracked during checkout. To minimize the shopping cart abandonment rate, companies set up reminders that highlight the items a user left in the shopping cart and highlight the value proposition. By integrating your customer support strategy with a shopping cart abandonment flow, you can benefit from converting abandoned carts into sales.

A well-thought-out loyalty program encourages repeat sales. Depending on your project’s specifications, you may offer customers bonuses whenever they purchase something on your website. The more points they earn, the more rewards they get. The type of rewards may vary based on your project’s specifications. For example, the points earned in the loyalty program may provide users with early access to new features of your software or new product releases.

Loyalty programs are a surefire way to incentivize customers to make repeat sales in your store and bring you more income. By feeling valued and rewarded, customers are more likely to become your brand advocates, spreading the word about your store among their followers and friends.

Customer care is an ongoing process. By monitoring and analyzing customer feedback, requests, and overall behavior patterns, you can find areas for improvement and adapt your customer support strategy accordingly.

While analyzing, pay attention to such metrics as response scores, resolution rates, and customer satisfaction scores. Consider using tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar to gain valuable insights into customer behavior and browsing history. The findings that you get should give you insights on how to modify the customer service strategy to deliver better results.

While optimizing customer experience on your eCommerce website, it’s important to facilitate the checkout process. Keeping the checkout page as simple and clear as possible should help you reduce potential clients’ obstacles.

Allowing guest checkout is one of the most common ways to reduce checkout obstacles. Besides, consider adding multiple payment methods to the checkout page and avoid adding fields asking for unnecessary information.

According to Statista, 60% of all eCommerce sales worldwide come from mobile devices. Given this and assuming the number of mobile shoppers will continue to grow, it’s vital to ensure your eCommerce store is fully optimized to provide users with a seamless browsing and buying experience on smaller screens.

Running an eCommerce business is more than working on product or service development. You may provide the best offers in the market. However, your efforts will only be worthwhile if you deliver professional customer care services.

By improving your customer support, making your contact details more findable and informative, training your team, automating specific tasks, optimizing response time, presenting loyalty programs, setting up shopping cart abandonment flows, and assisting your clients across diverse platforms, you will increase user loyalty and boost your eCommerce project’s profitability. Apply the tips listed above in practice and enjoy the benefits of your work!