Customer service is often considered the backbone of an ecommerce business, and it’s no surprise. With growing buyer expectations, customer service is crucial now more than ever for a business to remain competitive in the ecommerce marketplace.
There were 263 million digital buyers in the United States in 2019, and the number is projected to grow to 282.7 million online buyers by 2024. With it, expectations for seamless customer experience across channels are also increasing.
Wondering what are the best practices for improving your ecommerce customer services? Read this article to discover five of them today.
1. Make your customers feel special
Your customers expect a personalized experience. Focus on interacting with users and getting to know them better. This way, you will be able to create meaningful relationships and deliver diverse experiences, fit for each customer.
Your efforts should take into account the fact that some customers prefer traditional communication methods, like phone calls, while others prefer a live chat or an email. What’s more, according to Forrester, 31% of customers report reaching out to a company via Twitter, 33% have used Facebook to contact an organization, and 45% preferred online chat.
Nowadays, marketers need to juggle with devices and platforms to complete tasks, as the majority of consumers use at least three different communication channels to reach out to customer service. Providing seamless service is, therefore, vital.
Communicate with your customers via their preferred channel and ensure you have a cohesive multi-channel customer service strategy in place.
2. Start enabling self-service
Self-service is an underrated method of ecommerce, and over 60% of U.S. consumers prefer automated self-service. Ensure you empower your website or mobile app with automation for basic customer service. By creating a knowledge base, you will also reduce your customer support volume.
Chat tools can help you keep up with demands and deliver instant answers when you have a high volume or you need to prepare for a busy sales season.
3. Personalize customer experience to stand out
Usually, all customers expect quick answers to basic questions, but they might also need a personalized approach and your expertise in the field. So, to ensure you provide the best experiences, you need to empower your agents to offer the right guidance and encourage consumers to buy your products or services.
Did you know that according to Accenture, 33% of customers are influenced by the lack of personalized services, leading to a break in business relationships? This is not a new phenomenon, but the trend is increasing as technology advances and marketers find new ways to attract customers through personalized experiences.
4. Don’t underestimate customer reviews
Customers want to be heard and seen to make informed decisions about the products they’re purchasing. And to help with their decision-making process, they also need the opinions of other consumers about the products and services they are interested in.
Luckily, by being an important part of a purchasing decision, reviews are an essential source of new ideas for improving and enhancing the customer experience.
When it comes to customer reviews and feedback, you need to be proactive and invite your prospective customers to share their insights with you. This will provide your team with accurate data to help them create the best possible customer journey.
5. Always measure and strive for optimization
Customer behavior is always changing and services need to adapt to rapid shifts. Your business needs agility and adaptability to solve any customer challenges. So, to improve your processes, you need data. Evaluate your team, track processes and busy hours, and strive for continuous improvement.
Conclusion
Assisting your ecommerce customers is not an easy task in 2021. But this is the year of enhancing customer service best practices. These five efficient tips will help you retain more customers and grow their lifetime value, as well as attract new customers.
The digital-first world that we live in today requires ecommerce businesses to focus more on customer service.
