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Why is e-commerce customer service so important? According to Forbes, businesses that make customer service a priority bring in higher revenues than those that don’t prioritize customer service.
If you want to win more customers and keep the ones you’ve got, give them what they expect: outstanding customer service.
Brands need to build strong relationships directly with consumers or risk losing them to marketplaces like Amazon, where it can be harder to build and maintain connections with customers. Currently, 57 percent of e-commerce transactions flow through a marketplace.
So, what are some tools that make it easier to deliver effective e-commerce customer service?
- You can try speeding up your online customer experience with chatbots, so your customers and potential customers can get their questions answered fast.
- You can create a help center where customers can find quick answers at the very moment when they have a question.
- Add in customer satisfaction surveys to learn more about customers and what you can do to improve your service.
Chatbots for customer service
According to The Drum, the peak time for online shopping is in the evening, showing the greatest spike between 8 and 9 p.m. Right, after most customer service people have left the office or logged off. Chatbots can step into that after-hours role, and many are already on the job for companies, answering customer queries.
40 percent of U.S. shoppers were already using chatbots on retail sites in 2019, and that percentage will likely grow thanks to the shift to e-commerce and the hiring challenges many customer service teams face now.
Even when live agents are available, chatbots are critical for answering questions immediately, to keep your consumers from going elsewhere. You can use your chatbot to perform basic tasks like:
- Sharing shipping rates and times
- Starting a refund or exchange
- Tracking orders
- Scheduling appointments
- Displaying sizing information
- Sharing your return policy
This information can keep your customers who enjoy impulse buying on the path to conversion. If you’re shopping late at night and don’t find the information that you need during that first visit, you might leave and not come back. But with a chatbot there to answer questions, you’re more likely to convert that impulse buyer.
Help centers for quick customer service
Another strategy is to add a help center to your website. A help center is like a detailed FAQ section. It needs to be easy for your visitors to find the information that they need so they can decide when they’re ready.
According to Forbes, 66 percent of customers choose a product based on convenience, so it’s only natural that you need to make it easy for them to decide. In Trengo, you can add a Help Center widget to your site as a support option. Creating help centers will save precious time for your customer service team while also providing the best customer experience.
If your customer wants to buy an article of clothing, but they aren’t sure about sizing, they could look in your Help Center for a sizing guide. When they’re more confident that the item will fit, they are more likely to make a purchase, even if your customer service team is offline.
This is in line with my late-night-shopping story above. People think differently, so while some will want to ask a chatbot, others will choose to search for the answer. The more options the better.
Some other things you might include in your help center include:
- Case studies showing different ways to use a product
- Ordering information
- Product instructions or assembly directions
- Shipping and return policies
When consumers have a pleasant experience on your website, they are happy to make a purchase and more likely to not only buy again but to recommend your company to a friend. But don’t take my word for it. This is where customer satisfaction surveys come in.
Customer satisfaction surveys to track your efforts
Customer satisfaction surveys can help you understand how well or how poor your customer service team is doing. And because customer service is so important to your business’s success, the ability to evaluate your customer service will help enhance your e-commerce business.
Three simple steps in the Trengo settings menu will have you set up with a customer satisfaction survey.
- Create survey: In the settings menu, click on ‘Create’ to start a new survey. Follow the form step-by-step.
- Activate a rule: Do this so that the survey gets sent at the appropriate time.
- Check the results: After the survey goes out, you can go to the reporting dashboard to see the results.
For example, you can create a survey that automatically goes out via email after a customer service interaction. To do this, you’ll choose to send the survey after the conversation is closed. You can set it to send a specific number of days after the conversation is closed, and you can include or exclude specific contacts.
The data can be used to evaluate employees for training purposes or to review processes to see where improvements can be made. If an employee is having a difficult time with a process, you might find that other employees are struggling with that process as well, and there needs to be more training for everyone, versus calling out one employee. Or maybe there is a flaw in the process that can be corrected. Whatever the issue, your surveys can help you find it and fix it.
Further reading
Want more inspiration for creating rules for your customer satisfaction surveys? Check out these CSAT Rule examples and templates and learn more about our e-commerce solutions.
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