Customer services

Delivering Outstanding E-Commerce Customer Service

Delivering

Developing an amazing product or service is not the only important aspect of a successful company. How you treat your customers is just as — if not more — crucial. In fact, you could be losing customers by failing to deliver on service. According to the Customer Experience Impact Report, 89 percent of shoppers have stopped buying from online stores after experiencing poor customer service.

However, wowing customers isn’t always straight-forward, it requires a strategy to deliver the outstanding service they’re looking for. Here are five ways to deliver outstanding e-commerce customer service.

Offer multi-channel capabilities

If you’re not using omnichannel strategies in your business, you’re likely leaving money on the table by letting customers slip through your fingers. According to a survey conducted by Aspect Software, businesses that adopt omnichannel abilities achieve 91 percent year-over-year customer retention than those that don’t. Acloud-based virtual contact centercan give you all of the omnichannel capabilities you need in one place. A quality contact center offers the channel of your choice with straight-forward CRM integration and enhances the customer service journey across email, phone and web chat.

Personalize your customer service

Personalizing your customer service isn’t just a nice way to engage with customers, it’s what consumers have come to expect from brands. According to the 2016 Connected Shoppers Report, 52 percent of consumers are likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize communications to them.

Take the time to personalize every point of communication and service to your customers. Whether you’re calling them by name during a live chat or researching what they’ve bought or surveys they’ve completed, personalize their experience to keep them engaged and coming back for more.

Stay hyperconnected

Putting all of your focus on social media and networking could be damaging your customer service efforts. Smart Insights reports that rapid customer service is more important than content and social communities.

Make it a priority to stay hyper-connected and communicate with your audience on the channels they use the most. Setup a social monitoring tool to see what your customers are talking about on Facebook and Twitter. You can also setup a live chat option on your website to automatically prompt a visitor to let you know if they have questions or need help on your site.

Make it incredibly easy

Customers don’t want to jump through hoops to get their issues resolved or questions answered. Make the entire process incredibly easy whether you’re using omnichannel support or are setting up self-serve FAQ options for customers to find what they need. Take inventory of your site and how user-friendly it is, and make it impossibly easy to get in touch with you.

In addition to making your social media channels and email highly visible, you should also include a phone number on every page. For example, Zappos puts its phone number at the top of every page of their website because they claim to like talking to their customers and want to available to them 24/7.

Show your appreciation

In order to engage your customers and turn them into repeat buyers, you need to show your appreciation and give them a reason to like you. According to Rare, 86 percent of consumers say loyalty is primarily driven by likeability. One way to do that is through loyalty cards, but you can also offer top customer service and appreciation. Don’t just thank your customers for calling, follow up with them publicly on Twitter and ask if they’re enjoying their product. Send them a card on their birthday, follow up with them about any issues they had, and regularly send customer appreciation coupons and VIP event access to take your customer service to a new level.

Delivering outstanding customer service doesn’t have to be complicated, it just has to focus on the best interests of your customers with their ultimate satisfaction in mind. Get that step right, and let the rest fall into place.

If you have any questions, please ask below!