It’s easy to picture the customer experience in a brick-and-mortar store. The customer walks through the door and receives a warm welcome. If they have a question, a sales representative is there to help. Translating customer service to an ecommerce setting requires a brand to reinvent their process, but the process should hold onto the core of making the customer feel welcome and taken care of.
Ecommerce customer service enables conversations to happen in more places. Customers may reach out via your website, social media, review platforms, help desk, or any additional channels you sell on. It’s essential to have a strategy to keep consistent messaging across all channels and stay active wherever your customers need you to be.
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Build Trust
Building trust is key to customer service whether in-person or online. However, the way a brand approaches it in ecommerce is very different. One way to build trust is through personalization. For example, if your brand has a customer support team, the team should have any relevant customer information and order information in front of them, so the conversation is personalized to the caller. Is the caller a repeat customer? A nod to their loyalty could go a long way.
Building trust doesn’t take place during the customer service inquiry alone. Good reviews, an engaging social media presence, or an easy-to-navigate website will give a customer a positive impression of your brand before the pivotal support moment occurs.
Sync Records
Your customer support team needs to have a caller's records quickly and easily on hand. You can do this by using excellent customer relationship management (CRM) software. Not only will this enable organization, but it will also enable an omni-channel experience for your customer. If your customer support team member receives a call in which the customer is following up on an email, your team member needs to be able to read that email immediately. The best way to achieve this is to have call history, emails, and website behavior all synced into your software system. There are lots of CRM software options, so find one that fits your business needs.
Learn from Reviews
Your brand should be monitoring customer service stats like response time, and occasionally surveying customers to get their feedback. However, you can also find gold in reviews. If there’s evidence of a recurring issue, take the time to investigate it, adjust, and improve.
Channels
Customers can reach out for support via various channels. Your team should be able to meet them where they are.
Social Media: About 1/3 of customers have reportedly reached out to a company via Twitter or Facebook. Your customer support team should be poised and ready to answer any questions or respond to comments as they would to a customer who sends an email. We recommend responding within 24 hours, but the sooner the better.
Email: Email remains a popular medium for customer service inquiries. In email, the goal should be for your team to provide quick and accurate communication that clearly addresses the customer’s ask. Avoid back-and-forth as much as possible. Be sure to personalize any templates and respond within 24 hours.
Phone: Many customers still prefer to call a customer support number over any other channel. It’s typically the quickest way to solve a unique problem. You should properly staff your team to avoid long call waiting times. Make sure your customer service number is easy to find. Use your CRM tool to organize and keep notes for callers and customers.
Chat: Chatbots or live chat are gaining momentum. Imagine this service like an interactive FAQ page. Common questions can be answered instantly, leaving happy customers and less calls coming to your team. Be sure to research and choose a trusted chat service -- a negative chat experience can detract from a customer’s impression of your brand.
Ecommerce customer service will continue to evolve as the way people communicate also evolves. Processes should be regularly reevaluated, however the foundation built by brick-and-mortar interactions should remain ever-present. Help people and do it nicely.
If you are a brand looking for ecommerce support, find out if Spreetail is right for you. On top of providing world-class fulfillment speed, we also handle all customer service inquiries. Our Nebraska based, in-house team is available 365 days a year to respond to all customer questions.
Growth Marketing Manager
