5 Essentials for Effective Customer Service

Something all e-commerce stores should strive to do is avoid mishandling their customers. Your customers will have questions and concerns about their purchases, and when friendly solutions aren't provided, they become dissatisfied and turn to competitors for their needs. The key is to have a two-way relationship with your customers where, when they try to contact you or get their questions answered, there are already a series of satisfactory measures in place for them to reach you. Below are 5 essential customer service practices you should implement or consider to avoid e-commerce customer service issues:

1) Create a FAQ page

Your customers will come to you with questions. That's great! That means you have people interested in your products and services. However, some of these questions will be repeated as new customers arrive, and you may not be able to always be there to provide a great answer every time. That's where an FAQ page can come in handy. FAQ stands for frequently asked questions. Creating such a page will allow your customers to get answers to their most basic questions quickly and easily. Use the FAQ page to clarify common sources of confusion and as a place for customers to gather answers to their most frequently asked questions, especially those related to billing, shipping, returns, warranties, and deliveries. Having an effectively executed FAQ page should dramatically reduce some of those repetitive questions and turn those FAQs into more sales.

2) Bot

Stay in touch with your customers via bots. Bots are essentially email newsletters that are automatically sent when an action on your site triggers an email message to a customer. Bots are a great way to send welcome messages to new blog subscribers, thank you notes, transactional messages for invoices and receipts, updates, birthday emails, re-engagement emails, and more. There are many ways to use bots to create an exceptional customer service experience and as a way to retain customers and keep them coming back to your site. Check out the Shopify App Store to browse autoresponder apps: https://apps.shopify.com/?locale=en

3) Allow customers to track their orders

Tracking is as important for e-commerce businesses as it is for customers. Simply allowing customers to track their orders will give them peace of mind. Tracking makes your e-commerce business transparent and reliable, which in turn minimizes the need for customers to contact you and communicate with you about the status of their order. The vast majority of shoppers believe that the ability to track their order status has a significant impact on their overall satisfaction with online shopping. Many customers want and appreciate the ability to track their orders and follow their purchase through every stage of the fulfillment process. It's also a way to reassure the customer that all the details of their purchase are in order and that it's on its way. A good tracking system will let your customers know:

When the order is approved
When it ships
The geographical location of the order
An approximation of when the item will be delivered

Being able to track orders is a key component of the overall customer experience, and most customers expect this service, so it's important that you offer it.

4) Offer live chat

Offering live chat can solve your customers' problems quickly and easily. Live chat is becoming the preferred platform for connecting with businesses because it's convenient and saves everyone involved from awkward phone conversations. Live chat isn't just great for your customers, it's great for you too. Offering live chat on your Shopify website can be a great way to increase revenue and gather valuable customer information. For these reasons, we've seen a rise in live chat as the preferred customer support channel, compared to email and phone interactions. Customers are reportedly more satisfied with live chat because it saves them a lot of effort in getting in touch with you. Unlike email, chatting with your customers allows for immediate support. This is fantastic because it allows you to immediately satisfy your customers and also gives you a better chance of defusing a potentially negative situation on your website before it escalates and spreads to social media and other more public platforms. Being able to respond to your customers more quickly will also help you get more leads. In today's fast-paced world, your potential customers don't want to wait too long for a response. You have competitors to reach out to, and why should they wait for you to respond by email when other online stores are just a click away? Luckily, adding live chat apps to your store isn't difficult, and you'll have a list of options to choose from in the Shopify App Store.

5) Educate customers with product information

Product information is a vital part of online sales. It's what helps your customers make a purchasing decision. When customers visit your online store and view your products, they look at the product image and description to learn more about your products. They seek transparency, reliability, and all the details and information they can get to feel comfortable making their final purchase decision. If you're not providing your customers with sufficient product details, you can be sure your competition is doing the same. And we don't just mean online; we're also talking about physical stores, where your potential customers can physically experience your products. To fix this, you need to provide your customers with all the information they need to feel comfortable with their purchase. A great way to do this is through product images. Product images can convey a wealth of visual information to your customers. Also use your product descriptions to provide all the relevant specifications. Videos also help demonstrate your products in use, and don't forget infographics! People love a good infographic because it combines text and images to efficiently deliver information that customers can quickly and effectively absorb. Go the extra mile with your product images, product descriptions, and infographics to educate your consumers about your product, and they'll be ready to move from "just browsing" to hitting the buy button.

Conclusion

All 5 customer service tips above can play a vital role in any online store's customer relationships, and you'll find that many e-commerce businesses incorporate most, if not all, of the above methods. One of the best exercises for any online store owner is to go ahead and put yourself in the customer's shoes. You need to be critical and navigate your online store from a potential buyer's perspective. This is a way to dramatically improve customer service without first having to navigate negative customer feedback. As you do this, you need to ask yourself: Would I buy from this online store? Are my FAQs helpful enough? Am I satisfied with the communication channels offered to me? Your customers are the backbone of your business, so they should always be at the forefront of everything you do. You should never leave them hanging, making sure you provide them with sufficient ways to directly interact with your brand so you can resolve questions and issues without a hitch.

Contact us

Thinking about optimizing your customer service on Shopify? At Yastime, we help entrepreneurs like you build better and more successful e-commerce and dropshipping businesses. We don't just help you build the foundation, we also take your online business to the next level. Have a question or a project in mind? Feel free to start a conversation with us today: contact us now!

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