Every ecommerce business owner is well aware of the fact that every customer counts these days. The online market is overcrowded and very competitive to the point where you cannot afford to lose customers for any reason at all. However, with so many ecommerce businesses on the market offering pretty much the same deals, how do you ensure that customers come to you and remain your customers for that matter? Nowadays, it’s not just about the products you’re offering or how you offer them.
As a matter of fact, it’s also about the experience you provide to your customers. A vital component of that experience is customer support. Even though consumers are generally savvier today, there are still bound to be questions, misunderstandings and inconveniences in their dealings with either your business or your products. How you manage to help your customers through support can either make or break your business. That being said, here are a few ways to improve ecommerce customer support.
Implement a knowledge base
Today, many consumers prefer a self-service approach to support. The fact of the matter is that consumers want to try and fix any issues they may have on their own before they resort to contacting customer support. You can easily provide this convenience on your ecommerce website by implementing a knowledgebase or FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page. However, you have to make sure that your knowledgebase page contains detailed information regarding most common questions or problems your customers may have or experience.
Aside from that, make sure you include in-depth information about your business policies ranging from pricing to return policies, shipment and delivery process, payment methods and anything else that’s of any relevance to customers. Don’t forget to include support contact information or a direct link to customer support on those pages. That way, customers can inform themselves and if they need additional information, they’ll be able to contact customer support.
Offer a live chat feature
Another thing customers prefer these days is to resolve their issues on the spot. They want a quick and efficient solution as soon as possible, in order to avoid slow email replies or having to wait for hours on the phone. You can easily take care of that need by implementing a live chat feature on your website. Live chat allows customers to contact customer support as soon as they run into any difficulties. More importantly, they have an opportunity to contact a real person.
As convenient and beneficial modern solutions, such as chatbots may be, a lot of people still prefer to talk to a human being when customer support is involved. That being said, 79% of consumers consider live chat useful and meaningful because it can answer their questions immediately. What’s more, 46% of consumers believe that live chat is the most efficient method for communication. Therefore, if you wish to improve your ecommerce customer support, you should strongly consider implementing the live chat feature.
Be proactive with support
In most cases, ecommerce businesses test out various approaches when it comes to customer support. This may not be an ideal practice because if you do something wrong that will cause a customer outrage, you might lose customers for good and you certainly want to avoid such a scenario. With that in mind, you should make an effort to get customer feedback instead. Being proactive is better than testing out an approach only to discover it wasn’t a good decision to make.
The fact of the matter is that by asking customers for feedback, you can improve your customer support without the risk of making them angry or unsatisfied. There’s no shame in asking your customers what they want, need or expect for your support. In fact, customers like when businesses ask them such things because it shows that you care. What’s more, acting upon their feedback will make your customers appreciate your ecommerce store even more. That appreciation can easily turn into long-term customer loyalty.
Implement additional support channels
As mentioned before, live chat is a good method for customer support and customers like it. However, that’s not the only channel at which you can provide support to your customers. As a matter of fact, the more support channels you implement, the better service you’ll be able to provide. In other words, customers will be able to contact you practically anywhere, which is quite convenient for them. As an example, you can provide support via telephone, email, social media platforms and so on and so forth.
However, you must ensure an exceptional level of service on each channel. That way, customers won’t have to choose because one channel is faster than the other. Instead, they can just opt for what’s convenient to them the most. As an example, a lot of people today are active on social media. Having a customer support option on your social media networks only makes it easier for your customers to contact you while they’re engaged in their everyday activities on social channels.
Customer experience is vital for business success these days and customer support is crucial for customer experience. If you make an effort to provide a seamless and exceptional customer support to your customers, you’ll definitely contribute to improving their overall customer experience with your ecommerce store.
