How to develop great customer service in eCommerce projects?

How to improve customer service? The age of corporations, those who grew up on the formula “low price = more buyers” are gradually becoming a thing of the past. Today’s client has long realized that quality cannot be associated with cheapness. That is why competent customer service comes in the first place, which helps to effectively overtake competitors.

There are millions of retail entrepreneurs around the world. Some of these businesses are very successful, but we know many stories of failures and bankruptcies of retail companies.
This means that some have found their ideal formula for working with clients and some have not.
Especially since in our modern world where there is an extremely competitive environment, the only way to win is the ability to stand out and provide a super quality service for the client. At first, eCommerce was an additional tool to make sales more comfortable. But nowadays, it became an independent sphere.
These days, eCommerce extends enormously, and the main reason for this is remote jobs and living. That caused great competition and sellers cannot neglect customers as it was several years ago. Now, they try to improve services and make them more client-oriented to stand out among competitors and stay afloat as long as possible.

Business owners know very well that retaining customers who have already trusted you is much cheaper than finding new ones. According to economic estimates, it will take 6-7 times more money to find new customers. But losing them due to poor service appears to be very fast.

Why is that so? Every purchase is an impression and emotion. Your clients feel better when you treat them better, and then they will return to you to buy some more. But in case you forget or fail to do something that will deliver bad impressions and the chances to win back the client will be rather low.
In case you invest in a clients’ services and try to consider even the smallest details that will have a positive effect. In eCommerce, it became an essential thing because there are numerous marketplaces with thousands of sellers and customers have plenty of choices. If they don’t like one seller, they immediately go to another one. So sharpening your customer service becomes more and more crucial for eCommerce businesses to survive.

With all the flowering and great effectiveness of new technologies, we must not forget about the trivial things that in many ways shape the customer experience.

Despite the fact that progress has made great strides forward, the needs of people have remained the same – the customer experience, in fact, consists of very simple things: people like a comfortable environment, order, and courteous treatment. And although we all love to discuss digitalization and innovation, many buyers, unfortunately, still complain not about the fact that the store does not have an AR / VR application with navigation. They complain about indifference or rudeness on the part of the staff, delays in deliveries, irrelevant prices, and so on.

So in general, to improve the customer experience, it is not necessary to immediately spend money on augmented reality or computer vision systems.
Start with basic tools to improve customer experience and then move on to digital tools.

1. Emotion and empathy. There aren’t a lot of retailers that consider human feelings when interacting with clients. The will to understand the emotions and intentions of clients is a key factor in eCommerce’s successful functioning. We are all human beings, and we are all emotional. Understanding those emotions helps to build the right strategy and customer-centricity service.

2. Personalization. One vital element in building trust online is personalization. Now, no one is interested in the template proposals that businesses send to everyone. Now everyone appreciates and demonstrates their individuality. Therefore, the needs of each consumer are individual. Ask yourself what real pain do you help your clients solve.
Develop personalized offers, taking into account your target audience and point out its pains and needs. One product is capable of solving different pains. If you think about it and work on it, success will surely come to you.

3. Ability to listen and hear customers. When a salesperson or a personal manager, or a regular support manager knows how to listen to the customer and give him a substantive piece of advice, it does not go unnoticed.
It is necessary to take the time to be imbued with the problem that a person has, to understand how his business or even his personal life will depend on its solution. Fear not, he will appreciate the effort and remain loyal to your company.
Encourage your employees to question people, and ask them questions about the situation that has arisen. The more they know about each customer, the more successful the company will become, and with it the customers, because all their needs will be closed. Irresponsible employees who don’t care about the concerns and fears of consumers will not make the company successful. Service will become effective only if they learn to look at the situation through the eyes of the client and suggest efficient solutions.

4. Collect feedback. Ask customers questions that require a detailed answer. Find out if there are any wishes or objections, and how satisfied a customer is with the service and the product itself.
Be sure to ask if a customer has any questions, or whether they managed to figure everything out. Also, offer to rate the service and regularly calculate the loyalty index and the likelihood of a positive recommendation.
DO NOT ignore the interests and important events in the life of your clients. It’s strongly recommended to use a CRM system for this. If you do not know which one to choose or if you need an individual development, please contact us. We will be happy to help you.

5. Keep complex things simple, and slow processes fast. And here technologies will come in hand.
People come to you to exchange their money, not just for goods, they come to receive quality service that will simplify their life. For sure, this service should be of high quality and fast. 60% of customers expect a fast response from a brand within 10 minutes
Therefore, make everything as simple as possible and try to make the life of your customers as easy as it can be.

Also, it is significant to pick programmers who will develop your website or online store appropriately. So that later there was no problem with slow loading and other uncomfortable things for buying. A website or online store that takes a long time to load is very annoying. And this can become a real reason for refusal to cooperate with your business.
Ask yourself a question: What if I were a client of my business, would I be satisfied?

When you have already done all the basic steps to improve customer service in your company, you can already turn your attention to digital solutions that will further transform your business and make it comfortable for customers.

It is very important that the person who visited your site or the Internet – the store did not feel ignored. If a customer has questions and wants to receive help, they can do it in real-time by writing to the support chat or just talking to the support manager. Live chat gets the trust of a customer and intended to receive as much information as possible to solve the problem and sell the suitable item for that solution.

Navigation optimization refers to the process of improving how visitors and search engines find and access information within a given website. This includes the site’s taxonomy, how pages are structured, and how menus are labeled on both desktop and mobile. The design of all of these components can have a tremendous impact on the overall end-user experience, increasing or decreasing metrics like search ranking, bounce rate, page views, time on site, return visitors, conversions, and more.
Let your marketers do it.

The fashion for robots in retail is set by Amazon, where they are involved in a variety of processes, from picking orders to concluding deals with brands.

Bank of America expects robots to replace about 75% of jobs by 2030. Of course, when it comes to simple and routine tasks, robots are superior to people: they don’t make mistakes or get tired, and they don’t get sick. Robotization helps to optimize the processes in eCommerce as well as in any other business, save money, and scale business. However, the purchase and maintenance of service robots require considerable investment.

The first thing that needs to be done for closer communication with clients is to establish direct contact with them. A variety of modern feedback tools allow you to do this without much difficulty: email newsletters, communication in online chat, understandable contact forms, mobile applications, instant messengers, and social networks.
The consumer should always have a choice of which type of communication to use. Your task is to educate him about these opportunities and provide access to all communication channels. An excellent answer to the question of how to improve customer service will be a solution to combine all contacts in a separate section of the site.
You must make communication with you as pleasant and comfortable as possible. Also, do not send template letters and offers. Build competent marketing that knows the needs and pains of each segment of your target audiences and build a marketing strategy, offers, letters, and bonus systems for these needs. Try to point out your customer and do something just for him, something tiny but unique that will leave a nice impression. If you do so, believe us, you will win that customer.

Your eCommerce customers should be given full access to their billing history, the status of their order, preferred payment options and etc. All in all, do everything transparent and easy to understand. Transparent businesses attract customers for they can see that you will not scam them, you are loyal and gladly give access to any information that a client might want to get. That makes them feel safe and comfortable and when people feel so, so they are tended to buy more.

Despite the development of technology, we should not forget about banal and simple solutions that often do not cost much money.
As a rule, they evoke in your old and new customers a sense of trust and comfort while buying from you.
Invest your efforts in improving customer service. This will always be a trend.
We have been working closely with eCommerce projects for over 5 years, and we know how to make technological solutions that will bring great results to the owner as well as the love of customers.