Best practices for effective ecommerce customer service

Keeping your customers happy is vital if you want them to return to your business in future. This is especially true for ecommerce businesses, as you rely on sales to continue running. One of the best ways to keep your customers happy is to provide excellent ecommerce customer service.

This article will guide you through the best practices you can implement to ensure your customer service is as effective as possible. The topics we’ll cover include:

• Why effective ecommerce customer service is important
• Best practices for effective ecommerce customer service
• How Countingup can help manage increased sales revenue

Good customer service is important in any industry, but we’ll focus on a few of the reasons why effective customer service is particularly vital for ecommerce businesses.

Loyal customers are one of the cornerstones of any successful ecommerce business. Having a group of people you can consistently rely on for sales means your company will rarely be short of income. Having many loyal customers also provides a stable foundation for you to grow your business from — you can trust them to try any new products and services you release and provide feedback on them.

Effective ecommerce customer service creates loyalty because it means people don’t need to worry about things going wrong when they engage with your store. Even if a product fails or a delivery goes wrong, a good customer service experience will smooth everything over and keep the customer happy.

If you manage to solve all of your customer’s problems, no matter how complex those problems might be, it’s likely that they’ll mention how helpful you were to others. This is another reason why good customer service is essential: it can be a source of free marketing. Your patrons will recommend your store to each other through word of mouth.

Getting your name out in the world in a positive way is vital for an ecommerce business. Due to the size of the internet and the number of ecommerce websites that exist, people might struggle to find your website. By building your reputation through exemplary customer service, you’ll make your business more memorable and easier to find.

When you start an ecommerce business, you need to be aware that you’re not just competing with local stores; you’re competing with everyone that offers a similar product or service as you do. This even includes massive, multinational corporations. 

One good way to set yourself apart from your competition is to offer exceptional customer service. This is mainly an advantage against much bigger companies. Big corporations often struggle to appear personal and sincere during customer service because financially, individual interactions don’t matter much to them. 

As a small business, individual interactions do matter. By providing effective customer service that makes the customer feel valued, you can create a personal connection with that consumer. This will likely encourage them to shop at your ecommerce store instead of your competitors’.

Technology can help small businesses in a variety of ways, but it’s particularly helpful for ecommerce businesses. Automation is the process of using technology to do jobs that would usually require a human being. In ecommerce customer service, this means utilising software tools like chatbots.

A chatbot is a software program that can ask and answer questions about any issues a customer might be facing. You can teach a chatbot things like the users manual for your products or frequently asked questions. Then, when someone uses the chatbot, they can receive advice on operating the product they’re struggling with.

Multichannel support means offering multiple ways for your customers to contact you if they need assistance with a problem. This is a smart practice to include in your customer service process, since hundreds of different communications tools are available.

Although you should focus your efforts on responding to the most popular channels your customers use to contact you — this might be over the phone, through email, or on social media — try to be available on as many channels as possible. This means consumers will rarely struggle to get in touch should they need support.

Social media is a powerful tool for ecommerce customer service, so make sure you get into the practice of using social media regularly. Create profiles on any social media websites relevant to your business, and make certain customers know they can get in touch with you using these sites.

As well as offering customers more ways to get in touch with you, using social media means you can search for mentions of your ecommerce store. For example, if someone shares a story about an issue they had with your product or service, you can get in touch with them through social media and solve the issue. This proactive approach to ecommerce customer service can be very popular with customers if you can consistently help them.

If you successfully implement new practices to improve your customer service, you may notice that it boosts your ecommerce sales, which means more money coming into your business. It’s vital to manage this money carefully, so that you know exactly where it’s coming from and where you’re spending it. If you don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of financial management, consider using software to help you, such as the Countingup app. 

Countingup is the business current account with built-in accounting software that allows you to manage all your financial data in one place. With features like automatic expense categorisation, invoicing on the go, receipt capture tools, tax estimates, and cash flow insights, you can confidently keep on top of your business finances wherever you are. 

You can also share your bookkeeping with your accountant instantly without worrying about duplication errors, data lags or inaccuracies. Seamless, simple, and straightforward! 
Find out more here.