Whether you’re in a highly competitive niche or you’re looking to boost sales and build brand loyalty, great customer service is one of the best ways to get it done.

Today, over two-thirds of companies compete primarily on the basis of customer service. It’s one of the primary reasons Amazon is the leading eCommerce platform in the world today. The trends show that customer experience is the new competitive battleground, which goes hand in hand with customer service.

In this article, we’ll cover what customer service is, its impact on eCommerce businesses, and the seven best eCommerce customer service practices you can use to take your eCommerce business to the next level.

eCommerce Customer Service: What Is It?

eCommerce customer service is the support an online store offers to customers during and after their shopping experience on the platform. Everything from helping customers with pre-purchase inquiries, tracking orders, complaints, and a lot more all require a robust customer service framework to keep shoppers satisfied.

Depending on the incoming inquiry, there can be different branches of customer service to resolve the problem, but the core three elements are:

• Helping Customers With Technical Issues: Technical issues can arise anytime and anyplace on your site for a wide range of possible reasons. A tech-savvy customer support representative who can quickly solve these issues is the best fit for this role.
• Answering Inquiries And Questions: Customer inquiries are a natural part of selling, especially online. Product-related questions will regularly flow in that need a dedicated representative to readily answer or refer to an FAQ.
• Post-Purchase Customer Support: After your customer has made a purchase, issues such as tracking orders, returns and refunds, and continuous product support are where good customer service will stand out from the rest. Any compromise at this stage of a customer’s journey will heavily affect customer satisfaction.

An effective customer service framework is key to a successful eCommerce business. With the right team and tools, good customer service will build your brand and bring in positive customer feedback that boosts conversions.

The Incredible Impact of Customer Service on eCommerce Businesses

Let’s take a quick look at what the numbers say on how customer service can impact your business.

• 89% of companies with a "significantly above average" customer experience perform better financially than their competitors.
• 67% of customers would pay more for a brand with a good customer service experience.
• 32% of consumers will walk away from a brand they love (a brand they already love) from just a single bad customer experience.
• 72% of customers will share a positive experience with 6 or more people— a significant driving factor for increasing brand awareness and loyalty.
• 96% of customers say that customer service is an important factor in brand loyalty.

And the list goes on. With eCommerce becoming ever more popular, good customer service can be a deciding factor in a company’s success.

Also read: Knowledge-Centered Service Explained & How to Implement It

Keys to Great eCommerce Customer Service

We’ve gone over the basic three elements of customer service, but what exactly does it include to result in a great customer experience?

According to a consumer report by PwC, the importance of customer experience for brands is growing rapidly. Consumers rated each of the following factors over 70% in importance for a good customer experience:

• Speed
• Convenience
• Helpful and friendly employees

These factors overlap between traditional retailers and online businesses, with one key difference. eCommerce stores have the advantage of using technology and automated services to ensure:

• Timely responses.
• Instant access to live or AI customer support.
• Friendly templated answers.

One of the key takeaways from the report is “Customers generate revenue. Employees drive the experience.” While that’s certainly true for a physical retail store, for an eCommerce business, it’s the platform and a robust customer service setup that drive the experience.

7 Best Practices for eCommerce Customer Service

In this digital age, building a seamless customer service framework for online businesses has never been easier. Let’s take a look at the best customer service practices backed by data that can put your eCommerce business ahead of the competition.

Optimize Mobile Customer Service

Despite the ever-increasing use of mobile devices for online shopping, the top complaint by consumers is that reaching customer service on mobile is difficult to navigate/shows up incorrectly.

Another driving factor is speed on mobile devices. Slow loading times for support pages or poorly optimized live customer support on mobile will lead to customer frustration and a higher churn rate.

The key takeaway here: make sure your customer service channels are mobile-friendly.

Include a Self-Service Option

Nearly three-quarters of consumers prefer finding solutions on a business’ website rather than through other channels. Luckily, many incoming inquiries can be answered without a customer service representative getting involved, with the two most common self-service options being:

• Searchable knowledge base with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
• AI-powered customer service bots that guide customers to answers.

If customers don’t find what they’re looking for, simply having these self-service options still adds to the overall customer experience. And with time, your knowledge base will grow and help reduce the volume of customer support tickets, greatly saving you both time and resources down the line.

Engage Customers With Automated Templates

While automated messages can seem robotic and frustrating when used at the wrong times, there are many instances where automated template messages can add to the overall customer experience.

When a certain support ticket or issue arises, automated messages are important for instances such as:

• Acknowledging A Message Has Been Received: Whether by email, social media, or other channels, an automated response that the message has been received or that a solution is on the way makes it clear your customer’s voice is being heard.
• Follow-Up Messages: If a ticket hasn’t been resolved in time or you would like to request customer service feedback after resolving it, automated follow-up emails or texts are the way to do it.

A handful of templates for the most common issues such as returns, refund requests, damaged products, etc. will allow you to instantly engage with customer inquiries while you look into the problem.

Be sure to make your templates personal and with a human tone that matches your brand. Speaking of which…

Add a Personal Touch

Personalization is a hot topic in marketing and customer service, but the approach differs depending on the industry. In general, consumers appreciate interacting with humans over AI, and likewise prefer a personalized experience when being addressed.

Some examples of personalization in customer service are:

• Adding Names And Pictures Of Customer Service Representatives In Emails: Instead of a nameless automated response, a one-line introduction and picture can instantly make your interaction more human.
• Addressing A Customer By Their First Name: Your customer’s name was most likely included when they made a purchase or filled out the contact form. Greeting them by their name in your message makes it less likely to seem automated and more personal.
• Including Customer-Specific Information: If a customer wants to cancel a part of their order, the customer service representative can ask which one of the two, the shoes or the hat. This level of detail always impresses customers and is powerful in any support channel.

Automated messages can also be personalized with integration code to include a customer’s name and order info. 

Bonus Tip: If it aligns with your brand image and tone, emojis and gifs are a new and trending way to liven up your customer support.

Engage With Customer Reviews

PwC explains that a good customer experience leaves consumers feeling heard, seen, and appreciated. And what better way to do that than by engaging with good and bad customer reviews?

Engaging with customers is a proactive customer service approach that shows shoppers you hear what they have to say loud and clear. Whether through Google reviews, social media sites like Facebook or Instagram, or on your platform, interacting with reviews is a powerful way to encourage others to chime in and build brand loyalty.

Stay Consistent and Rapid Across All Channels

We mentioned the importance of speed when dealing with customers, but with even just a handful of social media profiles and a customer service system to boot, keeping up can be a challenge. But don’t let that deter you, because speed and consistency definitely pay off.

Many businesses suffer inconsistencies in how they manage inquiries. Some might reply quickly over Facebook Messenger but completely disregard their main business email, and vice versa. 

If you have a channel open for communication but don’t frequently check it, it’s probably best to simply remove it. Staying on top of these channels will immediately make you stand out because it’s an area many businesses are lacking in.

Include Shipment Tracking and Notifications

Nearly 90% of consumers said real-time shipment tracking made their buying experience more enjoyable, and over 20% of online shoppers say they are likely to make a repeat purchase if shipment tracking is offered.

There are many online tools that eCommerce businesses can use to make order tracking easy and part of a customer’s experience. When offering order tracking, try to include:

• Tracking Directly Through Your Website: Although your customer can go and look up their order through the shipping company, convenience is king. Through apps and widgets, you can integrate order tracking to display directly onto your site.
• A Tracking Number For Each Order: Even with tracking integrated onto your site, a tracking number should be clearly visible for any use cases.
• Give Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA): The ETA is what matters the most to your customers. If possible, make the ETA visible and an accurate approximation.
• Include Automated Notifications: Many eCommerce businesses send emails or SMS text messages once a shipment has arrived in town or is on its way to a customer’s door.

Shipment tracking is a great way to keep customers up-to-date and ready to receive their orders. With the right tools in place, it’s an effective way to boost customer experience.

Include Live Chat 

Even as technology improves, consumers from most countries indicate they prefer human interaction over an automated one. Since most chats are initiated with a chatbot, giving the option to chat directly with a customer representative if the query is unresolved can streamline the process and make it easier to directly address the issue.

Live customer support can be in-house or outsourced, but starting out it’s always best to have a team in place and implement your standards before entrusting a third party. Having your own team to deal with customer inquiries helps you build your knowledge base, FAQs, and learn more about your product.

As you scale your business (or during the holidays), outsourcing your customer service can be an effective way to keep your service available 24/7. Keep in mind that good customer service is a focal point for your business, so not just any third-party support will do. It’s a good idea to actively vet and research a company before deciding to outsource.

Measure, Analyze, Improve, Repeat

Customer service is a dynamic area of a business with lots of problem-solving, learning, growing, and plenty of room for optimization. While customer feedback after resolving an issue is important, it’s just one of many ways businesses gauge the effectiveness of their customer support.

You can optimize your customer service with the wealth of data collected in the process. Important metrics to keep an eye on are:

• Daily, weekly, and monthly volume of tickets by channel.
• Average handle time to resolve a support ticket.
• Busiest hours and days.
• Volume of resolved vs unresolved tickets plus reasons.
• Level of customer satisfaction measured through surveys, questionnaires, and popup prompts.
• Cases by country and topic.

By measuring the above you will know what are the most common problems by location or demographic and how those problems are solved. Your FAQs and searchable knowledge base will expand to cover most issues and can be a source for your team to automate or paste answers.

Also read: Harnessing the Power of Empathy in Customer Service

Key Takeaways

Several factors go into building a successful eCommerce business, but few can get far without a great customer support setup. The reality is that many eCommerce businesses are lacking in this department, making it a golden opportunity for you to stand out from the crowd.

When building a customer service system for your eCommerce business, keep in mind:

• To make your system mobile-friendly.
• Rapidly follow up inquiries on all channels.
• Use automation to your advantage.
• Add personalization where suitable.
• Periodically analyze data and optimize to push your eCommerce business ahead of the competition.