Running an online store is very different to running a physical store. You don’t have to interact with customers face-to-face. In fact, you may never need to communicate with the majority of your customers.
However, some customers will still have enquiries and complaints. The way you address these can have a big impact on your reputation and may even be key to setting you apart from other online stores.
Below are just a few individual reasons why you shouldn’t overlook customer support as an online store, and what you can do to make sure that your customer support is the best quality it can be.
Reasons why customer support is important
Customer support is still important when running an online store because:
It builds customer trust
Making it easy for customers to get hold of you and responding to enquiries promptly and professionally can help to build customer trust – if something goes wrong, customers will feel confident that they can resolve the issue.
It can help generate more sales
Some customers may hold off making a purchase, because they need more information. Being able to respond quickly to enquiries and provide clear answers could help to generate more sales, while delayed responses could lose you customers.
It can help manage customer expectations
Ecommerce customer support can also help you to manage customer expectations by warning customers of shipping delays or correcting misconceptions about products. This could help reduce complaints.
It allows issues to be revolved promptly
Unresolved issues can escalate – leading to refund requests, chargebacks or even lawsuits. By providing reliable customer support, you can resolve issues quickly before they snowball into something more serious.
It can be useful for collecting feedback
Customer support channels can be great places to collect feedback that can help you to make improvements to your business. You can get a good idea about what customers are happy about and what they are not so happy about through reviews and messages.
5 customer support tips for online stores
To help you provide great customer support for your online store, here are a few tips that could be worth considering:
Implement an instant chat feature
Adding an instant chat pop-up to your site can allow visitors to quickly and easily make enquiries. More visitors are likely to use an instant chat feature than they are to phone you or email you.
Train your customer support team
It’s important that your customer support team know everything about your products and business so that they can provide quick and accurate responses. Taking the time to train any customer support employees or outsourced agents can help to prevent delays and misinformation.
Outsource 3PL customer support solutions
It can be worth outsourcing 3PL customer support solutions to provide information on the progress of shipping and other issues related to logistics. You may not be able to access this information quickly and easily. By outsourcing a logistics company that can provide customer support for you alongside organizing transportation and warehousing, you can provide quick answers.
Create comprehensive FAQs
A frequently asked questions (FAQs) section on your site can help customers to get the answers for common enquiries without having to get hold of you. This can reduce the strain on your customer support team, while also preventing them from having to answer the same questions over and over again.
Gather and act on customer feedback
Make sure that you are acting on any customer feedback that you receive. Too many customers continue to address the same complaints instead of trying to solve the underlying issue.
