Improving customer service means improving eCommerce marketing in order to retain and attract customers. Learn to improve customer service with these tips.

In recent months, eCommerce has enjoyed an incredible boom. At the same time, consumers also have plenty of choices and the means to research them. While online shoppers tend to demonstrate loyalty to brands they love, a poor experience will encourage them to try another internet shop. That’s why you need to prioritize customer service as a key part of your eCommerce Marketing strategy.

Consider these key stats from HubSpot that illustrate why you need to invest in high-quality customer service:

• American shoppers who say customer service factors into their shopping choices: 90 percent
  
• American consumers who say they’ve switched companies in the past year because of poor customer service: 49 percent

Mostly, it can cost between five and 25 times as much to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Even if you’ve hired a high-quality consumer marketing agency, worked hard to develop your brands and packaging, and done everything else right, poor customer service experiences can keep prospects from making their first purchase and just as bad, prevent a first-time buyer from making a second purchase. 

Ten eCommerce Marketing Suggestions to Improve Customer Service

You can benefit by investing in some fairly simple and affordable enhancements to your customer service. This is true if you market other company’s brands or rely upon direct to consumer advertising.

Consider these tested tips to help show prospects and customers that you care about their experience both before and after you make a sale.

1. Create a knowledge Base: You can find plenty of software and plugins that will make it simple to add an online knowledge base to your eCommerce site. You might start by answering the types of topics that customers frequently ask you or your existing customer service people.
   
2. Show transaction history online: Giving customers the ability to login and see their ordering, billing, and shipping history online will help eliminate a lot of questions and misunderstandings.
   
3. Create how-to videos: Posting videos that explain how your website or even some of your products work will help answer questions, increase customer satisfaction, and probably even drive sales.
   
4. Create a scalable team: While a lot of these steps can help reduce the number of customer service reps you need, make sure you can handle peak demand.
   
5. Offer live chat: According to Forrester, typical live chat sessions can cost up to 30 percent less than comparable phone calls. Some software allows you to use pre-written macros to answer frequent questions, and often, agents can handle more than one chat session at a time.
   
6. Develop a multi-channel customer service strategy: Besides offering support on your website, you can also consider it on social media channels. This way, you meet customers where they spend a lot of time. Also, by giving an irritated or anxious customer a place to send a message you may prevent them from venting in a public post.
   
7. Use help desk software: Not only can this software help track touch-points, it can also keep different service channels integrated. For instance, you can keep a record of interactions from social media and your website stored in one place.
   
8. Offer a 24-7 voice system: Even if you can’t possibly keep somebody online 24 hours a day, you can still take messages that get routed to your held desk software for responses during the next business day. Even in this age of social media messaging and live chat, some folks still like to speak with a live person.
   
9. Keep your FAQ updated: Once you get your customer service rolling, you should find that some questions occur more frequently than others. Having those clearly addressed in a simple FAQ should head off a lot of contacts and customer frustration.
   
10. Track and measure customer service: If you want to keep improving, you need a way to measure your progress. In addition to tracking the number and types of request, you may want to send out surveys after a contact to give customers a chance to provide feedback.

Even if you initially only provide limited options for customer to get in touch, it’s important to ensure that confused or dissatisfied people have a way to get their concerns addressed. Any growing eCommerce business must attract and retain customers. Poor customer service experiences will turn away customers, even for companies who do a lot of other things right.