Make Your Customer Service Excellent! Thanks to these tools.
Without any doubt, in this customer driven market, a customer care is one of the most important parts of an eCommerce business, so don’t overlook the fact that it is consumers who can make it or break it.
The best way to provide top-notch customer support is when combining reactive and proactive approach, being personal and quick with responses. In order to be able to do so, you need some help and there are many apps and tools that can help you manage things.
Let’s take a look at some of those that are essential for customer service nowadays, plus some examples (with a little help of AlternativeTo).
Self-service material
Some people prefer to find solution to their problems themselves. Let’s make these customers more knowledgeable, supply them with accurate product (or service) information and help them to help themselves then. This way you will be able to deliver seamless self-service experience and reduce support requests at the same time!
Self-service support tools may range from a support center, knowledge base, FAQ, instructional guides, tutorials, manuals, communities and forums, how-to’s or step-by-step videos. It depends on what fits your business the best, the choice is yours. No matter which way you choose, be as detailed as possible, use your experience and knowledge of the most repeated issues your customers are facing, and explain what’s relevant and important. Provide them with pictures, videos, examples, …
Emailing tools
Email is one of the most used support channels although this might change soon as a conversational commerce is on the rise. See, it’s not only a perfect tool to convert your marketing prospects into real customers, but mainly to help you to communicate with your existing customers. When a customer is facing a problem, they don’t have to wait in a queue, they simply send you a message via email and get your response in the mailbox (ideally in 24 hours, but most customers expect your response earlier).
Email is the cheapest form of service but it doesn’t allow for instant support, which is important, especially for online stores. When dealing with requests, entrepreneurs often start out with some ordinary email inbox that is for free, but they soon find out that processing a high volume of requests is very hard via Gmail, which is why they’re pushed to adopt another tool, typically a ticket software. Using some kind of helpdesk might help them improve both the quality and the efficiency of their service interactions.
Live Chat
According to eConsultancy, live chat has the highest satisfaction levels for any customer service channel, with 73%, compared to 61% for email and 44% for phone. So, implementing live chat on your online store website is essential, it is the right solution for eCommerce as it’s instant like phone, but allowing for agent multitasking (you can chat with more people at the same time) and also to quickly answer web visitor questions that could stand in the way of a sale. It combines the benefits of both channels, the interactivity of the phone and the relaxed convenience of the email. There are plenty of live chat suppliers on the market, so pick one and implement it on your website as soon as possible!
Call centre software
When an immediate answer is required, a customer typically reach for their phone. It is the most personal and still the most used communication channel, although it’s more expensive tool than the others. A call centre software can make it easier for your reps to manage their communication with customers. Let’s name two most popular services you can use, if you’re not into traditional phone; Skype and Google Hangouts. Both offer integrations with some business systems and applications, including call centre softwares. Read this cool comparison to get deeper insight.
Satisfaction Surveys
Do your products and services meet your customers’ expectations? Measuring quality of your customer support is also crucial in order to reach a path of continuous improvement. High levels of customer satisfaction are strong predictors of customer retention, customer loyalty, and product repurchase. By measuring their satisfaction you can improve and increase customer lifetime value.
There are many tactics for creating valuable customer satisfaction surveys but we won’t go any deeper — if you want to know more read these great tips. There is a wide range of tools that will make it easy for you to create surveys and get the insights you need to make smarter decisions thus improve your business.
Word of advice: stick to short, one-minute, concise surveys, that look great on every device (despite the OS or the screen size) and are amusing, of course.
Socials
In the fall of 2016, Facebook has over 1.79 billion monthly active users, isn’t that crazy? It is unnecessary to explain the importance of socials in terms of marketing and support — social media changed the rule of the customer service game.
The truth is that customer service expectations are rising year over year and consumers are looking to brands to create a seamless multichannel experience. So, be prepared and flexible, and pick a tool that will allow you to deliver support over multiple social platforms. Social media is not only Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, don’t forget about Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn etc. (Read more about social media here.) Be where your customers are, and monitor their activities closely.
Offering multi-channel support is a necessity these days, you should definitely provide online chat that will help you focus on delivering timely responses. But don’t overlook other types of communication, like good old phone and email, and also help your customers to help themselves with self-service material. With social and conversational commerce on the rise, be visible on social media as well! And don’t forget to collect feedback from your customers and track their behaviour!
What tools do you use to make your customers satisfied?
Share with us, we’ll be happy to learn from you!
