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Ensuring customer satisfaction will lead to repeat conversions and enhanced loyalty

The shift in retail business toward e-commerce has led to tough competition, and it has also made a big impact on how consumers globally behave when it comes to purchasing decisions.

Today, creating an online store and successfully attracting customers is just the beginning. Once you have launched your marketplace and have a successful following, you need to ensure outstanding customer service to maintain customer loyalty.

This is one reason why customer service has grown in relevance in this industry. Since competition is growing at a rapid pace, it is key to ensure that the client expectations are met without fail and on-time. Therefore, every online business should focus on improving the customer experience.

In terms of customer service, you can achieve this by ensuring an excellent user experience throughout the sales cycles. This will include tools that provide the users enough information to find what they need, but also a means of asking for help when it is needed. For example, this will involve maintaining a knowledge base, where users can find information and advice, both from in-house and the community.

Let’s take a look at how you can deliver an excellent user experience with your platform:

Establish a customer support “firewall”

For the majority of customers out there, contacting a company is the last resort. Most users want to find a solution on their own and would also be glad to provide other users help when they have their own contributions to the community. This is why a knowledge base can be a perfect front-line customer service tool. Microsoft has its own support knowledge base, and it also has a community-driven Technet forum, for example — both in-house and community-driven efforts.

Also read: 10 ways to optimise your m-commerce app for reach, engagement and profit

A knowledge base allows you to create several different types of pages, enabling customers to easily find the information they are interested in. Let’s take a look at how self-help repository can help an enterprise build layers of customer support pages:

Product page. Product pages need to be clean and clear. The customer should easily understand the shared information. Crucial information and a clear, high-quality image should be displayed on this page along with a clear buy button.

This helps the customer understand what he or she is going to buy, when the item is going to be dispatched and when he or she can expect it to arrive. Designing an effective product page is the first step towards delivering important information that a customer wants to know.

FAQ pages. Creating high-quality FAQ pages requires a lot of dedication. Many businesses create FAQ pages based on the commonly asked questions. Creating FAQ pages that are actually effective can be achieved by collecting questions from your already existing customer service department.

This process should be repeated every month to ensure that the FAQ section is regularly updated with the most frequently asked questions. A knowledge base makes this task very easy as it will allow the customer support agent to contribute to the FAQ section.

Wiki. There are different types of products that e-commerce businesses are selling and the information presented on product pages is follows a generalistic approach. However, creating a wiki which people would be able to access from product pages is a great way to truly present the product or service you are selling.

Also read: From Archives: 9 ways social media can help you deliver exceptional customer service

As many people prefer to indulge in detailed research before buying, this is a great way to meet their demands right from the start of their thinking process. A knowledge base tool allows you to set up wiki pages which can encompass in-depth information regarding the product descriptions.

These are some of the best ways to ensure that the customer has plenty of options at his/her disposal. If there is a particular problem that a customer is facing, it is the responsibility of the business to create a communication channel that would allow for an immediate solution.

Live chat incorporation

When opting for a knowledge base software, it is important to think ahead and see whether it supports integration with other useful tools.

Integration of a live chat system is necessary if you are looking for ways to get directly in touch with your customers and want to know more about them. Another important benefit is that you get a chance to quickly act upon a request that a customer might have raised. It is in the customer’s interest to have a live chat tool as it can quickly improve the delivery process.

Although phone support performs the same function as live chat, at varied occasions, a verbal explanation can be time-consuming. Live chat allows an agent to tackle a problem with instructional images.

Not being able to provide a fast solution is going to make the customer unhappy, hence implement a live chat solution for your e-commerce store and improve your customer experience significantly.

Performance measurement

Making sure that your customer service department is putting its best foot forward will improve the overall customer experience, and it should be one of the key goals of your business. A knowledge base and live chat software tool can help achieve this target as they encompass features which help to collect data such as time spent on a page, customer support response time, and the number of successful problem resolutions.

Collecting this data will give you a chance to continually work on improving your customer support without too much effort. You can see which pages are least visited or are left quickly. This is a clear signal that things should be changed in a particular page to make it user-friendly. On the other hand, if a support agent takes more than a couple of minutes to answer or contact, it is mandatory to improve those skills, as clients want their problems resolved as soon as possible.

Also read: Passionate about customer service? Check out these 6 jobs

Parting words

The above-mentioned pointers are key when it comes to customer service. Picking the right tool and making its best use will significantly increase customer satisfaction.

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The views expressed here are of the author’s, and e27 may not necessarily subscribe to them. e27 invites members from Asia’s tech industry and startup community to share their honest opinions and expert knowledge with our readers. If you are interested in sharing your point of view, submit your post here.

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