eCommerce Customer Support Guide – Benefits, Tools & Process

eCommerce customer support can make your business faster to grow. So, are you ready for it? For your benefit, I am writing this article to give you a clear idea of the eCommerce customer helpline. Don’t miss the key trends changing eCommerce customer care, helpdesk, and call center experiences. 

Generally, the eCommerce support of the customer helpline is given online. However, this also means that eCommerce BPO needs more responsive online support.

If you’re a retailer, your eCommerce customer helpdesk team is one of the most important points of contact for new customers. With that in mind, we’re going to dig deep into what exceptional eCommerce customer care looks like today.

So, let’s dive into the eCommerce customer call center guide!

What is eCommerce Customer Support?

eCommerce customer support means the process of supporting online shoppers and customers via eCommerce platforms and channels. It is a strategy for providing customer service to people who purchase from online businesses. 

However, it should be the goal of an eCommerce customer helpline team to provide a pain-free, e-commerce customer experience. The idea behind of eCommerce customer helpdesk means customers are never left hanging.

An e-commerce business should look at all the ways so that customers would interact with their brand and assist them throughout the digital customer journey. It means answering their questions directly on the platform website, via social media, or by telephone calls and emails.

If you want to improve your customer’s experience throughout the buyer journey you need to read the full article. Therefore, your customers will remain happy.

Why is eCommerce Customer Support Important?

An eCommerce customer care experience can boost the customer’s lifetime value. So, it’s one of the most important key performance targets for any ecommerce business. eCommerce customer call center is important for brand loyalty. It can be a whopping 95% of consumers. Source: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Let’s see the importance of the eCommerce customer helpline:

• eCommerce customer care is important for customers and you need to think about your customers first.
• It can increase brand loyalty and also brand personality.
• According to a study, however, 75% of customers prefer interacting with a real person as the technology for automated solutions improves.
• Through the eCommerce customer call center, your customers can get instant resolution. And it’s important for you to make your customer happy.
• It is important to track the data that what happens before and what happens after the purchase.
• eCommerce customer helpline helps to grow customer loyalty. It can guarantee positive word-of-mouth publicity.
• Many customers may have switched to another brand due to poor eCommerce customer helpdesk and this is costing you money.
• It also saves your time as well as your customers.

Benefits of eCommerce Customer Support

There are plenty of advantages to providing good eCommerce customer care. Therefore it is safe to assume that providing an eCommerce customer call center will help to increase customer confidence and also increase conversion.

Let’s see how the eCommerce customer helpline can benefit us:

• eCommerce customer helpdesk can increase the lifetime value of customers.
• You can differentiate a company from its competitors through eCommerce customer care.
• eCommerce customer call center can add value to the service and improves the shop’s reputation
• It helps to automate processes and also cuts down costs.
• However, it reduces the cost of customer support
• Through the eCommerce customer helpline, you can provide support 24 hours a day
• You can also be used to collect data and measure KPIs.
• eCommerce customer helpdesk speeds up the resolution of issues
• You can also increase your business performance through eCommerce customer care.

Types of eCommerce Customer Support Channels

If you want to provide good customer support then you need to maintain different types of channels. Since customers’ preferences vary as to their favored channel. 

Sometimes they prefer human interaction and sometimes they seek self-serve or automated solutions. Generally, it depends on the situation.

Here, let’s look at the available eCommerce customer helpline given below:

• SMS
• Phone
• Email
• Live Chat
• Chatbots
• Social Media
• Self-service portal / FAQs

SMS

Mobile SMS is useful for brands to keep their customers. Through this channel, you can provide real-time information and daily updates. It also helps agents deliver critical data such as delivery info, date, order status, etc., in real time.

Phone

Phone calls are the most personal support channel. Many shoppers and customers want to speak with someone directly if they have a complex query.

It helps in providing instant answers to customers’ and shoppers’ questions and ensures a direct form of eCommerce customer call center. 

Email

It helps build a relationship with the customer by providing complex and meaningful information. So that, the customer can read on their own time. 

Email is useful for brands that prefer beat-out quality content. It also maintains a personalized, long-term bond with the end user.

Live Chat

It is an easy process for customers to receive quick answers to their demands. Live chat helps provide instant answers. It also personalized service to customers without letting them wait. 

The biggest advantage of live chat is speed. It is useful for customers who don’t want to spend too much time.

Chatbots

It provides automated responses to customer queries. It can avoid a live agent and thus reduce costs. Chatbots can be operated as a standalone app. 

Chatbots are loaded initially with common questions and answers and then use AI to match queries to answers and grow the overall library. Many online businesses use chatbots as the first interaction and pass the consumer to human support as needed.

Social Media

It helps fill up the ever-growing social media customers. You can monitor the brand’s reputation across all channels and platforms. Social media channels are suitable and familiar to customers. 

Social media is useful for brands with an active social media user base. The brands can encourage customers to provide real-time feedback and reviews via social media. Here is the list of social media channels:

• Twitter
• WhatsApp
• Instagram
• Facebook Messenger

Self-service portal / FAQs

A self-service portal or FAQ is useful for customers who prefer self-serve and like finding their own solutions. It can help agents to see all channel tickets in one dashboard. Plus, the options require no staffing requirements.

Future of eCommerce Customer Support

In the future, AI will continue the whole eCommerce customer helpdesk process. Though companies are already using bots to automate tasks of digital eCommerce customer care experience. It will be a game-changer for brands who choose to hop on this trend. Source: Wikipedia

However, it will be challenging to find a balance between human interaction and automation. But, businesses will be able to identify how well these eCommerce customer call center tools address specific problems. 

Technology improves customer service, customer experiences, and agent satisfaction. It continues to raise the bar for meeting customer expectations. Retail sales of e-commerce shows that COVID-19 has a significant impact on e-commerce and it also sales are expected to reach $6.5 trillion by 2023. Source: Wikipedia

So, it’s not too far when the eCommerce customer helpline will totally hand over the AI.

eCommerce Customer Support Trends

Several eCommerce customer helpdesk trends are changing future interactions and expectations. If you want to increase the brand’s personality, you need to follow these trends. Otherwise, you will no longer stay on top of the market.

Let’s see the eCommerce customer care trends that you need to follow: 

• 71% of companies’ hybrid workplaces will increase the availability of agents.
• 75% of companies had planned to have a chief customer officer on board.
• Agents are now required to be more experienced.
• Virtual assistants and video are the two fastest-growing customer interaction channels.
• About 55% of companies are automating agent functions, resulting in a 34% improvement in agent efficiency.
• The technology typically reduces each call by 30 to 60 seconds, which increases customer satisfaction and decreases contact center costs.
• Real-time support grows in importance
• Customer success expands beyond the support team
• Technology empowers customer service agents
• Data plays a growing role in customer service

eCommerce Customer Support Skills

Top eCommerce customer call center skills present a natural talent and thoughtfully trained abilities. However, they can be improved. No matter where you are from, you need to sharpen your eCommerce customer support skills.

These eCommerce customer helpline skills are essential to providing great customer experiences. So, here is the list of eCommerce customer helpdesk skills:

• Empathy
• Flexibility
• Active listening
• Communication skills
• Curiosity
• Patience
• Kindness
• Action-oriented
• Self-sufficient
• Creative
• Responsiveness
• Optimism
• Humility
• Acting skills
• Product genius
• Time Management Skills
• Technical Skills
• Problem-Solving Skills
• Self Control 

How to Provide eCommerce Customer Support?

eCommerce customer care is in charge of ensuring customers have a good experience by fulfilling their needs. Are you wondering to know that how can you provide a better eCommerce customer call center? Well, you are in the right place. 

Let’s see how we can provide a better eCommerce customer helpline:

1. Be friendly
2. Respond promptly
3. Firstly, know your product or service
4. Then listen to your customer
5. Say thank you after hearing
6. Offer a special discount
7. Get to know your customers
8. Ask questions and feedback
9. Use the feedback you receive
10. Keep your promises
11. Follow up with customers at a later date

Conclusion

Digital eCommerce customer helpdesk accompanies every online business everywhere. If you can provide better eCommerce customer support, your customer will come back again and again. 

You can also increase your brand loyalty through eCommerce customer care. Since customer data shows that a positive customer experience increases the chance of repeat customers and can often result in personal recommendations of your brand to others.

So, it’s time to implement the advice given in the article and make the customer satisfied with the eCommerce customer call center.

eCommerce Customer Support FAQs

Here, I am giving you some common questions & answers. So that, you can clear your mind if you have any confusion. You can also ask questions to us.

Here are the common faqs:

This page was last edited on 16 October 2023, at 12:53 pm