Why Do e-commerce Owners Need To Take Customer Service Seriously?

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Being an extremely significant factor of any business, customer service is assistance that is provided to consumers about their purchases and to resolve queries. This involves answering questions, giving advice, and solutions and informing customers related to their orders in an efficient manner. 

Especially, when we talk about e-commerce customer service it means providing customer support to one who makes product purchases online. To be more precise e-commerce customer service concerns, communicating with customers via emails,  delivering details related to orders, technical support, payment, shipping, taxes, packaging, returns, refunds and other product-related issues, 

Quality customer service throws a positive characteristic that the company pays a fine eye to customer satisfaction which turns out to be beneficial in retaining the customers. 

According to Freshdesk – 94% of customers are more likely to repurchase the product if they experience effortless customer service interactions.

To enhance the brand name, you may try the best strategic customer service through emails

Why Do e-commerce Owners Need To Take Customer Service Seriously?

Why Is Customer Service Important in an Online Setting?

Customer service is very crucial in an online setting as it grants one-to-one interaction between the business and customers and builds a connection to reward convenience to the customers. Also, a good customer service system provides valuable feedback to the company which helps to improve the lacking aspects. 

Reasons As To Why Customer Service Is An Important Factor In an Online Setting 

  • Customer service is an effective way to solve customers’ problems. 
  • It helps out customers to get quick and exact information. 
  • Helps businesses get worthy feedback about the service. 
  • Efficient customer service adds an advantage to reflecting a reputable image of the business, 
  • It enables the business to understand the actual requirements and expectations of the customers.
  • When good service is provided to the customer, he is likely to buy other products. 
  • Customer service promotes customer loyalty, satisfaction and trust. 
  • Timely and qualitative customer service stands the company apart from the competitors.
  • It also helps to satisfy and retain customers.

Interacting with potential buyers and taking heed of their requirements form the basis of how any shopping blossoms in the e-Commerce arena. After evaluating, state the major reasons as to why Customer service. 

Advantages of Customer Service

Having understood the meaning of customer service and its importance for e-commerce businesses, let us now move forward to its compelling advantages – 

  • Customer Service Results In Increased Sales And Revenue – 

Customer service is a crucial component of the sales funnel and can have an impact on a customer’s judgment to buy. Giving clients the knowledge they need to make wise purchasing decisions can boost sales and generate revenue.

  • A Satisfactory Customer Service Helps In Bringing More Referrals – 

When a customer gets desired customer service he announces his positive experience to his acquaintances. This consequently gets more customer referrals and helps the company to expand its business. 

  •  Customer Service Provides Better Framing Of Business Strategies – 

Customer service enables customers to explain their thoughts on the functioning of the company and to give reviews about the service. By knowing the customer’s expectations, a company can make effective business strategies as per their needs. 

  • A Great Customer Service Help Seal More Deals – 

The customer is always ready to spend more by making further orders if he receives the anticipated response from customer service. By implementing a good customer service system a business can get more deals. 

  • Identification Of Loopholes And Optimization Thereof – 

A customer provides his follow-up to express at what sides the company is not meeting the requirements as it is supposed to. It helps the business to analyze the loopholes and find suitable solutions. 

Common Challenges Faced In Customer Service

It is not a cakewalk to establish a good customer service system because there are a lot of challenges that become obstacles during the implementation. Below given are the common areas where most companies face troubles when implementing customer service – 

  • Controlling Displeased Customers – This is the most usual challenge faced in customer service in all businesses. When customers do not get their desired product or service they become irritated, in such a condition it becomes very difficult to listen and resolve their issue.
  • Loads Of Customer Service Queries To Be Answered – 

If you are a cross-border e-commerce platform like Ubuy India, there might be sometimes when the customer issues are so much that it is difficult to be answered on time. It is very difficult to deal with a pile of awaited customer queries and it may result in customers feeling that their queries have not been set on priority. 

  • Improper Communication – It might be challenging to respond to inquiries promptly without good communication between customer care representatives and customers. This may disgrace the relationship between business and customer.
  • Unprofessional Customer Service Agents – When customer service agents are not fully trained and qualified, it becomes very difficult for them to handle customers professionally and politely. They might not properly respond to customer queries. 
  • Keep Up With The Technology Reforms – 

The customer service industry evolves consistently and new technologies are often released. It can be challenging to keep up with the newest technology and make sure that your customer service system is compatible with it.

Comparison between an Offline Business and an Online E-commerce Setting

There is indeed a wide gap between the setting of an offline business and an online e-commerce business. 

When you look closely you will find that an offline business has a huge cost of setup at the same time an e-commerce business is less costly. 

If we go deeper we see that a significant portion of the overall expenditures of an offline business is the operational and management costs. Being advantageous online e-commerce businesses are mostly the least costly when such expenses are concerned. 

In order to set up an e-commerce business all you need is an idea, some online licensing, a website and some marketing tactics. But when talking about setting up an offline business it is way more than the online setting, for an offline setting you need huge capital, infrastructure, workforce and more. 

Also, an e-commerce platform is extremely beneficial to offline business for both business owners and customers as business owners do not need to arrange a workforce for showcasing their products. For customers, it is very convenient to see a plethora of products among different categories with a little effort of their fingers on the screen.

Different Types of Customer Support Channels

Live Chat – Live chat is a more convenient and friendly way for customers to raise their queries and get frequent responses regarding suitable solutions. Customers can easily ask about their problems and describe their issues and support executives can propose solutions thereof. 

Phone Call – A phone call is one of the oldest and most trusted customer support channels as it is a more personalized way of communication. In fact, the majority of customers prefer phone calls to solve their problems. 

E-Mail – It is well known that a huge number of people check their emails on a priority basis, and this email becomes one of the most used platforms for professional conversations. Also, for customer support representatives it is easy to manage multiple queries. 

Social Media Sites – E-commerce brands now depend heavily on social media to grow their businesses and maintain client relationships. Most consumers follow e-commerce businesses on social media including Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to receive recent news and offers. Social media is now a convenient place for customers and brands to ask questions and receive responses.

Video Chat – Video chat is a newer form of customer support channel, it is a very fast and easy way to establish communication. Through a video call, a customer can thoroughly interpret his issue and the customer support agent can properly present the suitable remedy. 

Chat Bots – Chatbots are cost-effective and the fastest customer support channel as it employs AI in it. They can help a customer to navigate across the website, provide technical support, answer general queries, and provide a smoother customer experience. 

Chief Customer Service Case Studies

Excellent customer service is a very impactful way to leverage the company’s reputation and customer retention. As per the study of Khoros, about 83% of customers feel loyal to the brands if they get good customer service support. And loyal customers always put their favorite brands on priority when making other purchases. 

It is extremely essential to frame an attentive customer service system and hire a professional and highly trained customer service team for gaining customer faith. Only loyal and satisfied clients would choose to increase their spending and place further orders on the same e-commerce site.

For establishing perfect customer service and providing satisfaction to the customers a company must ensure these 3 C’s – 

Consistency – Customer satisfaction can be developed through a consistent supply of quality services and support. Companies must focus on offering on time fully informative customer service and proper guidance. 

Competence – For competence, it is very important for customer service representatives to master the skills of a positive attitude, product knowledge, patience, tolerance and politeness. The agent must effectively interact with the customer and handle customer complaints.

Caring – The most essential aspect of customer service is customer care. It includes expressing to them your interest in their problems and requirements. This simply means providing assistance and resolving customer complaints quickly and effectively. 

Overall, a customer must not feel that he is not on priority by the company. 

Any company that wants to succeed and improve its growth by increasing sales, be highly competitive, and attracting new audiences, must provide non-complaining customer service. 

Customers feel valued and appreciated when they experience good customer service. Around 68% of customers are likely to make more purchases if the brand understands them, respects them and provides quality service. 

On the other hand, if customer service leaves customers dissatisfied and unapproached, a recent survey showed that 61% of customers switch to competitors for their purchases when they have a bad customer service experience. 

Also, the customer service channels need to be less effort-taking. Around 54% of customers get frustrated and cancel their purchase when chatbots ask them a lot of questions before finally transferring the query to customer service representatives. 

How Customer Service Can Increase the Efficiency and Consumer Base Of A Company?

E-commerce businesses can flourish a good reputation and increase customer loyalty by giving proper responses via customer service. 

If we take the example of RevZilla, a motorcycle gear company, it started sending personalized emails to customers as per their preferences and previous purchases. By doing this, the company experienced a whopping boost in its revenue and site traffic. 

Envato, the world’s leading creative community, was struggling with responding to large requests. It then embraced and used advanced routing and internal collaboration tools to look at multiple queries at a time and provide personalized service to individual customers. It increased the company’s referral sales and enhanced brand recognition.

By analyzing these case studies we can get a thorough understanding of how good customer service can aid company growth and help expand the business. 

Why Do e-commerce Owners Need To Take Customer Service Seriously?

The following are the utmost deciding factors to increase the efficiency and customer base of the company-

Qualified Customer Care Team & Portals

In order to grow a company’s customer base, it is required to have skillful and highly welcoming customer service representatives. It is important to make customers feel that their queries are being handled promptly and seriously. To make it even faster and easier, companies can organize online custom service portals. 

Adaptation To The Technology

New technologies often come with a lot of advantages including increased efficiency and speed, and customer service when integrated with the latest technology delivers on-time solutions. Technologies like AI lessens the workload of human resources and attends to frequent customer queries.

Final Verdict

To sum up, everything that has been stated in the whole article, a company, especially an e-commerce business can never expect growth and expansion without providing quality customer services. An excellent customer service experience can encourage repeat business from the customers and turn them into faithful customers. Whereas poor customer service may lead a customer to lose trust and he may move to other brands. A company needs to integrate its customer care system with the latest technology to develop customer satisfaction and compete with competitors.

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