Ahead of her Shop Talk session for Home & Gift, Elle Williamson, Founder of The Ecommerce Assistant, is here to tell us how, with a few simple additions to their sites and online stores, retail brands can excite and delight their customers through excellent customer service. 

As a retail business, your customers and the experience they have dealing with you should always be at the forefront of your mind. Their needs should be considered in all that you do because when you can go that extra mile to make their day, they are more likely to not just shop again – but also tell their family and friends about how you made them feel. 

When it comes to e-commerce, customer service doesn’t just relate to the transaction. It is everything you do before, during and after the sale. In fact, it’s how you interact with them before and after, in particular, that is so important. 

Your brand experience should flow through every aspect of your website, marketing and various customer interactions. The most effective way to deliver an excellent experience, for both the customer and you, is to ensure that all the information they could possibly need is already on your website, so they don’t have to spend their time contacting you for it.

Here are 6 simple but powerful things on your website that you can overhaul to improve customer experience. 

 

1. Contact us page

I imagine most of you will have set this up already, but I often see that people have simply just created a page and added the pre-built contact box – and left it at that.

There is one big problem with this; it doesn’t help to build rapport with your potential customers and can make your site appear less trustworthy. By having nothing except a contact box, customers cant see anything about who or where you are. 

Instead, think about how you can make small changes that will start this customer journey in a more positive, approachable way. Add at least one of the following: phone number, email address, and postal address.

I also think it is nice to add a bit of personality to the page with some copy, perhaps telling customers how much you love to hear from them or explaining what they might want to contact you for. It can also be a great page to pop any timely information, such as postal delays, pre-order due dates and lead times.

 

2. FAQ page

You might think an FAQ page is a quick and easy part of your website to create, but it’s not – and it is super important to have and get right.

Instead of focusing on the messages you want to get across, you need to think about what it is your customers will need or want to know. The idea is to answer questions before your customers have even asked them by creating a proactive customer service tool rather than relying on a customer to take the time to email you.

If you have already started trading, keep a note of questions that keep coming up and periodically add them to your FAQ page. If you are about to launch, just look at your website through your customers’ eyes. What might they ask or want to know? Include as many questions and answers on your page as possible.

You could also break this page down by category of question, for example, ordering, products, returns, delivery, payment etc.

 

3. Delivery information

This is a big one. Make sure your delivery charges are clear and everywhere on your website. This information will, of course, have to appear in a dedicated delivery section, however, it should be included in several parts of your website – such as footers, headers, product pages and in the basket at checkout – so customers know exactly what to expect. 

I also find that it is useful to add some extra info to your delivery page, letting customers know who you will be shipping their order with, how long you take to process orders, and anything else they may need to know about customs and duty for international orders.

 

4. Auto-responder

If you are starting to get a lot of customer service enquiries, even after ticking off all the above on-site tasks, you could set up an automatic reply from your email inbox.

This will do 2 things for you. Firstly, it gives your customers confirmation and assurance that you have received their message and, secondly, it lets them know how long they can expect to wait for a response. This means you are already giving them the correct expectation for your reply and saves both your and their time on them chasing you up.

Customers are likely to be more patient when expectations and timelines have been communicated to them, just be sure to follow up or respond when you said you would. 

 

5. Live chat

If you’ve already read my first tips, you will hopefully have set up your contact page with an email address, phone number, postal address and contact box. But the most popular way to contact any customer service right now has to be live chat. This is an efficient, instant way of chatting with your customers and can enable you to give information your customer needs at the moment they need it.

Just be wary that if have opted for a manual instead of automated chat, if you can’t be sat responding to the live chat all day or at your website's most popular times, then it may frustrate people when you either do not reply quickly or it ends up being a delayed email response anyway.

 

6. Ticketing system

If you’re finding your customer service requirements are increasing and you are getting messages from various channels, you might want to look into using a ticketing system. I highly recommend Gorgias for all Shopify stores as it integrates so easily. The tool enables you to centralise all your support options in one place. This means that messages sent through Facebook, your website and live chat will all appear in one place where you can reply directly. It also connects with your Shopify customer data, meaning you can quickly see the customer's order history, which is great when they are following up on an order.

Now let’s think about your off-site customer experience and what small things you can do as a small e-commerce business to delight every purchaser:

• Send a thank you for your order email and a note within their parcel
• Ask for customer feedback, using reviews and surveys, and actually implement what they say
• You can use social media to ask questions and get their opinions on what you're doing or even a new product you’re thinking about
• Got some dead stock? Pop a freebie in their order and really make them smile
• Pick up the phone and call them if there is something they have entered wrong on their order or you're unsure of anything
• Get their orders out as fast as you can, it's always exciting when your order arrives quicker than you expect

Want to know what I’ve learned over 10 years in the e-commerce industry? Find tips and helpful advice over on my e-commerce blog which will help your online business grow and hopefully save you time.

www.theecommerceassistant.com

@theecommerceassistant