When you think about an online business, you probably won’t readily consider customer service to be a top priority in the same way it would a traditional bricks and mortar business. This is perfectly understandable – as you aren’t physically contacting any customers, and there are only a select few touchpoints between the company and the consumer.
However, while your customers are never going to be a face to a name when it comes to your team, their experience of interacting with your brand is still going to be inextricably impacted by the quality of your customer service.
Unfortunately, customer service is something of a blind spot for many online businesses because they are too busy tackling product creation and delivery for the actual contact points between the business and consumers to be considered.
Therefore, having fantastic customer service can instantly separate you from your so-called competition and leave you with a far larger customer base as a result. To help you make sure your customer service top notch, here is a quick guide:
Don’t frustrate customers with slow response times
One of the biggest frustrations for any customer ordering products from an online business is slow response times from customer service.
If a customer has a problem – whether asking about the availability of a particular product, the cancellation of a subscription, or an outright complaint – they are already more frustrated than they otherwise would be when interacting with a bricks and mortar company because they can’t speak to a real human face to face.
Instead, they have to make do with a customer service line, a chatbot or an email chain. This can lead to considerable angst as they wait for a response.
You should therefore make sure that your customer service team gets back to them immediately, to prevent them from becoming annoyed, and help encourage them to buy from you again.
A great way to ensure that your customer service team can have immediate exchanges with your customers is to use dedicated internet from Frontier – which improves speed and connectivity and allows your team to respond with zero delays.
Make sure deliveries arrive quickly.
Another common gripe that many customers have with online businesses is that they have to wait ages before their deliveries arrive.
Although this is somewhat out of the hands of your customer service team, they can help make the process far more seamless by providing daily updates on the status of customer orders and ensuring that the customer has complete visibility over why there may be potential delays.
Design an attractive and easy-to-use website
Lastly, you should ensure that your website is as clean, easy to navigate, fast to load, and attractive as possible.
This is the focal point of your entire enterprise – the figurative shop window. You cannot afford for it to provide customers with a poor user experience – so ensure products are easy to find and that the overall design and layout reflects the values of your brand.
