How to Manage Customer Communication for an E-commerce Store

While you are reading this article, there are nearly 24 million e-commerce entrepreneurs that are trying to reach the same goal as you. In other words, the competition in the e-commerce world is tough. There are probably a bunch of stores that offer similar or identical products as you. Because of that, you will need to provide your loyal customers with something more. 

Communication between brands and customers matters a lot. That is the reason why you need to invest more effort to improve your customer support and manage the communication between you and buyers. At first glance, something like that may not seem easy. However, going through different stages will help you reach a positive outcome. Because of that, it is the right moment for all the e-commerce owners to find out those stages and potentially improve their sales. Let’s go!

Before Everything – Ensure That Internal Communication Is Good!

The “external communication” won’t be at the highest level if the communication between your employees is bad. Bad communication always leads to a lack of organization. That is the reason why you workers will not manage to respond quickly, manage multiple communication channels, etc. 

Fortunately, there are different ways to improve your internal communication. You can use different online tools, shared inboxes, or simply rearrange your office to make it more suitable for work. After you manage to reorganize your team, you can proceed to the next stages. 

Try to Answer as Quick as Possible

Research at StudyFinds probably confirms that customers are becoming impatient. Believe it or not, most of them expect brands will answer within 18 minutes and 2 hours on all the complaints or questions they have. Everything more than that will potentially harm their desire to once again (or for the first time) purchase the products that you sell in your online store.

The way and speed you respond matters a lot! If you want to provide quicker answers, there are a couple of things you should do. First, you should allow customers to contact you on different communication channels. You can use social media, email, contact forms on your website, and other available channels. However, if your target audience is older people, you should probably allow your customers to connect with you in an old-fashion way (by phone, for instance). 

Yet, it may happen that customers will often have similar questions. That is the reason why you can create a page on your website where people can see the most common questions. On the other hand, you can also try to automate your communication channels. For instance, you can use chatbots on Facebook or email bots that work thanks to AI if most of the customers contact you there. However, if you decide on that move, it would be essential to pick the best software. 

Don’t Underestimate the Importance of OmniChannel for Customer Communication

As previously mentioned, customers will expect to see different ways to contact you and share their interests and concerns with you. However, if you receive a bunch of questions from different channels, will you manage to respond to all of them equally well and quickly? Probably not, but here comes the moment when technology can once again be helpful. 

Source: helpwise.io

Omnichannel tools are programs that can help you manage all the messages you received in one place. From the same platform, you will manage to share more information, get more information about the concerns customers have, etc. The good thing is that you can find an omnichannel tool for every possible type of communication channel. You may want to check out these brands that have an outstanding omnichannel experience and upgrade their method of work.

Improve Your Communication and Writing Skills

The communication skills of the people that work in customer support need to be at the highest level. That means they will need to be kind and gentle whenever a client shares his problems and doubts. You will probably hear the same thing many times until now. For instance, some will want to replace the product because it is too big or small; others would want to replace it with another color or design. Hearing the same things hundreds of times a day will probably be challenging, but the workers need to remain patient and answer all the questions and complaints with the same level of kindness. 

Speaking of writing skills, keep in mind that younger generations will probably try to reach you through social media, email, and other channels where you will need to respond in a textual form. That is the reason why you need to express your kindness and professionalism through words. We can all agree that doing that isn’t easy at all, right? 

If customer support wants to deliver a well-written answer, it would be good to use the assistance of writing experts that will improve the content and highlight the mistakes people are making for an affordable price. Or you can use tools like Grammarly to correct grammatical mistakes and improve your writing.

Be Available All the Time!

As mentioned above, online tools can help you respond quickly and answers to people that have a complaint or questions. Yet, people will not always gladly accept to get a response from a robot. Despite that, the robot itself will not always provide some helpful information. That is the reason why “real people” need to be available 24 hours a day. 

However, how to maintain that success when e-commerce stores have customers from all around the world? When someone from China, Japan, or anywhere else purchases your product, he or she will expect to get an answer in his/her local timezone. In that case, the only option you have is to outsource this service and hire people that are professionals. 

There are a couple of ways how you can do that, but the best one would probably be to hire a freelancer or group of people through different freelance platforms. However, before you do that, you need to ensure those people have some experience and to ensure their English is at a nearly native level. Imagine how it would look to hire someone who will not understand the customer’s complaints and questions. Besides that, he would not know how to show understanding and kindness through communication which will negatively influence customer satisfaction. Define what type of person you are looking for, and things will be much easier. 

Final Thought

To conclude, people that are communicating with customers need to possess some skills that will turn unsatisfied clients into satisfied ones that are ready to recommend your brand to people around them. There will always be different services and tools that can help the entire process a lot easier. However, people will always feel more comfortable communicating with “real people”. If your employees are not skilled enough, ensure they get the necessary training and improve their communication/writing skills. After you go through the stages from the list, things will be much better!