E-commerce customer service: Eight best practices to adopt

Today, customers are more demanding than ever when it comes to customer service. 61% of them say they change providers after a single bad customer service experience. And 91% of internet users reorder from the same site after having had a positive customer service experience. It is therefore crucial for e-commerce owners to adopt best practice in 2024 when it comes to customer service.

1. Ensure communication is proactive

Responding quickly and pleasantly will no longer be enough.

Many e-commerce sites are capable of competing on both these counts.

To really stand out, you need to be proactive in the way you communicate with your customers. For example, you can provide information about the availability of their favourite products. If they make a purchase, you can notify them of their parcel’s shipping status at every stage (preparation, shipping, delivery tracking, imminent arrival, delivered). These initiatives will create a relationship of trust between you and your customers.

2. Automate the sending of text messages and emails

In e-commerce, you can automate the sending of emails.

We are thinking in particular of:

• welcome emails
• informational emails (newsletters)
• abandoned cart emails
• feedback request emails
• promotional emails
• product recommendation emails
• re-engagement emails
• birthday emails
• order confirmation emails
• parcel tracking emails

In short, a huge number of messages can be sent without your intervention. They and will contribute to improving customer satisfaction.

3. Facilitate returns and refunds

To compete with e-commerce giants like Amazon, a simple and transparent returns and refunds policy is essential.

And with good reason: customers need to have confidence when they buy a product online. They want to be sure that if they are dissatisfied, they can return the product and easily get a refund.

We therefore advise you to include the returns label inside the parcel or to make it easily downloadable from the customer’s account. Also, ensure the returns parcel can be picked up from a collection point or from the customer’s home. In short, returns should be offered free of charge and should be simple for the customer to organise.

Top tip: the longer the return period, the higher the number of conversions. According to a study by Sendcloud, 44% of consumers prefer not to order if the returns period is less than 30 days.

4. Add a personal touch to each parcel

I recently received a poster from an artist in Sweden. The parcel included a little personalised note, which was a very nice touch.

Personalisation is key in order to stand out in a saturated market. Today, 90% of customers saythey spend more on brands that personalise their customer service.

We therefore advise you to use a CRM (see best practice no. eight) to record interactions with your customers and their purchase history. This will allow you to send them personalised suggestions and to improve customer service performance, by better understanding what you do well and what can be improved.

To find out more, here are 23 useful statistics about international e-commerce.

5. Create an FAQ page (frequently asked questions)

By now, customers like self-service. In other words, they prefer to do things themselves at their own convenience. And to help them find as much information as possible about your products and your brand on their own, there’s nothing better than an FAQ page!

With such a page, your customers won’t need to call you when they have a question, nor wait to speak to an advisor. They won’t have to explain their request to anyone. In short, they won’t lose any time in their day!

Your customer service department, on the other hand, will only be called on for questions that require human intervention. This means real time savings for your employees.

Here are some best practices to remember when creating an FAQ page:

• include the most frequently asked questions
• organise the questions in order of priority / complexity
• write explicit, detailed answers
• insert visuals / tables where relevant
• simplify access to and navigation through the FAQs
• update the content regularly so it is always accurate
• optimise the SEO on your FAQ page
• translate your FAQs so all your customers can understand them

6. Shorten customer service response times

Customer service is only as good as its speed. And there’s bad news for e-commerce owners: customers are becoming less patient with customer and after-sales services!

We recommend you do everything you can to shorten your e-commerce customer service response times. ✂️

For example, you can offer help by chat or WhatsApp at any time. Being able to get instant written feedback is very reassuring for customers.

And if your customer service consists of different departments, you can implement a voice menu. This will help customers find the right department, and they’ll be more likely to leave positive feedback at the end of the call.

7. Collect and respond to customer feedback 🔄

You can ask this question to all the e-traders you know. Everyone will tell you that customer feedback is a real goldmine. But beware! Many people make the mistake of not responding as indicated by a study finding 63% of customers believe companies should be more responsive when they receive customer reviews.

Customers appreciate receiving a response to their feedback. But more importantly, they want you to make changes based on the feedback you receive. For example, if someone criticises the customer service department because they’ve had to deal with too many different people, you can allocate a certain number of dedicated customers to each of your advisers so the relationships are more personalised.

The fact that you value your customers’ opinions will strengthen their loyalty to your brand.

8. Use a CRM (Customer Relationship Management system)

In e-commerce, a customer relationship management (CRM) system is essential for maintaining fruitful relations with your customers. A tool of this type allows you to understand your customers’ behaviour and preferences, while offering them exceptional, personalised customer service.

Here are some interesting figures about CRMs in the e-commerce sector:

• 44% of companies say modernising customer management systems is the biggest challenge they face, which is why choosing the right e-commerce CRM is so important
• an AI-driven help desk can enable a company to automate around 70% of customer interactions and almost 2/3 of customer service tasks.

If you need to translate your CRM data, take a look at these integrated solutions. 🌐

A round-up of the best practices for improving your e-commerce customer service

To ensure your e-commerce customer service is beyond reproach in 2024, here is a summary of the key trends to follow:

1. be proactive
2. automate as many emails and SMS messages as possible
3. make after-sales service a priority
4. add a personalised touch to each parcel
5. create an exhaustive FAQ page
6. respond to your customers as quickly as possible
7. use a CRM

Are you doing cross border e-commerce? If so, you need to reply to customers in their mother tongue! 💬

For this, you might need our professional translation service.