Social media platforms are accessed by millions of people every single day, including your target audience. It’s the space where consumers connect with friends, family and the brands they love.

If you succeed in making a customer happy, chances are they will want to share the love online, unfortunately, the same applies to when you make them unhappy.

This is especially true if you run an ecommerce store.

The ecommerce game

Running an online store is a tough space to be in. With so many competitors vying for your target audience’s attention, businesses need to go the extra mile to stand out and convince consumers to do business with them instead.

Ecommerce customers generally want immediate feedback, making the support procedures and turnaround times a lot tougher, but when you find a formula and a team that works you can truly stand out online.
Online business owners need to keep their support team in tip-top shape and keep improving their processes and systems if they want to continue to succeed.

Ecommerce support tips that work

Below are just some of the ways that you can make your customer support services more efficient:

1. Give them access to information online. Once you’ve been running your store for a while, you will have built up a list of frequently asked questions. Having an FAQ page is essential for any online store. It gives customers the option to find the answer themselves and then only contact you if really necessary.
2. Keep one eye on social media. When a customer is upset and wants to complain, there’s a good chance they want everyone else to know about it too, which is why it helps to have someone in your team keeping an eye on social media so that you can promptly respond to negative feedback and keep a record of positive feedback.
3. Turnaround time matters. Customers are far more likely to do business with a brand if they can offer them a timely response to their query. It might be helpful to track your current response times and identify areas that can be improved upon.
4. Bulk up. Many new businesses can’t always afford to hire an entire customer support team which often leads to one person running an entire support department on their own. A one-man team usually results in slow response times and unhappy customers. Outsourcing your support team provides you with a way to save on costs, expand your support team and improve your online customer service.
5. Give your customers options. If you look at some of the top ecommerce stores today, you will notice that they offer their customers more than one way to get in touch with them. Today’s online consumer has become accustomed to choice, which is why it’s important to offer them more than one way to get in touch with you. Email, live chat and social media are all popular options.
6. Make your policies easy to understand. When it comes to explaining your policies and procedures to clients, keep it as simple as possible or risk losing the sale. If you have a returns or deliveries policy, just give your customers the highlights instead of making them read through two pages worth of copy.

Getting the basics right, keeping track of what’s working and what isn’t, and having a killer team behind your brand is all you need to rock your ecommerce support.