Make Sure Your Site Is Optimized for Customer Service
Optimizing your website for customer service needs can dramatically improve customer sentiment, retention and even lead generation. Having your site ready for a great customer experience is particularly important in a time when Black Friday and major Holiday sales days are just around the corner.
When marketers and business owners think about the customer journey, usually that journey ends with a purchase. But to actual customers, their journey includes every single interaction they have with a brand. If they’re having an issue or need some sort of support, these moments often define their experience far more than any initial purchase.
Give your customers reasons to feel valued and listened-to by offering them a highly optimized website customer support experience. By using the following tips from our experienced digital marketing company in Atlanta, you can improve your level of satisfied customers and potentially turn angry people into brand evangelists.
Make Your Return Policy Highly Visible During Purchases
Having a visible return policy can greatly affect someone’s likelihood of purchasing an item from your website. It can also serve as a mental reminder if they happen to have an issue. Sometimes, knowing that you’re covered by the return policy can prevent a freakout response if, say, the item you purchased is defective.
Provide Multiple Paths to Resolution, and Let the Customer Choose
The first step to stellar customer service is to let users choose how they will resolve issues. Offering them a multitude of options can satisfy different personality types or needs.
For instance, visual learners may need simple language instructions accompanied by helpful images. They may even choose to watch a video to get them towards a resolution step-by-step. Both options happen to work well for mobile users. For desktop/laptop users, having the option for more in-depth explanations and instructions can satisfy the more tech-minded.
Others may want to speak directly to a person, bypassing all the site materials you offer. That’s okay, too! By being redundant and offering a multitude of choose-your-own-adventure options towards resolution, you can make a broader spectrum of people happy.
Use Natural Language That Offers Intuitive Navigation
Going off the point above, ensure that your site navigation intuitively fits within someone’s natural language and tendencies.
For instance, if you sell a plug-in product that consumes high voltage and is known to trip someone’s ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI), don’t include a section that says “What to do if you keep tripping your GFCI.” Instead, use section or FAQ headings that sound like a statement or question someone would pose, such as “My power keeps going out!” or “My circuit breaker keeps tripping!”
Again, being redundant and having multiple options can help appease different user types.
Offer Proactive Chat Help for Confused or Impatient Users
Website chat clients have never been cheaper or easier to implement. With them, you have the option of using a natural language AI, outsourced customer support, an in-house representative or a combination of the above. For instance, you can use an AI to greet people but then hand over issues to a human if the problem seems too complex to answer.
When using chat widgets on your website, set them to be proactive! Any time a user has been browsing the help or returns section for more than a minute, have the chat window pop up and offer help. Asking somebody “How can I help you?” can often cool tempers or resolve issues before things ever become desperate.
Just make sure you have someone on-hand to review chat logs and ensure issues are being resolved. Otherwise, you could end up ignoring someone during the Holiday sales rush.
Monitor Social Media Messages as an Alternative Customer Support Line
As another piece of advice for offering multiple lines of support, extend support to social media channels. Some people are prone to asking companies for support help through Facebook messenger or Twitter direct messages. Others may not even reach out to customer service but instead start bashing your company in your comments or on their own page.
Use social monitoring tools and message alerts to ensure these customers aren’t ignored. With the right touch, you can turn around a bad PR incident and prove you genuinely want their business.
Track Common/Recurring Complaints, Then Make Strategic Improvements
Every single customer incident should be logged, no matter how minor. Categorizing them also helps you understand each issue based on its root problem. You can then tally up the most common complaint/issue categories and use these as action items for informing your ecommerce strategy.
Whether the solution is better site design, better training or better systems, you won’t know it’s a recurring problem if you don’t log and track the complaints!
Test and Optimize Content for Better UX (and Higher Sales Conversions)
Great site design doesn’t happen by accident. Instead, you must experiment with optimization changes and get mistakes out of the way in a safe environment by using testing.
User testing helps you gather data on general usability and experience. A/B testing then helps you make optimal improvements by gathering related data.
Of course, don’t be testing and experimenting with new features during busy sales periods! Prepare for spikes in business like Black Friday by testing well in advance.
Get Help With Customer Service Optimization from a Digital Marketing Company in Atlanta
EverSpark Interactive has the experience and knowledge of ecommerce best practices to help you turn your customer service experience around. Let us audit your site, develop a strategy, test options and implement improvements that boost both customer experience and your bottom line.
Contact us for assistance and our Atlanta SEO company to find out more about what we can do for you.