14 Ways E-Commerce Brands Can Better Serve Their Customers
E-commerce businesses are a dime a dozen, but those that provide standout customer service are the ones that will ultimately thrive.
In the competitive world of e-commerce, providing exceptional customer service is crucial for building a loyal customer base and staying ahead of the competition. However, with so many brands vying for attention, it can be challenging to stand out and provide a consistently positive customer experience.
Below, a panel of 14 Newsweek Expert Forum members share essential tips for e-commerce brands to better serve their customers. By implementing these tips, e-commerce brands can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately leading to increased sales and business growth.
1. Invest in Market Research
E-commerce brands should invest more in their market research. Just because something sells well on Amazon or eBay, it doesn't mean that another e-commerce company will achieve the same success with its particular target audience. - Krisztina Veres, Veres Career Consulting
2. Prioritize Customer Service
One tip for how e-commerce brands can better serve their customers is prioritizing excellent customer service. Firms must provide clear and timely communication throughout the customer journey, from pre-purchase inquiries to post-purchase follow-ups. E-commerce brands can build customer loyalty and attract repeat business by prioritizing customer service and creating a positive shopping experience. - Bala Sathyanarayanan, GREIF Inc
3. Think Bigger Than E-Commerce
It's useful to think of your brand as if it were not e-commerce-based and look at it as much more than its sales platform. Serve customers by providing an intuitive app or website to express their needs and concerns. While the interface is crucial, if customers feel like you're a storefront, they'll never reach out or relate to the brand. This can come in the form of ratings, reviews and interactions on social media. - Jacob Mathison, Mathison Projects Inc.
4. Make Your Value Proposition Clear and Simple
Realize that giant online retail names like Amazon are no longer the only game in town. Since the potential customer can buy items on many websites, make your value proposition clear and simple at first glance. If your site is too cluttered, you will confuse and lose your customers. - Zain Jaffer, Zain Ventures
5. Invest in CRM Software
Invest in expert e-commerce customer relationship management (CRM) software. Good CRM software enables companies to manage all of their customer service calls, emails and messages right in one platform. This has been our company's saving grace. The software offers live chat and order management as well. It completely covers all areas of customer service within one platform. - Tammy Sons, Tn Nursery
6. Fulfill Orders in a Timely Manner
In this day and age, it's all about how fast you can fill your customers' orders and desires. With the success of Amazon, it's more important than ever to be ahead of your competitors in terms of being able to fulfill orders quickly. In addition to having a great product and marketing that builds a strong emotional connection to what you're selling, fulfilling orders can definitely build brand loyalty in and of itself. - Ryan Carrol, Wealth Assistants
7. Make the Process Easy for the Customer
Look for ways to reduce friction throughout the customer journey. Make every step as easy as possible to drive customers from interest to purchase to advocate seamlessly. Build your processes around what is the most effortless and intuitive for the customer. Too many businesses still make it too difficult to do business with them. - Krista Neher, Boot Camp Digital
8. Listen to Customer Feedback
Listen to your customers. A survey is not listening. An A/B promotional campaign is not listening. The best resource for learning what your customers want you to know rather than what you want to know about your customers is customer support. Listen to call recordings, analyze transcripts and correlate feedback with purchase and repeat purchase behavior. What are the themes that consistently emerge? Identify the gaps. - Karen Mangia, Salesforce
9. Focus on the User Experience and Functionality
Focus on the user experience. Is it simple, essential and consumable? Everyone is very busy and they need fast, easy solutions that provide optimum functionality with ease of use. Test drive your solution with inexperienced end users and look for glitches that need to be fixed as well as great new ideas for further enhancement. - Margie Kiesel, Avaneer Health
10. Utilize Customization
One word: customization. A multibillion dollar direct-to-consumer subscription company was the innovator of the subscription economy. Their launch of custom-kitting with dynamic components, based on both the customer's selection as well as "free gift" marketing testing, drove soaring revenue. Why? People want to feel in control—even if it's just with their personal skincare routine. - Sabina Pons, Growth Molecules
11. Incorporate the Principle of Heuristics
One tip is incorporating the principle of heuristics. By comprehending and addressing the common heuristics that influence customer behavior, such as anchoring and availability bias, e-commerce brands can design their customer experiences and websites in a way that aligns with how customers actually make purchasing decisions. This leads to customer loyalty and satisfaction. - Dr. Kira Graves, Kira Graves Consulting
12. Prioritize Personalized Experiences and Customer Engagement
One tip for e-commerce brands to better serve their customers is to prioritize personalized experiences and customer engagement. This can be achieved through gathering customer data and preferences, offering customized product recommendations and providing real-time support through channels such as live chat and social media. - Joseph DeWoody, Valor
13. Provide Access to a Live Person for Questions and Complaints
The one tip I would offer any e-commerce brand is to allow quick access to a live person in customer service for questions and complaints. Chat is great but an automatic bot can only do so much and it drives people crazy to go through an automated phone system. Both have their place, but customers need a way to bypass all of that and get to a live person who can discuss their problems. - Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure
14. Use Non-Fungible Tokens and Web3 to Increase Loyalty
Increase loyalty through new and unconventional means like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Web3. Doing this will establish direct relationships with the current and emerging demographics. - Nitin Kumar, zblocks
