The world is witnessing a digital shift, added with a fact of increasing numbers in eCommerce activities. eCommerce is one the first economic activities to resume its operations post lockdown relaxations. This recovery was possible as most of the functioning and services are delivered online from remote locations. A vital part of eCommerce is its customer support services. Most of our online markets had either self delivered an eCommerce customer service or hired an eCommerce customer support provider to fulfill this important task.

Even though the pandemic forced everyone to work remotely, efficient strategies helped to manage this team. ‘How’? Could be the question, if you are an entrepreneur or a business lead.

Here are 10 pro tips to manage a remote eCommerce customer support team to ensure better productivity

Ecommerce customer support service is an indispensable part of your business to hold a strong customer base. They are the face of the business while supporting a customer with business details. Hence, it is important to manage an eCommerce customer service team, and when you onboard a remote team for the purpose, here are the tips to manage them efficiently.

Communication

Maintain a proper communication channel to create a workplace like environment for eCommerce customer service providers. When you say communication, it must be multi directional, such that the support assistant must communicate with the employer and also with other support assistants. This will create an engaging atmosphere to work. Make sure you communicate often and enquire multiple times, as it would be a kind of supervision and reminder to the remote support assistants.

Schedule shifts

Ensure to negotiate on work timing. Customer service is a 24*7 jobs so it’s important to seat an assistant all the time. Listen to the time preferences of the assistant, accept or negotiate to have a team fixed to specific time shifts. This will help you deliver a consistent customer support service.

Shift monitors

Being the head of an ecommerce company, one can’t afford time to supervise the working of the remote customer support service team. In addition, the recommendation is to hand the responsibility to the associate with most experience. He/She now can work as an assistant and also supervise the team.

Setting mission

An eCommerce customer support must absorb the vision of the company. This could be achieved by assigning the team a mission or target. This will impart responsibility in every member of the team otherwise there is a possibility for some members to take the time and remote working opportunity for granted, which in turn is a loss for the company.

Team target and live update

Apart from individual targets, team targets can boost productivity. Remote eCommerce customer support service lacks fun and competition, this could be fulfilled with team targets and live updates of every member’s work progress. Can employ a special platform such a Google sheet to let all members to report their task. Therefore, other team members can view the each tasks after updating. This will enthuse all to deliver more. But also involves a task of reviewing the update, which could be handed to a service provider.

Incentivizing

A good incentive possibly a monetary remuneration will be a token of appreciation as well as an encouragement for all to deliver more efficiency. 

Regular conferences

Weekly virtual conferences with the entire team can keep the call centre services more lively. In addition, it helps to address common work issues and to discuss the best practices. These conference meetings can also be utilized to a lot or make changes in shifts and also to set targets for the coming week.

Individual reporting

This is much similar to a regular conference where instead of the entire team, every member of the team will individually report their work progress. This is an important aspect as it would give a feel of importance to every member. In addition, it will also chain an attachment and loyalty towards the company. This encourages the remote eCommerce customer support service to engage and bond more with the team and company.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing the work to an ecommerce call centre services platform would be a good option. But selecting the right organization is a tiring task. As many organizations handle various projects, there could be a clash on services. In addition, there may not be proper checks and balances which could affect our business.  

Hiring an eCommerce Customer Support Agency or Provider

An eCommerce customer support agency or customer service provider is an all in one solution to transfer the customer service task. They are experts in the field and have all the knowledge and sufficient manpower and skills to handle your customer services.

Customer support services are the guardians of your customer base. To transfer this great responsibility to a reliable and efficient eCommerce customer service provider or an agency click here and know more.

 

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Top 10 Valued Skills in Customer Support to Enhance Customer Experience

Why Your eCommerce Business Needs Multi-Platform Customer Support?

The current pandemic situation has accelerated the eCommerce growth!

And, despite the global uncertainty, the forecast shows no sign of the tide slowing down. It has gained a significant share in the retail market with the shift in customer preferences towards online shopping. 

Now, combine this with the holiday season, and you are looking at the best and busiest time of the year.

Winning Customer Loyalty in this Holiday Season

Based on a survey this year, the customer pattern’s disruption has led to a shocking shift in customer loyalty. 

Around 40% of the customers switched stores and brands, and they choose to keep this new habit.

That means your customers are now open to new products based on availability, price, and convenience.

Price and availability are the two factors in attracting customers to your business. But, retaining them is about making the experience as convenient as possible. 

Moreover, Stats proves 56% of customers chose to shop during the last year’s holiday season based on previous years’ experience.

So, it’s the right time to build a positive customer experience that will be remembered for the years to come.

Building the team with Valued Skills in Customer Support to Enhance your Customer Experience

Preparing for the holiday surge needs work and alignment across the organization. But, a good place to start is your customer support service team. It is essential to create a team with people who genuinely care about your customers. Your team must have the needed skills in customer support to enhance customer experience, attract new, and retain your most valuable customers.

To make this process easy, we have listed ten customer support skills that every professional should hone as part of being in a customer support service team. And every eCommerce leader should seek when hiring a new employee for your growing team.

Empathy

Sincere empathy can go a long way when solving customer problems. Even when you can’t provide a solution to their concern, a dose of care and understanding will assure them that they are being valued. 

In fact, 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customers feel they’re being treated. 

An eCommerce customer support expert’s ability to empathize with your customer and craft a message that steers better outcomes can make all the difference.

Adaptability

Did you know, 60% of customers change how they contact your business depending on where they are and what they are doing?

That means your eCommerce customer support team needs strong adaptability skills in customer support to face various situations on different platforms. They should have the ability to think out-of-the-box solutions to your customer concerns.

While we expect every customer interaction to be effortless, solving new and unfamiliar issues can be challenging. That’s why it’s good to hire the right people with the right skills in customer support who can think on their feet. Even better, the one who will create guidelines for everyone to use in the situations moving forward. 

Attentiveness

The ability to listen to your customers and make them feel they matter is essential to practical customer experience. Placing quality over quantity gives your customers the reason they need to stay loyal to your business.

Online Fashion retailer Zappos has taken it to another level with the most extended customer support call lasting upto 11 hours. Beyond the obsession with making sure the customer is perfectly happy, they have reaped the rewards of a lifelong customer.

The eCommerce customer support expert should be mindful and attentive to pick up on customer concerns even without detailed explanations.

Patience

One of the hallmark traits of an eCommerce customer service professional is patience. After all, customers who approach the support team are often confused and frustrated. Handling your customers with patience can go a long way in positive customer experience. And, assure them that they are being listened to. 

It is not just enough to close the customer communication as quickly as possible. Your support rep should remain calm and tolerant while dealing with the situation. They should also keep a level head. All while finding the right solution for the customer concern.

Powerful Positive Language

Effective eCommerce customer service means having minor changes in your conversational pattern. It is about using positive language to shed some light on the situation. Your professionals can steer the conversation in the right direction using a positive language.

For instance, if you find a product out-of-stock, instead of saying, “I am sorry we don’t have that in stock. You can convey the message in a positive tone, with words like –

“The product will be available in two weeks. I can place the order for you now, and you will receive it approximately the first week of November.”

Can you notice the difference?

Using positive language, your customer support service professionals can overcome a customer’s problems before they even knew they had one.

Clear Communication

33% of clients say that efficiently answering questions is the skill they would expect from an eCommerce customer support agent.

It is essential to be clear and concise when communicating with your customers. A service rep will have the ability to explain the potential solution to the customer without requiring further clarification. They will avoid jargon and provide immediate alternative explanations if what they conveyed earlier was not clear.

After all, a second interaction to clear up the miscommunication will not only cost you the money but leave the customer unsatisfied and frustrated.

Product Knowledge

The best eCommerce customer service professionals have an in-depth knowledge of how their products and services work. To help customers, your eCommerce customer service representatives should provide accurate and up-to-date information about the product or services.

At Vserve, the eCommerce customer service team is well trained on the client’s core products and service offerings. We make it a critical component of our employee onboarding process. And, train them before giving them the responsibility to handle customer interactions. 

Time Management and Prioritization

83% of online shoppers will abandon the cart and step away to your competitors if they aren’t helped within the first five minutes of purchase.

Quick response time is the top priority. Missing a few minutes might cost your business your customer and their loyalty. And, As much as patience and spending that extra time with your customer’s matters. There is always a limit to the time dedicated to each customer. Your customer support service professional needs to focus on addressing customer needs efficiently within a quick response time.

The best skills are quick to know when they can’t help the customer, so they will get the customer to someone who can help them better.

Tenacity and Resilience

Let’s face it – customer support service is challenging. Your eCommerce customer service representative deals with customer frustrations day in and out. Excellent work ethics and the willingness to do what needs to be done is the critical skill to provide the service your customer talks about. 

At times, your customer might need the time to get through the basics of the issue. That’s when your team needs the determination not to stop until the problem is solved.

Going the Extra Mile!

58% of customers are willing to spend more on companies that provide excellent eCommerce customer service. 

In today’s competitive environment, customers are pursued aggressively, and your business should not take customer loyalty for granted. Instead, your team should go above and beyond to make your customers happy.

For instance, when the call needs to be transferred, giving your customers another number might frustrate them. Instead, by adding music to listen to, you can do a warm call transfer. Another great example of going the extra mile is thanking your customer for their patience. 

Finding it a Challenge to Manage your eCommerce Customer Support Team?

It doesn’t matter how great your products are, if your customer support service is poor, people will complain about it, and you’ll lose your customers.

Though it is not impossible to turn things for the better, it needs commitment and meaningful changes across the organization. A part of it involves creating a rockstar eCommerce customer support team. 

Poor Customer Service Loses Out

Managing in-house employees can be a rewarding process. However, it takes tremendous time and effort to build a strong team. Though it doesn’t directly affect your core business, it is best to shift the responsibility to reliable hands. 

Get Expert Support!

By outsourcing eCommerce customer support, you still have control over the team you hire.  But you don’t have to take care of the problems involved in hiring and training employees.

And, Outsourcing your need to a reliable eCommerce customer support company like Vserve, you can rest assured your shoppers get the assistance they need when they need it. Working to encourage customer loyalty with friendly and 24/7 coverage, our team can help turn your prospects into satisfied repeat buyers!

 

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Why Your eCommerce Business Needs Multi-Platform Customer Support?

Benefits of Outsourcing & Cost-Saving Secrets in Pandemic Era

Email support has become mission-critical to all online businesses as a convenient customer support channel, resolving emergency customer queries and challenges for a service or product. Long-term gain depends on customer retention, which in-turn relies heavily on after-sales services. While outsourcing email support services, consider the following points:

Suitable Pricing

Many tech-support agencies have different e-mail packages (including “pay per email”) in order to provide to companies ranging from small startups to large & expanding online businesses.

Plan a budget, in advance, to outsource email support services. This helps in analyzing the pricing plans offered by various agencies to settle with the one that best corresponds with your business needs.  After all, every company looks for cost efficiency, especially while outsourcing a major business function.

Check Reliability

Customers care about 5 service dimensions which compiles under the RATER framework.

• Reliability: do you deliver as promised?
• Assurance: does your organization inspire confidence?
• Tangibles: does your company present itself professionally?
• Empathy: are your team members understanding and empowered to solve problems?
• Responsiveness: does your support team look into queries within an expected time?

To ensure customer satisfaction, the Rater Technique proves to be crucial in evaluating the reliability of email customer support agency.

How will check you whether the agency providing email support services adheres to the technique and is thus, reliable? There are a couple of ways to test this. One among them is ‘planting an undercover customer’ where you pretend to be a customer & verify whether the agency is handling tasks as per the Rater standards or not.

A reliable tech-support company will be willing to share customer feedback from time to time. So, check for transparency in this regard, from their end, because it is the key to constantly evaluate if you’ve invested in the right agency.

Verify areas of expertise in email support services

When you’re outsourcing e-mail support services, you’re basically hiring the workers of the agency company. Thus, it is vital to hire an agency with engineers who are equipped with the knowledge & expertise of your industry. How else will you ensure optimum gain from email support outsourcing?

There are many agencies in the market whose expertise are restricted to a few industries. You need to check whether the tech-support that you’re considering is passionate about and has viable experience in your given field.

• Good service is key to increased sales & customer retention. So, evaluate their expertise by verifying their record of performance & quality.
• Analyse their previous claim work for companies belonging to the same industry as yours.
• Make sure they work with skilled professionals and used updated technology.

Cultural Compatibility for smooth communication

Remember that your customers are used to the tone in which you talk to them. Due to lack of cultural context, outsourced email support service can either make or break your brand image. Thus, many organizations hold back from outsourcing this crucial business function.

You need to ensure that the external tech-support team that you hire matches with the voice of your in-house support staff. So, how do you overcome the cultural and communication barrier?

• Provide the agency with a set of tonal guidelines that clarifies the do’s and don’t’s while communicating with your customers. Establish a brand voice to be precise.
• Specify the customer service requirements that your company is looking for.
• Make it easier for the agent company to relate to the customers by giving them a cultural context.

Consider compliance mandates & SLA (Service Legal Agreement)

Before hiring a third-party service provider, you need to check legal compliance. Get your legal team working on reviewing your companies internal security prior to giving the tech-support agency access to your documents. Once they identify the sensitive customer data, you can restrict their access to those information to an extent. Nonetheless risks remain. Thus, it is crucial to consider whether the agency, that you’re planning to hire, complies with your regulations about client information confidentiality. Ensure data security!

Make sure your outsourcing contract contains a well-drafted SLA. A service legal agreement is a mandate as it sets the expectation bar for both parties. It acts as a guide in setting targets & measuring accurate performance. Ensure the following:

• SLA must include a bonus term to be given to the service agency when they exceed performance standards. Also, the consequences if they fail to meet the expectation.
• It must be adaptable to technological updates.

Final Thoughts on Email Support Services

There are ample email support service agencies in the market, one of which is Vserve Ebusiness Solutions. They cater to multiple industries with strong domain knowledge and are well-equipped with an experienced team of professionals. The outsource company does not compromise when it comes to response time, ensures improved management, tracking as well as privacy of data. Keep these basic pre-requisites in mind while outsourcing your email support services.

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As it happens, clients tend to expect customer support teams to have all the answers. While this may not be realistic, a proactive approach can go a long way in meeting client expectations. To this end, marketing content can help Customer Support Teams elevate the client experience.

1. Narrowing down the content

Customer Service Teams may have access to the company’s periodicals, but their interactions with clients vastly improve thanks to customized inputs. For instance, they can receive exclusive emails containing relevant product based or customer focused information. This makes sure that they are always in the know about matters their customers are most interested in. Collating the latest eBooks, how-to articles, data sheets, and underscoring important points not only reiterates the brand’s core proposition but also aids understanding.

When you expose Customer Service Teams to this information, you ensure that their conversations with clients are in tune with the content on your company’s blog and website.

2. Creating an internal content resource

An internal library or intranet for the purpose of pooling information is another great way to share content with Customer Service Teams. This makes sure that they don’t waste precious time looking for marketing content. Instead of spending their time browsing the net, looking for information, and generating an unusual traffic signal on Google, they can receive relevant content as links on the internal resource created specifically for them.

3. Keeping track of social media interactions

Customer Service Teams and Social Media Marketing Teams both come across a lot of complaints on the phone or on a live chat window. But Marketing and Customer Service Teams rarely work together on social media.

As is the norm, people are more comfortable expressing themselves and giving feedback from behind a screen, enjoying the relative anonymity the internet offers. This means marketing is privy to staggering amounts of feedback from the company’s social media followers. Something the Customer Service Teams may not have access to.

Keeping communications lines open with Customer Service Teams will keep them abreast on interactions with people on the company’s social media accounts. From direct messages to public comments, looping them in shows them how Marketing handles the problems, engages with the users and identifies the issues their clients may not be discussed openly.

4. Including marketing in meetings

Many times, Customer Service Teams aren’t aware of the questions about the product or services, but about the entire industry. It is very likely that client queries may go beyond the specific issues that the executive has been trained to answer. This is where Marketing comes in. They are familiar with the industry norms and practices. Which is why including them in the process helps keep the customer well informed during the initial stages of the business relationship.

These meetings can be scheduled regularly, at a time convenient to the marketing team. If they happen to be segregated according to industry specialization, they can be rotated for meetings with clients based on their area of expertise.

5. Bringing Customer Support Teams up to speed on Chatbot Conversations

Chatbots and other chat tools powered by Artificial Intelligence may not be commonplace marketing tools, but for brands that do use them, they are invaluable tools for gathering feedback for Customer Service Teams.

Chatbots let the company talk to customers directly – either through a direct messaging app or on the website with a bot (an automated robot) answering common questions about their products or services.

This is done to ensure that the bot handles routine, open-ended queries that require simple answers so that our customer support services team is free to troubleshoot complex problems and provide technical help to clients. This also helps take the pressure off the service staff.

The interaction between the bot, who is the spokesperson of the company, and the existing client or potential customer who is visiting the company’s website can be very illuminating. Their conversations can be analyzed and examined to detect how customers and potential clients engage with the bot. Indeed, there’s a lot to be learned from the robot. It may be invisible but it can sure make its presence felt!

6. Benefiting from customer support service insights

Online Live Chat Customer Service Teams can provide invaluable insights about clients to Marketing. This, in turn, helps them improve their content and make it sharper, more customer-focused and more client-friendly. Reading the transcripts or recordings of the conversations Customer Service Teams have with clients can bring key points – points that may not cover on the company blog or website – to Marketing’s attention.

Final Thoughts on Effective customer support

To conclude, sharing key information with Customer Support Service Teams and keeping them updated on Marketing empowers them in the long run. And empowered employees work wonders for their clients and for their company.

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