Tag - e-commerce

customer support, WooCommerce

We all know the importance of a customer support solution that can deliver value to your customers as well as improve their overall purchase experience.

Imagine if you have a customer support solution that allows

your customer to reach you immediately (live chat)
convey complicated concerns in detail and monitor them (ticket support)
search for solutions themselves (searchable FAQs page),
allows you to respond to your customer queries via any support channel
allows agents to know about your customer and their purchase history, and
place return/ cancellation requests on behalf of your customers

All of these can help you save massive time and deliver better and faster customer service for your online store.

The good news is that there are a lot of high-quality plugins and apps that allow you to quickly and easily integrate customer support solutions into your WooCommerce store.

Keeping this in mind, we’ve listed out some of the top WooCommerce customer support plugins and apps that can help you deliver great customer service for your WooCommerce store.

HelpScout extension developed by OPMC

HelpScout is a WooCommerce customer support plugin that allows you to start a conversation with your customers in a HelpScout mailbox.

Using this plugin you can help your customers request assistance with orders and receive their answers as quickly as possible

Features:

Allows you to use the shortcode to add a help scout form to any portion of your WooCommerce website, which can be customized using CSS and other tools.
Use the customer’s customizable forms to get in touch with them.
The “My Account” feature allows customers to view discussions.
A blog remark can also be used to start a dialogue.
Within Help Scout, you may respond to blog comments and convert them to tickets.

Pricing: 99$ billed annually

Mezchip | WooCommerce Customer Support App

Mezchip is an omnichannel customer support dashboard that gives you a separate platform to manage your customer communications across support channels.

You can use Mezchip to communicate with potential and existing customers via email, Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, to resolve customer issues, follow up leads, view customer order and shipment details, and chat history.

Mezchip gives you a separate platform dedicated entirely to your support staff.

Deep integration with your WooCommerce Store empowers your support staff to view customer details and manage returns and cancellations without having to share your WooCommerce site details.

Features:

Manage customer queries from a single platform across Email, Facebook/Instagram DM’s, and Whatsapp

From a single dashboard, you can view and reply to customer inquiries from all of your existing support channels. No more juggling channels or missing queries. Stand out! Save time, and provide better and faster support.

Your support staff can provide support without having to share your Woo Commerce store credentials

Mezchip provides you a separate dashboard where your staff doesn’t need to access your WooCommerce site.

Inside your Mezchip dashboard, you can view customer details, customer orders, shipment details, and previous chats.

Your support staff can easily see/ search customer details and can refund an order or cancel a subscription for your customers without having to log in to your main WooCommerce website.

Create Custom Channels and End Conversations

Create your own channels for phone and messaging support inquiries. Unresolved discussions can be created and tracked in real time. Close conversations once resolved. Add your own updates and notes in real time.

Subscribe to Notifications

Get notified of customer messages in real-time across all channels.

Customer Profiling

Assign relevant tags to prioritize customer conversations

Multi-Store support

Supports multiple WooCommerce stores and can collect inquiries from across your WooCommerce websites, allowing you to answer all of your customers from a single platform.

Pricing: 29$ billed monthly

Support Ticket System for WooCommerce by Plugify

Support Ticket System is a plugin to create and track customer tickets for your WooCommerce store. Customers can submit order tickets by clicking the Submit Ticket button in the order tab of the user’s My Account page, which is enabled by this plugin. It generates a ticket dashboard where users may check on existing tickets and create new ones. After creating a store account, guests can also file a ticket.

Features

Users can create generic tickets for any problem.
Customers can submit tickets for orders from their My Account pages
Can have their dashboard to manage their tickets.
Customers may see open and closed tickets from their dashboards
Can also create new tickets from their dashboards
It creates separate listing pages for support tickets
It includes a shortcode to show open and closed tickets

Pricing: 59$ billed annually

Zendesk Support for WooCommerce by OPMC

Zendesk is a support plugin developed by OMPC for WooCommerec stores. It organizes your store by managing customer orders and inquiries in one place. When an order or inquiry is placed by the buyer, a new ticket is automatically generated in Zendesk for the customer.

Features

Customer orders can be sorted and arranged by status, customer name, tags, priority levels, and other factors.
You can make notes and tag teammates to make customer-related concerns easier to manage.
Orders can be filtered based on their current state.
You can set up priority levels for your clients’ inquiries.

Integration

To integrate your WooCommerce store with Zendesk you have to Copy and paste your Zendesk account’s Subdomain, Username, and Access token, then save the modifications.

Pricing: 129$ billed annually

Intercom Support for WooCommerce by OPMC

This is another WooCommerce Customer Support Plugin developed by OPMC for WooCommerce stores.

It syncs order details, customer data, and other related information in the Intercom platform, helping you resolve the concern quickly.

Features

The Intercom WooCommerce integration adds a form to each purchase description in your business, allowing consumers to contact you directly. For the most frequently requested questions, you can create automated responses.
Customers can access their My Account pages to keep track of their support requests. They might go over previous talks with you and initiate follow-ups.
It’s not a problem if you have multiple businesses. Intercom Integration for WooCommerce can collect enquiries from across your websites, allowing you to answer to all of your consumers from a single platform.

Pricing: 129$ billed annually

Freshdesk WooCommerce Customer Support Plugin

You can connect your WooCommerce-powered online store to your Freshdesk help desk account, helping your customers to request assistance with orders and to receive their answers as quickly as possible.

Features

Customers can create a new ticket related to an order;
Can view a list of active tickets directly on their “My Account” screen;
Create a new ticket when viewing an order in the WordPress admin
Create a new ticket from a blog post comment, directly from the WordPress admin
Can connect and synchronise a product with a forum category and solution category within their Freshdesk helpdesk

Pricing: 79$ billed annually

WooCommerce CRM & Support Tickets – by Richpanel

Richpanel is a WooCommerce CRM & Ticketing System to help merchants respond faster on Chat, Email, Facebook & Instagram from one simple dashboard.

Features

Customers can contact you via chat, email, and WhatsApp and you can manage all of your conversations in one place.
Inside the helpdesk, Richpanel pulls customer orders, website activity, and previous chats. Agents will have a complete context to promptly handle client inquiries.
Free up your agents from monotonous data collection (with chatbots) and see how they perform at client feedback and reaction times, as well as assisting conversions.
Richpanel also tracks which agents have the most impact on sales and long-term customer connections.
Tags, channels (live chat, email, social), and agents can all be used to filter reports.

Pricing: 299$ billed annually

Let us know in comments below the app you use to provide support for your WooCommerce store

5 habits of a customer service oriented company

February 8, 2022

Customer service should not be a department. It should be the entire company.
Tony Hsieh

Regardless of whether it talks directly to customers or not, every department in an organization provides customer care in some way.

If something goes wrong with a customer’s order, customer support staff goes straight to the processing department to fix the problem so that the consumer is satisfied.

It would significantly take a longer time to resolve queries if the processing department was not as motivated as the customer care team.

Disgruntled and angry customers aren’t favorable for an organization’s growth.

It takes time to build a company’s reputation in customer service.

To make it a reality, you need the right people, tools, and processes.

Investing in an affordable omnichannel tool like mezchip right from your early days that enables a customer service-oriented culture, pays off.

According to Forbes, customer-centric businesses are 60% more lucrative as compared to non-customer-centric businesses

As the bar continues to rise, more businesses are attempting to define what it means to be a customer service-oriented organization. Obvious questions to be sought to be answered are:

Is your company actually focused on providing excellent customer service?
How can you improve your customer service experience?
What does it mean to run an organisation that prioritises customer service?

Simply said, customer service-oriented organizations:

prioritise their customers
recognise and consider the influence of every action they take on their customers,
design teams and processes to deliver unique experiences for their customers

In other words, customers’ wants and desired experiences are accommodated by customer-oriented enterprises. Customers are cherished, listened to, and respected when they work with them.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

In this post, we will take a look at what it means to be a customer service-oriented company and offer five tips for turning your business into one.

There are six phases in developing a customer service-oriented business.

Develop a customer-centric service culture within the company

The first step in establishing a customer-focused business is to prioritize customers.

Create a set of values across support and product teams that will motivate you to always put customers first.

By continually keeping the consumer in mind, you’ll be able to spot problems early on and enhance the product and customer experience.

Photo by kikashi on freeimages

Many companies miss the mark here. They make judgments focused on what will benefit their company rather than what would benefit the customer.

Of course, there are occasions when this is the proper thing to do, but customer-focused businesses recognize the trade-offs and strive to make decisions that benefit their customers.

They recognize that putting the customer first benefits the company as well.

Value Points:

Create a set of customer service values and promote them throughout the organization.
Invite other departments to shadow the support team or perform all-hands support.
Customer satisfaction should be measured and shared with the entire organization regularly.

Look after your staff

Taking care of your clients begins with treating your personnel well. That’s right:

Satisfied Staff Lead To Satisfied Customers.

Allowing your staff to do their best work will keep them motivated to create a customer-centric culture.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The interview and onboarding procedure are the foundations of a positive employment experience. It’s just as important to onboard a new employee as it is to onboard a new consumer.

Create a plan for their first four weeks, then revise and enhance it as you discover what works and what doesn’t.

Next, work to eliminate points of friction and annoyance in the employee experience. Giving your employees freedom to act will enable them to deliver creative solutions in critical situations.

Value Points:

Create a transparent and safe working atmosphere in which your staff are motivated to collaborate and produce their best job.
Request input from employees regularly, and use the information to improve the employee experience.
When it comes to onboarding new employees, be thorough and deliberate. Make a plan to demonstrate to each new hire that you care about their happiness.
Create an internal knowledge base or an agent help bot to provide new employees with the materials they need.
Give employees freedom to act and ability to enjoy their work

Offer help on all customer-favored channels

Omni-channel support empowers your customers to connect with you using their favored channel.

While for some that could be mail, and for others that may be social media DMS or Whatsapp.

Ask your customers what their ideal experience is with regards to drawing in with your organization.

At that point, work to oblige them and live up to those assumptions.

Use an omnichannel customer support tool like mezchip to connect and engage with your customers in their preferred mode of communication channel.

Whether or not you choose to go omnichannel, you can unquestionably guarantee you’re focusing on the right channels that are best for your customers.

Value Points

Ask your customers how they like to contact you for help.
Make it simple to contact your support group. Eliminate any grinding or obstacles with regard to contacting your group.
Use an omnichannel support tool like mezchip to make better and faster communications

Photo by: clipart max

Be open with your customers

Transparency fosters trust, which in turn fosters customer loyalty.

Whenever possible, use a transparent communication style.

If you manage a software company and are experiencing a service outage, interact with your customers in real-time. Let your customers know if your developers accidentally introduced an issue with a product update.

Instead of leaving customers in the dark about service and feature demands, keep them informed.

Notify the customer as soon as possible if you are going to miss a deadline.

Transparency and proactively addressing faults will aid in the improvement of internal processes and the establishment of customer trust.

Photo by:subpng.com

Value Points:

Provide easy access to information.
Make an environment where it’s acceptable to be open and honest.
Recognize and correct your errors.

Invest in technology to improve customer service

Technology can make jobs easier and, ultimately, improve customer service. This is true whether you’re a technology company or not. Today, every business relies on technology.

Technology can improve the customer experience, regardless of whether you’re a technology company or not. In the 21st century, all businesses rely on technology to help them do their jobs.

Investing in technology can help businesses offer better customer service. This is true regardless of whether your company is in the technology industry.

Photo by: www.consultancy.eu

Value Points:

Implement the right helpdesk tool like mezchip, to get a 360-degree perspective on your customers, their buy history, earlier discussions, shipment history, and updates.
Collaborate with team members of sales and support to provide up-to-date customer support and experience.
Enable your customers to help themselves through help docs, faqs, and other self-improvement assets.

Conclusion

A customer-centric culture is driven when employees, support staff, and processing staff all work in collaboration as well as independently.

Businesses that focus on customer service have a great support staff. Customer service excellence is ingrained in the company’s DNA. Customer centricity is injected into every aspect of a customer service-focused business, from engineering to marketing to design.

While there is no one size fits all solution to develop a customer-centric culture for all businesses. Any business that consistently attempts to develop by adhering to these five cultural habits, will notice a significant difference in its employees and customer experience.

What is social commerce & how to use it effectively?

February 3, 2022

With the advent of digitalization, e-commerce has over the years flourished and given rise to social commerce.

In this blog, we will try to understand the concept of social commerce, the emergence of social commerce & how it can effectively boost online business.

What is social commerce

working macbook computer keyboard — Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.com

Social commerce is simply making use of social media platforms to facilitate e-commerce transactions.

A person on average spends about two hours on social media every day. It is easier for customers to buy products while scrolling through their favorite entertainment apps.

Businesses have started using social media platforms to not only advertise products/ services but also enable customers to make instant purchases without having customers leave the social media platforms.

This has been made possible with social media shoppable ads, Facebook marketplace, and Instagram shops which enables a customer to shop online from their preferred sellers’ social media handles.

The emergence of social commerce

The word social commerce was actually coined in the year November 2005 by Yahoo.

Shoposhere by Yahoo was the first-ever platform to conceptualize the idea of social commerce.

The ‘pick list’ feature in Shoposhere allowed users to review the products & comment on the same. Since then social commerce has emerged as a global activity.

The pandemic gave significance to the phenomenon of social commerce.

User activity and dependence on social media increased to such an extent that users were more likely to abandon carts if they had to leave the app.

In order to turn User engagement into purchases, social commerce emerged as a viable solution which was first tapped into by Facebook in 2007 with shoppable ads.

Instagram followed suit and has now become one of the leading customer acquisition strategies in e-commerce.

Benefits of social commerce

people holding their phones — Photo by fauxels on Pexels.com

Mass Reach —

Social media platforms are getting more & more users every day. With more than 1 billion active Facebook users, the right tools and methods help businesses reach the maximum number of people in a minimum amount of time.

Therefore there remains no doubt that social commerce will prove to be an effective strategy in the coming years to grow sales.

Cost-effective —

The most substantial feature of social commerce is that you can grow your sales by spending just a minimum amount of money.

This is a sure shot method than creating a large banner or sending cold emails or using the redundant method of distributing pamphlets, which may or may not be able to attract the attention of the targeted audience.

Saves Time —

Social commerce saves the time of the sellers as well the buyers.

While sellers can list their products and create a single effective advertisement, users can buy their favorite products while scrolling through their favorite social media apps.

It saves much more time than reaching customers door to door or sending cold emails.

Though social commerce seems very easy, to begin with, the story can be quite different sometimes.

Not using the resources and the tools effectively might lead you to lose customers instead of gaining them.

Effective strategies in social commerce

House vector created by stories — www.freepik.com

Active seller and buyer interaction —

Social media platforms provide a way to interact between sellers and buyers thus making their bond more permanent.

Earlier e-commerce websites did not have such facilities but now it is possible with just a few clicks.

The sellers can easily address the queries of the customers on social media posts/ messenger and DM’s.

If you are a seller on Instamojo/Woo-Commerce you can use mezchip’s omnichannel customer support platform for effective customer engagement across channels.

For more efficient interaction, an automated chatbot can be of great assistance.

The automated chatbot will help address the initial query of the users thus saving a lot of time and repeated queries. Customers can also receive additional information about the products they are willing to buy.

The linking game —

New features added on Instagram and Facebook are meant for promoting social commerce. Instagram Shop allows users to create a single advertisement and share it on Facebook as well. These added features are affordable and save time for the users as well.

Community Shopping —

Social media encourages community shopping or group buying. In this method customers tag, share, and add their friends, family & acquaintances to buy products from the websites they have shopped from previously and have liked.

In order to promote community shopping sellers can give occasional discounts on products and can also reward the customers for bringing more customers for social shopping.

This method is used by multiple e-commerce websites and is one of the most effective methods to attract a larger audience.

Building brand awareness —

Creating awareness about the brand is a very important aspect as it creates a connection between the buyers and the sellers.

Brand awareness may include factors like stating the uniqueness of the particular brand, how the brand is different from the others in the market.

Creating a positive image about the brand invites more customers and ones who are likely to stay loyal.

Honest reviews —

It is often suggested to cut out the negative reviews on social media platforms and put only the positive reviews.

This method often backfires as it can mislead the customers.

Honest reviews, therefore, become an important factor.

Genuine reviews about the products guide the customers and create a positive impact. Customers are likely to buy products that are suitable for them.

The customers have assurance about the products they are buying and it also builds trust in the brand. This method helps in building relationships with potential customers.

Summing Up

Social commerce in India is now valued at $1.5 to $2 billion and in a couple of years, it is expected to grow from $16 to $20 billion. It is to have a significant impact on the economy in the upcoming years. Thus large-scale and small-scale businesses can expect a boost in sales and revenue through social commerce.

How do chatbots improve customers’ shopping experience?

February 3, 2022

The experience that a brand creates is what a customer remembers.

Gartner in its Customer 360 Summit, showed that a consumer’s purchase pleasure is a game-changer for sellers.

In fact, “81% of firms anticipated competing, on the basis of consumer delight in 2019”. This direct competition is pushing brands to improve their customer experience initiatives.

So what can your brand bring to your current approach that can help you win?

“It’s a chatbot.”

While there are numerous things that can be done, chatbots are a must-have for your shopping experience strategy.

In this post, we will be discussing how can chatbots improve a customer’s shopping experience. And how implementing chatbots will bring about a positive impact on your customer’s shopping journey.

Also read : How to use Direct Messages to drive customer engagement

But Before We Dive Further, Let’s First Understand What Exactly Is a Chatbot, and Why Should You Use One?

What is a ChatBot

A chatbot, by definition, is a synthetic intelligence (AI) software program that can mimic a discussion (or chat) with a user.

With the passage of time, traditional methods of attracting customers have evolved. Chatbots are increasingly being adopted by all industries including fashion, finance, entertainment, healthcare, and news.

Gartner in its report in 2011 observed that 85 % of all customer transactions will be performed without the use of humans by 2020.

Everyone is moving closer to using chatbots as a form of communication.

A chatbot has become one of the primary differentiators between brands that provide a suitable shopping experience and the rest.

How To Use Chatbots to Improve Shopping Experience:

pink background with speech bubble — Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán on Pexels.com

Agents can use “ChatBots” as Assistants to help them out

According to a PwC survey, nearly 80% of American buyers believe that speed, convenience, knowledgeable guidance, and pleasant service are the most important aspects of a good purchasing experience.

Chatbots make it simple for customers to acquire answers on the move. With chatbots, they no longer have to:

Use an automated telephone system to get answers to basic questions.
Communicate via email
Raise issues on social media

They can seek help right away.

Chatbots not only help to reduce the primary response time, but they also help to reduce the decision time, which is an important measure in customer support.

While resolving a customer’s problem:

33% of an agent’s effort is spent on knowledge of the nature of the inquiry and,
25% in obtaining relevant purchase information

With chatbots, your brand can grow to provide round-the-clock assistance without having agents who must be available day and night.

Chatbots are a godsend for businesses with a global purchasing base.

Buyers from all around the world can have their assistance needs met, regardless of time zone.

Pro tip: “There are some complex questions that a chatbot will not be able to answer. Allow for a smooth failover to a help agent in such cases.”

Lend a Hand in Getting There Milestones

Purchasing experience comes down to optimizing the interaction on various touchpoints in a consumer’s journey.

person using black and white smartphone and holding blue card — Photo by PhotoMIX Company on Pexels.com

Given that the majority of contacts these days occur in a virtual environment, “it is critical to establish virtual touchpoints to assist clients throughout their online experience with the brand.”

Let’s look at some of the contact touchpoints where chatbots can have the most impact:

During awareness:

A customer visiting a website for the first time may find it difficult to navigate around. Chatbots function similarly to site-specific seek bars, providing educational statistics, and relevant knowledge base articles. Enabling a chatbot on your website for your visitors will not only help answer their simple queries but can also provide bits of data that can stimulate the customer’s interest in your brand.

During evaluation:

Brands can capture the hearts of their customers by anticipating their needs before they express them. When a customer is browsing your website or product, they may encounter a few challenges. Setting triggers, such as rage-clicking, your chatbot can come up and reach out to the customer to assist them in such situations.

Customer service:

Implementing chatbots for customer service is highly important. Customer service is a constant source of contention for businesses. In general, customers wait too long for a response or do not receive one. This often results in poor ratings and dissatisfied customers.

Companies like Adidas, Nike, and Burberry have displayed exemplary customer service just by implementing chatbots. After one month of use,(Nike’s)chatbot had an 80% completion rate, fewer inquiries to customer service, and more than 1500 people had requested assistance from the chatbot. (Adidas’) Chatbot received almost 10,000 messages, a thousand of which were “Thank You” greetings.

Gather feedback and customer information

letters on wooden cubes — Photo by Ann H on Pexels.com

Gathering feedback is an essential task for any organization. Records are critical for determining how your clients feel about your product and the assistance provided. Almost every consumer conversation can be used as an opportunity to provide a better experience.

With chatbots, you can collect feedback through a message even while the user is still on the page. While the experience is new, the feedback gathered is more accurate. When the purpose of collecting comments is clearly understood, the survey questions requested can be tailored accordingly.

Here are a few examples of when you can use chatbots to collect customer feedback for your brand:

Enhancing a service or product: When new features are being deployed, initiate a chatbot communication and ask customers to rate their experience with the product. You can also add open-ended questions to determine where the service or product failed.
Improving the database: Once you identify common questions and have created solution articles for chatbots to suggest, you can further improve your database by enabling the chatbot to ask the customers if the object helped them solve their problem.
Improving chatbot enjoyment: To measure how well your chatbot is functioning, provide the option to rate the experience at the end of conversational exchange with the chatbot.

Utilize your chatbots on social media

Social Chatbots are chatbots that are employed on social media. (Facebook and Twitter chatbots) generate messages for your brand and aid in customer support, advertising, and purchasing. As a brand, it is ideal that you use social media and its tools to save your business time and filter out unimportant messages and fake users.

person holding iphone showing social networks folder — Photo by Tracy Le Blanc on Pexels.com

Chatbots on Facebook

Businesses have repurposed Facebook chatbots for modern purposes. Apart from providing quick fixes and round-the-clock service, brands are using Facebook chatbots to help them with other activities such as web hosting and managing e-commerce store.

You can also use a Facebook chatbot to send timely and personalized messages to customers based on their previous interactions. For example, TechCrunch curates articles for their readers based entirely on what they want to read.

Chatbots on Twitter

When you have your brand presence on Twitter, it is generally expected of you to meet certain expectations, such as providing quick responses and demonstrating that you genuinely care about your customers.

As such, Twitter Chatbots come in very handy.

The Twitter chatbot communicates with users via direct messaging. Clients are given quick responses to make it easier for them to communicate with their brand chatbot.

A lot of brands like Airbnb, Evernote, and Spotify have been using Twitter chatbots to provide customer care 24 hours a day/ seven days a week.

Our two cents

Using chatbots is one of the most recent trends in virtual marketing and CRM. It is intended to automate tedious tasks while also creating a perfect imitation of a human conversation.

Implementing chatbots for your business can be a huge benefit because they can save expenses, time, improve customer experience, increase conversions, and, most importantly, keep your customers happy.

Chatbots are more than just the “wave of the future” in customer support. They are in the “now and now,” giving providers more opportunities to communicate with clients in new and remarkable ways — and, more significantly, to fulfill their aspirations more effectively.

When a chatbot is “desirable at what it does,” the user has a better experience as a result of using it.

How to give personalized customer experience?

February 3, 2022

How would you feel when you walk into a restaurant and the server is aware of your booking and your order?

You’ll feel welcomed and pleasant. You would prefer having your usual Sunday brunch over the neighboring Michelin star overcrowded restaurant.

As a token of appreciation for your patronage, the restaurant owner may occasionally send you a kebab. That is what a personalized experience is.

Retailers in physical stores are able to provide customers with a purchasing experience that is not possible online — “the ability to test products”.

However, not all is lost in online shopping. You can apply innovative rules to give a personalized customer experience and make them feel cherished and come back for more.

While you may not have met your customers in person, using the right tools and techniques to learn more about your customers and sending them personalized product recommendations is a warm gesture and is greatly loved by online shoppers around the world.

Collecting previous statistics on your sales and applying them to provide customer satisfaction goes a long way in improving consumer loyalty and customer happiness.

In fact, it can help you save tonnes of time, lower the cost of product returns and grow your business.

Strategies to give personalized customer experience

Personalize with Correct-Sized Apparel

Did you know that inaccurate size is one of the primary reasons for product returns and customers avoiding purchases from positive websites?

Women, for example, rarely get the proper-sized bra.

Although finding the correct-sized bra in a brick-and-mortar store remains a challenge for many women, you can still find out what makes them comfortable.

Someone is most likely a length 32C, but they have a cushy sporting length 34A — there is no technology explaining the sizes.

To eliminate the size concerns offline, you can design healthy quizzes to assist your customers in determining the right size.

The questionnaires will help you determine the correct shape, precise length, and product quality.

While unique length charts can be a cherry on top, they also help in customizing product suggestions for your customer

Implementing size quizzes for your brand is an excellent way to help promote items that have unique sizes.

As a brand selling online, you can reduce return rates by ensuring customers receive the correct size and quality.

Product knowledge and customized content

It is critical for a customer to first understand themselves to understand the product you are offering.

This has a specific relevance if you are in the business of skin and hair care brands.

Before your consumer chooses any skin or hair product, they should determine whether it is appropriate for them. This also helps in reducing number of product returns.

For example, the greatest moisturizer for dry skin will not work for someone with oily skin. While it may appear to be common knowledge, most customers may find it difficult to identify their skin type.

Instead of publishing a slew of science-backed blogs, guide your customers via a quiz to help them determine their skin type.

As a result of the quiz, you can help customers to know their hair and skin type.

Based on the results, you can offer your products to give a personalized customer experience at the ease of just some mouse clicks!

The quizzes not only assist your customers in selecting the proper products but also help you in understanding what your client wants and stocking your store as needed.

The more you guide your customers, the more you know about their likes and dislikes.

You can compare the recommendations with alternative products and show your customers the differences based on the data from the quizzes.

Today, every time you visit a website, you will get a pop-up message that says, “Hi I am X, how may I help you?” Such chat programs like Mezchip allow you to converse with your consumers and know about their needs.

Also read: How to use Direct Messages to drive customer engagement

Adding personalized content and education sections will help your customer based on their specific needs and queries.

Bring physical store experience to online stores

Online buyers want to touch and feel the things they view.

While it may not be realistic, you can still provide your customers with an in-store experience.

We’ve all had the experience of walking into a showroom and being greeted with a cup of coffee. The staff also speak to us kindly to make us feel at ease.

When an offline store speaks with a customer, they learn about all of their wishes, which helps them determine the perfect product for them.

As an online retailer, you can as well provide your clients with the same experience as a physical store.

You can offer a quiz section where the clients can also express their demands and desires.

This procedure makes online buying more interactive. According to a study, interactive content converts twice as well as passive information.

You can also ask your customers to leave their email addresses after the end of the quiz and if they would be further interested in receiving offers, deals, and similar product recommendations from you.

You can also provide a free after-purchase service to enhance your online store experience. This can be a video call or a chat to answer customer questions and better understand their needs.

These kinds of services assist you in better understanding your customer and provide a personalized customer experience. By doing so, you can direct your time and efforts where they are most needed, resulting in long-term relationships with your customers.

Return & Refunds

Returns are prevalent in many online retailers, but personalization allows you to limit the number of returns. Because every brand expects returns, it’s wise that you have a fairly simple and easy return and refund policy.

According to a study, 95% of customers are willing to return to your store if your return policy is favorable.

Giving your customers more ownership over returns, and providing a painless return experience is what has shown to drive maximum customer loyalty.

To summarize:

Understand your customers and influence them before they make a decision
Suggest products based on who your customers are, by using tools like live chat and quizzes.
Make online transactions as seamless as offline.
Have simple and easy return & refund policies

5 common customer complaints and how to handle them

February 3, 2022

Priyanka Prasad

A few months back I ordered a custom hand-crafted nameplate for our new house.

I was ruffling through different websites and I came across a very interesting Instagram page of a small business owner who had great reviews. I instantly placed an order with my custom design and recommendations.

Considering, the store was very new and I had my doubts, I still put my trust and waited for the order to arrive.

I had to consistently follow up with them to know where my order was. The order finally arrived after 2 weeks.

When I received the order, I found the color of the base of the nameplate entirely different from what I had ordered.

Needless to say, it was upsetting. I raised this issue and sought a resolution.

It rather came as a shock when the store owner, instead of providing a resolution, defended its position and showed his reluctance to do anything about it.

I then decided never to buy from this store again and neither to recommend this store to anyone else.

That was the time when this store not only lost a returning customer but consequently lost several potential customers.

Let’s be honest here. As a business owner, you cannot avoid customer complaints.

No matter how hard you work on your products, you will have an unhappy customer.

You cannot escape customer complaints and build your brand. Customer feedback and customer satisfaction form an integral part of building and growing your brand.

If you know how to handle customer complaints effectively you can turn a liability into an opportunity.

Customer Complaints

Customer complaints are feedback about your product or service that you receive when they feel they received a product or service contrary to what they were represented or what they expected.

Sometimes businesses are at fault, sometimes, it’s miscommunication and sometimes it’s just a nasty customer who has too much expectation.

However, if complaints are handled on time, with care and empathy, all situations can be taken care of smoothly and efficiently.

That is how customer relationships are built and business grows.

Common Customer Complaints and how to handle them

Here are some common customer complaints that you may come across in your day-to-day operations and some pro tips on how you can efficiently address them

Not able to reach support

There have been so many times, that customers want to reach out and contact you, but all you have is a form on your website or an email to reach you.

Customers want to reach you on the channel of their choice.

While it is difficult for a business to be always available, you can surely have multi-channel support.

Make sure you are available for support across channels like Whatsapp/ Facebook/ Instagram/ Live Chat.

Using an omnichannel tool like Mezchip you can also easily switch between these channels and keep the conversation going.

Long waiting periods

Customers generally get frustrated when they do not receive a response to their query immediately.

Be it email/ chat/ call, customers hate to be kept on hold.

To increase the response rate time, quick replies, self-help guides, and FAQs are great way to help.

A majority of times, customers can solve their queries with the guides themselves without needing to get on a call with a live agent.

Inconsistent support and customers repeating their issues

It often happens that your brand has a number of support agents but is unaware of the context of a customer complaint.

The unavailability of the context of customer issues often leads to customers getting frustrated and having them repeat their issues time and again with different agents.

In such situations, using a CRM tool such as Mezchip is very helpful.

Your agent can get all the context they need on a customer, any previous tickets raised and orders placed.

Giving consistent support in line with customer queries reflects brand consistency and helps establish trust with the brand.

An agent does not have the authority to resolve issues

Customers call customer service, explain their issues in detail, and ask for a resolution. But usually, customer care responds with “We are sorry for the inconvenience caused, but there is nothing we can do about it”.

This happens when a customer is dissatisfied with a product and wants a product returned or exchanged. However, that is not aligned with what the support agents have been instructed.

Assigning tickets using tools like Mezchip to senior members who can better resolve such issues works best in such situations.

Assuring the customers the issue has been escalated for a quick resolution is a better approach than providing no resolutions.

Using the team collaboration feature of Mezchip helps you to easily assign tickets within your organization and resolve customer issues proactively.

No response to customer complaints on Social Media

Customers today spend most of their time on social media.

They discover your brand/product via social media. If that’s the case, you’ll almost certainly get client complaints on social media as well.

It’s not ideal for your angry customers on social media if you have open complaints on social media posts.

Using Mezchip omnichannel tool can help you identify all your open complaints across your social media channels. You can respond to and resolve complaints without needing to open your social media apps.

Did you know – Facebook also offers badges to businesses like “very responsive to messages” who have responded to 90% of messages within 15 minutes or the last 7 days.

Customer complaints are one of the four pillars of running and growing your business.

Without customer feedback, there is no scope for improvement and growth.

Converting a disgruntled customer into a happy customer is what makes a good business, a GREAT business.

The opportunity of fixing customer relationships can help you delight your customers and make them your loyal customers.

Listening to customer complaints and providing effective resolutions is a great way to make your business better and bigger.

How Can Small Businesses Provide Great Customer Service

February 3, 2022

A great idea, seed capital, and some human resource on the job is not sufficient to get a new business going.

Right from the initial stage, great customer service helps in building a solid base for further growth and development of a business.

“Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.”
— Walt Disney

There is a thin line of difference between a good company and a great company. Customers feel more valued and regarded when associated with a great company.

Irrespective of the size and scale of the company, customer service occupies the topmost position in the list of company objectives.

“You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be too easily duplicated. But a strong customer service culture cannot be copied.” — Jerry Fritz

Understanding Customer Service

It is the support provided by a business to its customers prior to and post-purchase of products or services.

It also includes keeping a track of the usage and experience of the customers during an entire customer’s buying cycle.

Customer retention is a primary objective. And an improved image of the brand comes as an added bonus.

These days customer service is not just limited to the traditional telephone support model rather it has now evolved to providing support and engaging customers across channels like:

Email
Live Chat
Text messaging
Social media, and
Self-service support, where customers can get answers on their own, irrespective of the time of the day.

So How Can Small Businesses Provide Great Customer Service?

Customers can build their perceptions within seconds about a business. Particularly, when it comes to small businesses, creating the first impression is important.

Using the magic words, “Please” and “Thank You” goes a long way in earning customer trust, loyalty and appreciation.

A “can-do attitude” helps businesses become more dependable and worthy of customer trust.

It builds certainty with customers and reinstates their decision to buy products of the brand.

Phrases such as “I don’t know,” “I can’t,” and “You have to…” reflect complacency and a laid-back approach signaling a negative attitude.

Such phrases are unhelpful and act as triggers for already frustrated customers.

Adding a personal touch by giving calls to the customers goes a long way in staying connected with the customers.

Although in today’s fast-paced era, short personalized emails can be helpful instead of overloaded and lengthy emails.

Following up and maintaining contact with clients helps customers realize their value and highlight the importance of customer experience for the business.

Impact of a Great Customer Service

Running a small business invites competition from bigger & better market players. Small businesses have a smaller bunch of customers to manage which in turn gives the chance to impress and retain the customers for longer periods.

Lasting impressions are embedded in customers. These impressions get transferred to their acquaintances via word of mouth leading to new customer acquisitions.

Great Customer Service has the following 5 advantages for small businesses:

1. Escalating trend of sales.

Managing an existing set of customers might land a business in a laid-back position, thus, finding new customers has to be a priority.

Customer service helps in increasing sales since not only the existing customers but also the prospective ones have questions to ask.

As per recent reports, 52% of customers are willing to abandon online purchases if they don’t find the information they’re seeking.

2. Retaining customers.

As per an oft-quoted statistic, acquiring customers costs 6–7 times more than retaining your existing ones.

Keeping in mind the time availability and resources with a small business, satisfying customers becomes more critical in running and operating a small business.

As per a report by the U.S. Small Business Administration, 68% of customers tend to leave since they were upset with the treatment they’ve received.

Hence, swift and considerate service for the customers goes a long way in earning their loyalty.

3. Discovering opportunities for cross-selling and upselling

With the advent of advanced systems such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and platforms like Mezchip, everyone in the company are aware of the customers.

Support agents have access to order histories, open opportunities, and shipping status.
Salespeople are aware when a customer requires assistance

4. Improvising the products and services being offered

The support team serves as an important link to the external business environment as they establish a connection on a real-time basis.

The inputs derived from their interaction with the customers serve as important leads for improving the quality of service delivery and products being offered.

5. Make better business decisions.

Customer service tools have multiple uses.

Apart from providing service to the customers, they contribute to the virtual improvement of various business aspects.

That includes customer satisfaction scores and performance of the agents which further aids in taking better and improved decisions for the business.

For a majority of people, good customer service is an expectation, customers need their queries to be answered and issues resolved but that’s not sufficient to stand out from others in the competition.

So how do you stand out?

The answer lies in transforming good customer service into a Great one!! Small businesses do not require a big budget or a big team to do that, just some brainstorming, the right tools, and an empathetic thoughtful attitude towards their customers.

Looking for ways to manage your customer support better and stand out from others? Book a demo at mezchip to let us help you better!!

Why are my customers dropping out?

February 3, 2022

Priyanka Prasad