E Commerce Marketplace blog

Category: Customer Service

  • Social media as customer service channel? Things to consider

    Social media is one of the most important channels where you can actually understand and drive the message in a viral way. Social media is the place where information is shared often in byte sized chunks and opinions fly thick and fast.

    Social media is the place where a company can drive the conversation in the direction in which it is looking to move towards, especially related to customer complaints. Social media can be a force multiplier for companies as customer service channels if used well.

    As a company your social media interaction may be one to one but the message that you put out is broadcast to everyone of the page followers and thus has high chance of virality.

    Here is a list of items that you need to keep in mind using social media effectively as a channel of communication.

    Respond politely and effectively

    Social media is a place where not only your reply to the post has a chance to go viral but also that it could be screenshotted and passed around leading to more virality. Thus, you need to respond to the customer complaints/reviews/feedback as professionally as possible. Admitting mistakes if they have occurred or accepting praise gracefully can go a long way to ensure that your business is viewed favourably.

    Beware of the emotional status of the end user

    People usually end up on social media when they have exhausted other channels of communications. When Emails and Phone support is proven ineffective, an aggrieved user tend to write the post on social media. The post contains details that are often the evidence of complaint and lack of response from the company.

    Companies’ responses usually are robotic. They usually don’t take user’s grievances into account. A lack of response or a poor response may lead to more reaction and damage to the reputation of the company.

    Create specialist team if you can afford them

    Social media is a unique channel where not only complaints but also responses may go viral. A person well known in the way people behave in a social media context will be able to manage the situation more effectively. The team should be able to get the proper message out and perform damage control in shortest amount of time.

    Be aware of the changing landscape

    Every social media website has its own pros and cons. While Facebook is generally used by more senior population, Instagram is mostly used by millennials. Recent additions like Tik Tok are more favourable to generation Z. X (formerly twitter) on the other hand is used as the most viral channel. Pinterest on the other hand is the place where images speak the most.

    It is important to understand where your client base lies and gets engaged. Choosing a different social media platform means not reaching the right audience.

    Also be aware of any other trending social media where you can target your user base.

    Avoid sharing personal data on public channels

    I have seen countless times, people putting up either their order number or their phone number on the social media posts. While as a customer care team, one cannot stop people from sharing personal details, the next step could be asking them to share the details privately. If you ask them to share it on the post, most of them would carelessly share data for everyone to see. This could lead to privacy issues.

    One way, companies avoid this fiasco is to send a link to their direct message or email. A user then doesn’t to share too many details online and risk jeopardizing their safety and privacy.

  • Social proof helps your E Commerce Business – How?

    Social proof helps your E Commerce Business – How?

    Social Proof is defined as something that propels an individual who is uncertain about making a decision to give them a psychological push in order to help or make that decision. Social proof is telling the individual that the decision they are going to make is already being taken by other individuals and that has turned out to be a great decision for them.

    Social proof was extensively used in the offline business. If you want to increase your customer base, you may ask your existing customer to refer your product or service to a friend or an acquaintance and to also let them know how the existing customer is benefiting because they are using your products or services.

    Let us understand a few reasons why social proof works in E Commerce.

    Uncertainty is the enemy of ordering

    Have you ever visited a website that you found is carrying the product that you have been looking for. Everything looks good and you are fairly convinced that the product that they have on the site will meet your needs. However, there is always a nagging doubt if the product will actually perform as it is shown on the page. You scroll down and then you see that other people have added reviews for it. Now, you can be confident that other users have navigated the same uncertainty, yet they have gone ahead and taken the risk of trying things out.

    And that has worked for them. Thus, you move past the psychological barrier of being uncertainty. You can now order, happily knowing that the product has been tested and approved by others.

    Celebrity endorsement works

    If a popular celebrity endorses a particular product, a lot of fans following them become eager to buy what they are advertising. For example, if a strong sport star promotes a healthy protein drink, fans who are aspirational to reach their levels of fitness, would like to try and buy the protein drink. The advertisement instantly catapults the product to top of their mind.

    If you can, consider using a celebrity based on your budget to promote your product. You can put the images or videos of the celebrity endorsement on your website. That way, the user that has come looking for a solution gets instant rewards in his or her brain upon purchasing that product.

    Conformation helps with social proof

    Every product comes with a level of aspiration. If a large number of people in a social or local setting use a particular product then the pressure on a person who does not use the product increases significantly.

    A prime example is rise of new songs. On social media, a song gains some popularity, and it is moved up the chart. Soon because of word of mouth or social media algorithm, the song is moved to the top of the list. Everyone starts talking about it. A person who hasn’t followed the herd, now needs to listen to the song, leading to further increase in popularity.

    In E Commerce parlance, if you can use existing trends to your advantage, you may ride on popularity wave. Sales of concert T Shirt of the artist sells like hot cakes, when you create them based on who is more popular or who is going to perform near your users.

    Detailed testimonials matter more

    A person who buys a product and then writes a detailed testimonial of what works and what doesn’t is a far valuable asset than the one who just leaves a rating (which is also good, but it doesn’t have the same impact). These people actually make effort to craft a review and add images or videos of them using the product.

    A person who writes detailed review may not always leave positive reviews, but it still helps to improve your product. A well-crafted reply to a detailed reviews leaves a visitor with a good impression about your business.

    Photo by Lisa from Pexels

  • Pros and Cons of getting into online E Commerce business

    Pros and Cons of getting into online E Commerce business

    E Commerce is probably the most important trend in the timeline of human business endeavors. E Commerce exploded once the internet became ubiquitous and faster than before. The advent of giants such as Amazon and eBay led to a number of small businesses taking their business online.

    If you are planning to take a business online or just want to understand if you should even consider doing it, it is a good idea to understand the pros and cons of going online.

    Let us look at some of the pros of doing online business.

    You have global reach

    If you can fulfill the need, the world is your oyster now. People searching for that special product that only you can manufacture can find from beyond your country’s border. You get orders from distant places and being online just exploded your reach. You have more data to analyze about global audience and chance to explore markets that may be more profitable than your local demographic.

    You are online all the time

    That is the dream of every business, to be running even when the owner is asleep. The orders can keep flowing while you are busy with other aspects of the business. You don’t have to pay your employees to be at the store all the time. The website acts as an interface, the chatbots answer customer queries and even make sales on your behalf. The customers are browsing, checking out your products even when there is no personnel around to show the products to them.

    Your costs of operations are reduced for the hours you are open

    Of course, there are costs associated with operating an online store. However, if you are using large companies such as Amazon, Etsy or eBay to list your product, you may just add the products, set up details and forget about them. These companies will do the job of keeping the servers running and even marketing products if they fit their own criteria. You will just need to fulfill the orders. You can even outsource the product in case of the dropshipping business, where someone else will fulfill the orders on your behalf.

    Even if you run your own website, the cost of running it is far less than operating a physical store with all whistles and bells such as electricity costs, rent, hiring employees, providing physical security and dealing with store theft.

    Enhanced Data analysis and tracking

    You collect the information the moment a visitor lands on your site. You have their IP, their browser type, the mobile phone they are using, their geographic location etc. The granularity of data can help you understand customer behavior in more detail. You may find it easy to target a particular demographic based on the data collected and analyzed. This level of detailing is not possible in a physical store where the data collection is often minimized to phone number or email address.

    But not everything is hunky dory. As is everything in life, good things come with a cost and that cost cannot be avoided. There are obvious cons to selling online.

    Faceless ordering leads to poor interactions and personal connections

    Yes, you are aware of the customer’s geographic location and other attributes, but you can never replace the value of a customer that you know personally. A good shop owner knows their customers often by name and understands their buying patterns and motivations to buy something. The relationship leads to lifetime customers who come to them for repeat purchases and even for suggestions. Online doesn’t establish such connections easily and thus cannot replace the value of personal connections

    Product fitment problems

    Can you ever imagine going to a clothing store and just buying an item of clothing by reading the size label. You won’t, like, ever do that. But online, you are often forced to make an educated guess about if the product is really going to fit your needs.  The site selling the product may have policies that a return is not allowed.

    As a store owner, this could be a problem as customer expectations are hard to foresee and it is always a guess work even for you to correctly resolve fitment issues.

    Security and data protection issues

    Well, you may ask, if there are no storefronts, why do you need security. It is because you are custodian of the customer data and often that data is sensitive. You wouldn’t want the world to know what any customer has ordered. The expose of such data may lead to loss of reputation, hurt brand reputation and open you up to lawsuits. And the data stays in the world forever, ready to be used time and again by hackers.

     

    Photo by Jan van der Wolf

  • Challenges in Logistic for a Small Business E Commerce project

    Challenges in Logistic for a Small Business E Commerce project

    Small E Commerce ventures often have multiple challenges that cause hurdle in running the business smoothly. One of the prime challenges is logistics. The logistics involves procuring raw materials and then shipping the finished good to the product. The company that running the E Commerce business is the sole customer check point and is responsible for smooth delivery of the product. However, due to multiple challenges, the delivery of the product is delayed.

    Let us look at few of the challenges faced by a small-scale E Commerce venture.

    Last mile connectivity

    In a number of countries, last mile delivery is probably one of the most challenging aspects of E Commerce. During the last mile delivery, i.e. to the home address of the customers, there could be multiple roadblocks to delivery.

    For example, a customer may not be available at the time of delivery. The address may not be complete or correct. The customer location may be farther than expected. The weather may play truant. It may not be possible to leave the package at the door due to possible theft of the package.

    In case of international shipping, customer may be asked to pay extra to the customs. In the worst case, they might not have permission to import a particular product into their country.

    Customers may not be understanding enough about the issues leading to overall bad feedback about the services in general.

    Inventory management

    Small businesses are often low on resources. That means one can only have limited stocks of the relevant items. It might take some time between stock depletion and then further replenishment. It depends on a number of factors, primary one being the availability of raw material and in time shipping to the E Commerce vendor.

    When there is no stock, the product shows out of stock status in E Commerce website. If that goes on for a long time, the customer may be tempted to look for other websites to buy the product. It leads to loss of hard-won customer loyalty and can lead to customer turnover. The inventory of top products needs to be stocked all the time.

    However, too much of stock also has its own set of problems. If the stock is perishable like food or flowers, it needs to move before expiry date. If for any reason the stock lies unsold, then the cost of the spoilage has to be borne by the business.

     

     Multiple vendors/ systems

    A small business usually sources its products from a single vendor. However, the complexity of logistic increases if there are multiple vendors. There could be issues with software systems that are too primitive to handle complexity. Often small businesses depend upon spreadsheets to keep a track of inbound delivery, production and outbound goods movement. This is very error prone. And with more vendors it gets more difficult to keep all the things working.

    Ever Increasing Transportation and material costs

    The inflation around the world is up in recent times. It has caused an uptick in both manpower and material costs. The constant wars around the world does not help with the oil prices.

    Due to this, the cost to deliver the goods increased rapidly for small business E Commerce companies. If the transportation charges are too high, the customer does not want to buy or make repeated purchases that frequently.

    Excessive returns

    The fundamental problem with E Commerce business is that it is impossible for a customer to try and then buy. Often the order is based on the appearance of the product’s picture on the E Commerce portal, and any misunderstanding may result in dissatisfaction with the delivered product.

    In retail for example, issues could range from colour, size, fabric, fit etc. In that case the logistics need to work to pick up the return requested by the customer.

    In a few cases, customers frequently return the products leading to high return costs for the E Commerce business.

     

    Photo by Marcin Jozwiak

  • Channels that you can use to enhance your customer service for your E Commerce Project

    Channels that you can use to enhance your customer service for your E Commerce Project

    Customer Service is an essential part of any E Commerce project. A good customer service makes your customer come back and purchase from you again. It also helps you promote your products and increase customer satisfaction , while also increasing brand awareness.

    Listed below are some of the ways you can channel your customer service.

    Phone

    Phone is the most traditional way for any business to connect with their customers. Phone can be useful as it helps customers connect quickly with service rep and address their inquiries. However, this only works where orders are infrequent or they require special assistance. A phone line may be jammed because of excessive calling. A customer service representative may spend more time than usual on a customer call putting other customers to hold.

    A phone line should be used only when you are sure that you can handle the customer call volume. Having a phone number definitely gives a feeling that you care about your customers and you have a human addressing their concerns rather than a bot

    Email

    Email is a channel that can help answer questions with a time lag. You can use email channel to let the customer know that you are looking into their problems while you look for the solution. Email also helps in creating a personalized connection with the customer. If you are a founder, you can always thank your customer with a personalized message for their business.

    However, the advantage of email gets nullified if you take a lot of time to reply. The customer may get frustrated and anxious if there are no subsequent follow up emails. If it is needed, it is a good idea to even pick up the phone and call the customer rather than doing back and forth on email.

     

    WhatsApp

    WhatsApp is becoming a popular channel for communication. WhatsApp may be used to send OTP and it is considered more secure than plain text. Status updates too can be shared on whatsapp. Some companies provide a list of menu items for handling customer’s query.

    WhatsApp can also be used as a marketing channel in addition to customer service . However, too many messages on WhatsApp which is still considered a personal chat platform may annoy users.

    Using WhatsApp though provides more control over the customer service process than emails and combined with other channels can really level up your customer experience.

    Social Media

    Social media can be your best tool, if used strategically. Social media helps build brand awareness, let people discuss your products and thus provide valuable feedback on your product and processes.

    You need to monitor your social media and read the comments put by either interested parties as soon as possible. The comments that are form of complaint should be investigated as fast as possible because responding quickly shows your high levels of customer service.

    Chatbots

    Chatbots are the latest addition to your customer service systems. Chatbots can range from just providing a menu-based experience to leveraging artificial-intelligence based question and response system.

    Chatbots have a bad reputation with customers because they are often not designed to give customers an optimal experience. But if thought through, they can free up customer service team for other important issues while most generic work can be left to the chatbots.

    With enough recursion, testing and analysis, a good chatbot system over the time can enhance your customer service. However, it is important that chatbots are just one aspect of customer service and it doesn’t take much time for a customer to get disaffected with its repeated responses. A human in loop when things go out of order is always warranted.

    Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

  • How to successfully compete with E Commerce Giants

    How to successfully compete with E Commerce Giants

    So, you have decided to venture into your own E Commerce business. Welcome to the world of possibilities. There are more opportunities than even before in this area. However, you also need to know in this sea, there are giant sharks. Large E Commerce companies with huge marketing budgets and often predatory tactics can reduce your profit margin in a straightforward way to causing your venture to shut down at the extreme.

    Here are a few ways, your small or medium size E Commerce venture can compete against these sharks in the E Commerce world.

    Planning

    E Commerce startups often underestimate the importance of planning. You are stepping in a place where there are giant sharks waiting to eat you for lunch. You need to be able to find out how you are going to out compete. You need to do thorough research about their marketing and their strategies. It is similar to guerilla marketing tactics where you are the nimble task force fighting a mighty army. Planning at the strategic level as to what things you would compete upon (like offering/ price / customer experience) and then at the tactical level such as what steps would you take to make your offering better w.r.t. to your large competitors. It needs careful considers and market research.

    Local flavor

    Your large competitor is stretched thin. The segment they are in needs to be profitable enough for them to give you competition. They will find it difficult to conduct operation in every local segment. You may leverage your knowledge of area, local product, local language to create a strong offering that your competitor simply cannot match without devoting substantial resources to achieve similar results.

    Strong niche

    Your enemies i.e., the giants of E Commerce are often stretched. They have cost structures and often optimize for sales and cost. It is impossible for physical reasons for them to focus on every segment of the market and yet win profitably. That is where you can shine. You can determine the areas where you are strong. It could be your price because of sourcing, or it could be quality of your product or patents that you hold.

    If you perform well and deliver value, it will be difficult for the large competitors to dislodge you.

     

    Personal Connections to the shoppers

    E Commerce giants provide services that are automated. One needs to go through multiple levels of chatbots conversations, and AI provided answers which causes dissatisfaction. On your website on the other hand, you can provide a work phone and /or a WhatsApp number for rapid answers to your customer’s questions. You customers may like such levels of personalization.

    A thank you note to the buyers and if possible, a call asking them about their satisfaction of the product is how you build a long-term relationship with them.

     

    Your personal story

    If there is a business, there is a story. Is there a story for your business, a customer can instantly connect with and identify with?

    For example, often stories talk about how founders struggled through their life experiences and then stepped up to provide you the best of the breed solutions. A personal story helps a customer relate to their own experiences of struggles.

    You need to make sure that you have genuine reasons behind your story as your honesty will be rewarded with free advertisement and sales later.

    Unique marketing techniques

    Giant e commerce companies use billboards, big festivals and big ad spends to attract eyeballs because they have big budgets to spend.

    To counter, you can go low cost, high impact tactics such as surprise gifts, detailed content videos for example tutorials/ how to use your products. You may utilize humor to craft engagement that suits your product line and not cater to whole market that your large competitor needs to cater to.

    Leveraging social media to the maximum

    Social media is easy and cheap medium to get famous. Create and share posts and ask your friends and family to share them on their timelines. It instantly builds up the trust without need to spend additional money. You can also create product pages and share helpful content and updates. You can create group where you can share your expertise and even others can chime in too with their opinions. Keep an eye open for the feedback and respond personally and constructively.

    Image by Waldryano from Pixabay

  • How to improve user experience in an E Commerce site?

    How to improve user experience in an E Commerce site?

    E commerce is one the best ways to take your business online and expand your audience to globe. An E Commerce setup involves setting up a website and placing your products in it for your customers to peruse.

    However, an important aspect of E Commerce is that the customer experience has to be top notch otherwise you may risk returning customers.

    Here are some tips to make your website experience much rewarding and interesting for your online visitors

     

    Great Home page layout:

    A great looking home page is a must for a person visiting your website anytime. The call to action must be clear if you wish them to take an action.

    If your purpose is to first let the customers take it all for example a model displaying clothing range, then you need to add good quality pictures which are scrollable on main page.

    If you are selling tech products, your home page should be containing tech specs and most salient points about your products that can hook your customers instantly.

    Easy searchability

    You wouldn’t want a visitor to be lost in a maze of web links. A neat search button on the top helps a visitor to search directly for the product on your website, in-case they are short on time. The result page from search needs to show images and links closest to their search term. It can offer suggestions, if there is no exact product that matches their criteria. Think of it as like a real shop but a virtual assistant guiding the visitors

    Great product listings and descriptions

    You would leave a shop instantly if it does not have clean images and product descriptions. As a visitor , you may not develop confidence that a website that does not care to put effort into listing the products properly can deliver what you order ( if you do ) on time and in right shape.

    Great product listings with clear titles and descriptions make it easier for visitors to make a decision about either buying it now or to come back to at a later date .

    Fast Loading

    Fast loading of your website cannot be overemphasized. Slow loading website means lost revenues, customer frustration and penalty from search engines. Slow website also means abandoned carts. There are a number of free tools available for measuring and improving website speed. Don’t let a slow website kill your business.

    Buy now/Wish List/ Add to the cart/ Buy later

    Visitors to your website arrive with different purposes. Some wish to purchase a product immediately ( they are probably familiar with your website). Some are just looking around. Some will buy later. All kinds of visitors should be catered too. An “Add to Wishlist” button for example will make it easier for a visitor to load the products in the cart at a later date .

    While a buy now button will allow them to go directly to checkout and finish the process .

    Allowing customers to add reviews

    Everyone likes a good review. We all tend to glance at reviews even if we don’t intend to purchase a product because of them.

    Good reviews are helpful as a social proof in order to make a buying decision. Bad reviews are essential to understanding customer’s frustration with the product and a chance to improve it.

    Allow all kinds of reviews and product ratings to be placed and if possible, reply to them thanking for putting a review.

     

    Photo by Eugene Capon