Here’s Why You Should Prioritize Customer Service in Your Ecommerce Business?

The e-commerce industry is thriving as more people continue moving to online platforms for buying products and rendering services. Almost everyone is making purchases using e-commerce platforms due to the convenience of getting everything delivered to their doorstep. 

Every kind of business today is rushing towards reliable e-commerce development companies to build their e-commerce platforms in minimal time. 

An e-commerce business, similar to other businesses, comprises multiple processes such as marketing, sales, branding, human resources, accounting and finance, and more. These operations work in synchronization towards the shared goal of making a business successful. 

More often, businesses put all their efforts into performing the mentioned operations better by establishing proper synchronization between various teams meanwhile neglecting customer service. Businesses often take customer services very lightly, thereby putting it on the least priority and hence assigning less workforce for the task. This kind of mistake can severely affect the business's future and reputation.

In this post, we'll be discussing the importance of customer services in the e-commerce industry. We'll also discuss the consequences poor customer service bears on the business. So, let's move forward and learn more about customer service and its impact on businesses.

Why Is Reliable Customer Service More Crucial in the E-commerce Industry?

Customers should always be the number one priority for every business. No matter how good your product and how excellent your services are, a company would not be able to succeed without the proper marketing and advertising strategy. Similarly, a proper customer service strategy must be curated to solve customer queries.

Customer service operations directly deal with the customers and answer their product and service-related queries. The e-commerce industry is a business that runs entirely online, and hence its customers mainly depend on customer service at times of assistance and solving queries.

Therefore, for such an industry whose functioning depends entirely on online customers and their feedback, it's essential to have an efficient customer service strategy for a better shopping experience. 

Let's discuss why robust and efficient customer service is essential for e-commerce businesses. 

#1 Better Customer Service Reflects Into Better Customer Experience

It's imminent that if a customer gets their queries solved in minimal time, their customer experience will improve. 

Today almost all the leading e-commerce businesses allow customers to connect with customer service representatives and get their queries solved in real-time. To strengthen the customer service experience and quickness with which they resolve customer problems, businesses can take the help of some of the top e-commerce solutions such as WooCommerce, Shopify, Magneto, etc. 

These e-commerce solutions allow you to automate the customer service process, thus saving the workforce and simultaneously improvising the customer experience by providing a prompt reply and resolution. Businesses can hire e-commerce developers based on specialized platforms such as WooCommerce developers, Shopify developers, etc., based on their choice.

Hence, to improve overall customer satisfaction and experience, businesses should focus on improving the overall customer service quality and the time taken to resolve the customer's problems. 

#2 Higher Customer Retention 

According to Invesp, existing customers are about 50% more likely to try new products and spend around 30% more than new customers. Hence customer retention is key to a profitable business.

Customer retention highly depends on the quality of the customer service a customer is being provided. A report suggests that after a positive customer experience, 89% of consumers are likely to make another purchase. Therefore businesses should invest in proper customer service infrastructure to provide prompt customer service, thereby improving the customer experience.

#3 Rise in Customer Recommendations

When a customer is satisfied with your e-commerce business's services and products, it's imminent that they'll share their experience with their peers, thus bringing in more leads. These customer recommendations, also called Word-of-Mouth, often function as free unexpected advertising done by the existing customers satisfied with a business and its customer service. 

In a research, it was found that 94% of customers satisfied by the customer service who provide a company a "very good" CX rating will most probably recommend that company to their peers. 

Hence businesses need to prioritize the needs of each customer to provide the best customer experience. The statistics show that it will compel them to recommend the company to their friends and family, leading to an increase in leads for the e-commerce business. 

#4 Better Business Reputation and Credibility

As gathered from the above-discussed points, a good customer experience forged by excellent customer service can lead to higher customer retention, more leads, and brand loyalty. 

Many times after placing an order, customers tend to cancel the order midway due to a lack of customer support from customer service representatives. Similarly, when facing a problem with any product, customers seeking returns or replacements often decide not to make any future purchases when not provided adequate customer support from the business. 

While running a business, it is likely to make mistakes such as delivering the wrong item or, say, a broken item or late deliveries, but what makes the most impact is the assistance customers receive from customer support. According to Salesforce, if a business provides excellent customer service, around 78% of consumers report doing business with the same company again, even if they commit a mistake.

Hence collectively, we can say that a business's credibility and reputation highly depend on the customer service they offer to the clients. 

Suggested Reading: Real-Life E-Commerce Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

#5 Better Sales and Higher Profits

It is proven that loyal customers act as the most crucial resource for an e-commerce business. 

E-commerce businesses often organize mega sales at various times around the year, seeking audience attention and earning profits. Loyal customers are the ones who make the highest number of purchases during this time, thus helping businesses generate the targeted profit margin. 

Moreover, it has been seen that customers are ready to pay a little bit more when making purchases using an e-commerce platform if the business guarantees the best customer service. According to research on US customers, up to 65% of consumers will be willing to pay up to 5% more for a product if guaranteed excellent customer service. 

Hence looking at various aspects, it can be said that with a proper customer service strategy, businesses can maximize sales and achieve better profit margins.

Consequences of Poor Customer Service in E-commerce

We discussed the benefits of reliable customer service for e-commerce businesses. Now let's move forward and check out the consequences of poor customer service for your e-commerce business. 

#1 Rise in Customer Distrust 

We discussed how excellent customer service could easily cover or rectify a mistake done in any form while delivering a service or product to a customer. But the same situation can lead to losing a valuable customer if prompt and reliable customer service is not in place. 

Similarly, a business can lose leads who might be seeking a service or looking forward to purchasing a product from your e-commerce platform if customer service cannot resolve their product-related queries promptly. This type of service creates a bad image of the business in the public eye, fueling customer distrust. 

Hence, without a proper customer service strategy, e-commerce businesses risk losing their reputation in the marketplace while fueling customer distrust.

#2 Switching Brands or Alternative Businesses

In a survey conducted by Microsoft on US consumers, it was found that almost 58% of consumers are likely to switch companies and move to competitors reasoning the poor customer service. This showcases how much customers depend on customer service and how a bad customer service experience can impact any business. 

Regarding e-commerce businesses that wholly operate online, customer service support is the only channel for customers to connect with the company. And if the customer fails to derive the answers, it is imminent that they'll switch to your competitors. 

After all, customers are not shareholders who will stick with a business expecting better results in the future. 

#3 Higher Losses and Lower Sales

Losing even a single customer can jeopardize the future of your e-commerce business. We discussed how Word-of-Mouth could benefit the company after a positive customer experience by bringing in more leads or potential customers. 

But at the same time, Word-of-Mouth following a bad customer experience can lead to more people being acquainted with the suffering of that customer leading to a severe impact on the business reputation. Again this can lead to customers switching to competitors and losing potential customers, leading to lower sales and, ultimately, higher losses.

Tools to Simplify Customer Service

There are many tools available in the market using which ecommerce businesses can reduce the complexities they face in providing prompt customer service. The infographic attached below names some of the key tools used by ecommerce businesses around the world to simplify customer service.

Wrapping Up

Customer service is an essential business operation that businesses should prioritize. It helps businesses build better customer relationships and hence boost brand loyalty. Unfortunately, many companies fail to understand its importance and place it on the least priority. This type of negligence often proves to be a grave mistake for the business and its future. 

In this post, we discussed the importance of customer service and its impact on e-commerce businesses. We discussed the implications of good and poor customer service in an e-commerce business. 

On the ending note, we can say that businesses need to prioritize customer service, especially when talking about e-commerce, to provide the best customer experience and hence build brand loyalty.