As the ecommerce market becomes more competitive, businesses need to find more ways to stand out and make a positive impression with their customers. Customer service during and after the transactional stage is a critical area that can either put you ahead of the pack or leave you in the dust.
When it comes to out-of-the-box ecommerce solutions, there are no shortage of benefits that make it a justifiable decision to move forward with. It’s quick to set up, has a pre-existing relationship with merchant bank accounts, maintains adequate compliance standards, and is more cost-effective than building it yourself.
Having said that, however, there is one element that a ready to deploy payment solution likely won’t be able to provide you with: a personalized customer service team dedicated to helping your customers, which can make a monumental impact on your revenue and retention.
Fortunately, you don’t have to choose between personalized customer service or a third-party payment processing solution – you can do both. By finding the right partner, you can continue to leverage your existing ecommerce platform while also augmenting it with a customer service component.
According to a recent Walker study, customer experience is actually expected to overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by the end of 2020, making it one of - if not the most - significant areas of opportunity to optimize and capitalize on. In fact, another study suggests that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more just to have a positive experience when transacting with brands.
With this knowledge in mind, what is it specifically about customer service programs that are making them so powerful? What are the key benefits? How can this specifically be applied to customers who are either making their purchase or following up on it? Here are a few aspects to think about:
Customers Will Remember It.
In a world where personalization is becoming paramount for online businesses to succeed, having a customer service program in place to support shoppers who make purchases from your store allows them to establish a more intimate connection with your brand, which allows them to receive personalized answers to their questions. By giving your customers the opportunity to interact with a human, it will leave a far more positive impression and lasting impact.
Boosts Brand Loyalty.
This goes hand in hand with the section above. If customers are given a channel to connect with an actual human being to provide more in-depth context to their purchase or billing inquiries, it has a much higher chance of leading to a successful resolution and boosting that customer’s loyalty to your brand, compelling them to do more business with you in the future. One study suggests that nearly half of all loyal customers will spend more money on your business than they normally would.
Offers a Competitive Advantage.
If your competitors are only using a plugin ecommerce platform with no supplemental customer service option in place, there’s a good chance that their shoppers will likely need to resort to email or a ticketing process to find answers to their questions. This could sour their experience and drive them to choose another company that can provide them with a more positive one.
Additional Billing Support.
Should your shoppers have any questions or concerns about their invoices, having a live team in place to handle their inquiries will help mitigate any further steps from being taken by the customer to potentially cancel the transaction. Even if they are reaching out to request a refund, it is far better to have a team in place to manage this process than to risk them resorting to contacting their bank and submitting a chargeback dispute.
Reduces Chargebacks.
This is an important one. In the scenario above, if a customer wants to request a refund but has no clear channel to do that, they might resort to initiating a chargeback instead, which can be incredibly damaging to your ecommerce business if it is not being properly managed. In addition to this, customers who transact with companies that use third-party payment platforms run a higher risk of initiating a chargeback or trying to challenge the transaction due to the billing description appearing under a different name. When leveraging a customer service team that can be reached immediately and provide that context, you can win a lot of chargeback disputes before they even begin.
As mentioned earlier, businesses do not have to choose between an out-of-the-box payment processing option or a platform that offers personalized service. There are ample advantages to having both in place, and the most successful ecommerce businesses are currently doing this.
The Origins Ecommerce payments platform is designed to be the engine that supercharges your ecommerce operations. Not only does Origins Ecommerce provide you with a knowledgeable support team that can handle billing and payment inquiries, but they’ll also be able to provide other support and best practices to help your business.
On top of that, Origins Ecommerce offers a fully integrated payments solution, so that you have the complete picture of who your purchasers are, and what each of their individual journeys have looked like, without needing to set aside a bunch of time to do this manually.
If you’re interested in learning more, or taking the first step towards enriching your customer service efforts, take the first step with Origins Ecommerce and book a demo with us today.
