Technology has played a key role in making businesses more competitive than ever. Smart businesses are making the best use of available tools and technology to get an edge over their competitors. Thanks to the same technology, small businesses are able to compete with bigger enterprises. The gap is closing, but there is one distinguishing factor that can make the biggest difference – customer service.

Customer service is one of the main element that makes many customers choose smaller enterprises over large multinational corporations. According to the survey, consumers are willing to spend 17% more on businesses that offer great customer service. They are more likely to buy from them again.

It gets even more important for online business. Customers are generally more skeptic when buying online. They have more queries and bigger concerns. If your team isn’t readily available to provide a satisfactory answer, you will lose credibility and customer.

You need to go the extra mile to deliver exceptional online customer service. You need to make your customers more comfortable than they are shopping in a brick and mortar store.

How To Enhance Online Business Customer Service

Here are seven customer service tips that are bound to take your online business to the next level.

Give it a Personal Touch

Nothing is more personal than talking face to face, but there are many ways to make your online correspondence more personal. Customers like it when a business is able to connect on a personal level. They like it when it feels like they are talking to a friend and not to a sales representative.

The key to personalization knows your customers better. Other than their name and age, it pays to know their interests, shopping history, items in their wish list, etc. Your sales team must learn to utilize that information and available data to offer more helpful advice and answers.

Make every customer feel like they are the most valued ones. Train your team to talk in a friendly yet no-nonsense tone that can win their trust and loyalty.

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Offer Multiple Channels

Nearly 57% of customers prefer customer service via phone. It is a huge chunk,but if you only focus on it, you will be sending the remaining 43% away. Some of them prefer emails, online chat, or even contact forms. Very few people still prefer writing letters or paying personal visits to the office. There are multiple ways to get in touch with a business,and you need to offer all of them.

With a shift in customer behavior, we are also witnessing a rise in social media queries. Nearly 40% of customers expect a business to respond to queries on social media. The sooner you answer, the better your chances of winning a new customer.

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Streamline the Process

For ages, the customer service industry remained plagued by agent-to-agent transfers. No one likes to listen to that awkward music for 15 minutes. Customers prefer online business because they want to save time. Your customer service should maintain pace with their lifestyle. Make sure all your representatives are able to help customers without transferring the call to another agent. It is annoying and a modern day customer might just hang up.

When you make customers wait and hold for too long, it just shows that you have little respect for their time. So, streamline the whole process to save your own and your customer’s time.

Hire People Who Know Your Business

Training your team is one thing, but there should be prerequisites for hiring customer service representatives. Someone who understands your product and business better will help you sell better. You can guide them on tone and etiquette. You can provide them with a list of FAQs, but customer queries can be unpredictable sometimes.

Let’s take an example of an online car buying and selling the store, a customer representative dealing with scrap car buyers will have to deal with different customers interested in different cars. Prior interest in and knowledge about cars can be a huge advantage. They can guide customers better about all the technicalities that aren’t obvious from the specs and features.

Initiate Conversation

Not all customers care to complain. If they don’t like your service, they would just leave and chose your competitor. A whopping 96 % of unhappy customers don’t complain; they just leave. There is also a chance that they would leave a bad review elsewhere, without talking to you.

Therefore, it is important to follow up after every engagement. If they aren’t coming up with complaints, check to see if they were satisfied with the last interaction. If they aren’t, then you can take appropriate actions to make amends before they chose your competitor.

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Reward Your Best Customers

Is there a customer who makes frequent purchases? Is there is a customer who actively engages with your social media posts? Is there are a customer that always responds to your emails?

These are your best customers, and they should know that you value them more than others. Show your appreciation through regular reward programs. Create exclusive offers for those customers to encourage higher engagement. Reward programs can make a world of difference for your online business. They work wonders for retention and loyalty.

Automate Smartly

Automation has done a lot for customer service. CRM has changed the way businesses, and customers interact with others. However, nothing beats the human factor. Too much of automation will kill the friendly, empathetic, and helpful vibe you want to create. Some people still prefer talking to a live agent then receiving an auto-generated series of responses.

Use automation by all means but always give your customers the option to connect to an agent without going through all the recordings and automated chats.

Conclusion

Customer service is all about being there for your customers whenever and however they need you. For an online business, good customer service can be one of the biggest advantages over competitors. Connect to your customers as a friend who cares, learn more about their interests, and listen to their needs. Make smarter use of technology when needed. This is precisely the best recipe for flawless customer service.

About Michelle Joe: Michelle Joe is a blogger by choice. She loves to discover the world around her. She likes to share her discoveries, experiences, and express herself through her blogs. Currently, she is associated with Webuycarstoday Team.

7 Customer Service Tips to Enhance Your Online Business