Read this if you Want to Choose the Right Customer Support Channels for Your Ecommerce Brand

_{Looking for the best ecommerce helpdesk support that works with the channels your brand uses to provide support? Check out our guide below!}

The key to success in business is always a happy customer.

And your customer-facing teams tackle this job daily – from helping curious shoppers and addressing post-purchase issues to managing technical glitches and more.

eCommerce helpdesk support software can increase their efficiency – and as a result, your business’ customer satisfaction score – exponentially.

But how can they accomplish so much more? Do they really?

And to start with, what are these softwares? Does your business really need one? How do you figure out which one is the best fit for you?

We explore all this and more in our blog below!

What is an eCommerce helpdesk?

An eCommerce helpdesk software is an integrative tool designed to centralise support requests onto a single dashboard for your team to then sort through, assign, and manage.

What does business look like without one?

Imagine switching between multiple channels to review incoming and ongoing support tickets and customer communications.

Email. Chat. WhatsApp. Facebook. Instagram. Twitter.

And these are just the most popular ones!

Trying to keep an eye on multiple (and ever-growing) conversations across so many platforms can result in great overwhelm for your teams.

This inevitably turns into some kind of delay, confusion, complication, or miscommunication, leaving customers unhappy and your employees under more pressure than they can handle.

In times like these, helpdesks are your friend.  

Omnichannel VS Multi-Channel Customer Support

When choosing a support solution for your business, it’s important to consider your options between omnichannel support and multi-channel helpdesks first.

Multi-channel helpdesks offer businesses a streamlined view of all customer interactions at a single access point, just as any helpdesk would do.

Omnichannel softwares take this one step further though.

These powerful eCommerce helpdesk softwares equip your team with the ability to store and transfer customer data between channels to provide seamless communication.

But what does omnichannel approach mean?

Let’s say a customer raises a ticket over chat, but would now like to speak to an agent over the phone. Once redirected, the customer would have to go over all the details all over again for the new agent handling the call.

But if the company uses an omnichannel customer support approach, this would look very different.

In this case, a new agent would be able to access the same data presented to the previous agent, and pick up from where they left off without the customer having to repeat themself!

Why does this difference matter?

An omnichannel approach to customer service optimizes your team’s efficiency to do their job.

It cuts the redundancy out of conversations and due processes since neither party needs to gloss over the details repeatedly.

As minimal as repeating yourself can be, it still consumes significant time and energy.

With all that out of the way, your employees will definitely see an increase in their productivity.

And when your customer-facing teams are doing well, your customers are bound to be happier too.

Here’s a glimpse at how your business stands to benefit most:

• Employees are able to offer or redirect support with better speed
• Arriving at quicker resolutions frees up time to pay better attention to more serious tickets
• Agents can jot down notes between interactions to ensure a consistent, well-informed, and personalized conversation for the customer each time

Clearly, omnichannel support is the best eCommerce helpdesk software choice you can make!

Omnichannel, eCommerce, and you

When done right, eCommerce helpdesk support can help you to better understand your customers and what they need and want.

What are the most common customer queries and how can they be resolved? Which locations do customers experience issues with their orders most?

Questions like these can help frame valuable, data-backed insights with greater clarity.

You can then use these to target improvement to grow your business with a higher precision like never before.

How to implement helpdesk support for your eCommerce brand

With customers flitting between apps, websites, marketplaces, social media, and brick-and-mortar stores, creating a smooth experience for them across sales channels is critical.

It can be tempting to make support available to your customers everywhere possible.

In reality, this will cost you a lot more than it needs to.

Instead, it’s important to analyse your business’ needs, and then match support solutions and online channels accordingly.

The best way to do this is to –

• Identify the different platforms you have as options
• Understand what solutions or features each one offers
• Align your business needs with the channels that solve what you require most

To make this process a lot simpler, we’ve detailed an exhaustive list in the section below!

Choosing which channels you should run support on

Phone

Trying to resolve an issue over the phone isn’t always the most efficient.

Then why do most escalated issues move to a call?

To put it simply – human connection.

When you’re feeling flustered, hearing an understanding voice brings comfort like no other.

What’s more, is that a voice at the other end of the line invokes a sense of familiarity and approachability.

This makes telephonic support one channel your eCommerce helpdesk support software should include without fail, regardless of what industry your business operates within.

Pro tip: Make sure to conduct in-depth training for your teams. Doing so will ensure a consistent brand tone when speaking to customers. Being familiar with your product, company, and different processes don’t hurt either!

Email

If you think email is a thing of the past, you’re mistaken.

Yes, its versatility and ease of use make it an obvious choice for customer support reps, but what about customers?

As it turns out, over 90% of customers prefer email to express their grievances too.

Customers feel they are taken more seriously over email exchanges because of the professional lingo the channel demands, and also because everything is being documented.

They also prefer it to other support channels since it doesn’t require customers to be active constantly to be assured of a resolution.

So much like phone support, email is here to stay too, and should be on your list of choice platforms.

Pro tip: One of the top complaints regarding email support is the significant delay (or complete lack of!) in response time. When automating the initial reply to tickets raised, add a timeframe within which your team will get back to the customer – the key is to keep it realistic! Don’t overshoot your word by offering overly ambitious response times.

Chat

Live chat, chatbots, Messenger, and even SMS and WhatsApp – these are some of the most accessible communication channels prevalent today.

What makes them so attractive is the ability to have short, quick conversations right away.

The icing on the cake, however, is that it combines the best qualities that call and email support offer.

With responses made in real-time, customers feel a personal connection while also communicating on their own time and terms.

Opting for chat support is wise if your business receives a high volume of tickets and queries across multiple channels regularly.

If not, it’s still worth considering if your budget permits it.

Pro tip: With the advancement of automation and AI, chat support solutions are smarter than ever. Many are capable of handling a good portion of your marketing team’s efforts too!

Social media

People take to social media all the time to vocalize their grievances with different brands. Especially if they’re unable to reach you elsewhere.

So it only makes sense then that the eCommerce industry leveraged this.

On Twitter, brands tweet users back to extend support on a different channel. On Instagram and Facebook, customers frequently use DMs and comments to get in touch when all else fails.

With quick, personalised responses and public displays of support, social media can champion you as a trustworthy, reliable brand that does right by its customers.

But a mishap or conversation gone awry can leave your reputation with a mark for all to see.

This makes it all the more critical to keep your socials active, running, and most importantly, customer-centric.

If you don’t feel confident enough yet or are still building your brand, you need to evaluate the strength of your team for this choice.

Because at the end of the day, customer support on social media closely toes the line between good and bad PR.

And contrary to what they say, any PR is not always good PR.

Pro tip: When using social media as a designated support site, keep customers informed of any downtime caused by app crashes, software issues, etc. with a post on the platform itself!

FAQ/Knowledge and resource centre

Users understand that seeking support can be more time-consuming than they can manage at the moment.

This is why one of the first instincts consumers have today is to look for an online guide, video tutorial, or FAQ page.

Acting on customers’ self-serving inclination can help you cut costs, tickets, and support time significantly, while offering assistance organically, 24/7.

Moreover, the bulk of a central knowledge base can be created in one go and with great ease.

All it takes is identifying, grouping, and categorising common queries that come your way.

How you choose to present this information is entirely up to you, but we recommend starting with a page on your website or store first.

From there, you can continue to build Instagram guides and how-to highlights, create video tutorials and walkthroughs, and so much more!

Pro tip: Integrating your knowledge base with other support software can also help cut costs. For instance, you can automate responses on a chatbot so that it pulls up the matching query from your FAQ page.

Community forum

There’s no better marketing than a glowing review from a verified customer.

Seeing one immediately boosts your confidence in the purchase you’re about to make – such is the power of trust when it comes from an authentic source.

Similarly, customer support can come from existing customers, helping to resolve issues without your team having to step in.

The perfect example of a community forum leveraged as a customer support channel would be Apple.

Existing users answer questions informed by their own experiences, and the solutions provided are made stronger and more varied with more responses constantly coming in.

Pro tip: When you begin setting up an online community for support solutions, you won’t have many responses. Answer a bulk of these in great detail to get the ball rolling, and consider offering a rewards or points system for every answer a user provides.

Wrapping up

By offering customers an array of support options, you empower them with the control to choose how they approach you based on their preferences.

And if you’re still unsure whether or not a channel is a right fit for you, put it on hold till it seems like a more viable option.

After all, you can always add more support options to your arsenal over time.

The next step is choosing the best eCommerce helpdesk software for your business.

You want to choose a singular dashboard that acts as a command centre for all your teams to streamline essential processes and communications seamlessly.

But what if we told you that you could have that and more?

Putting the ‘e’ in eCommerce – LimeChat’s revolutionary helpdesk for Shopify

Not enough brands tap into the full potential of new-age technology and today’s Internet revelations.

But it’s not easy to know where to start with so many options out there.

Which is why we help you get started, and then get running at breakneck speed!

To paint you a picture, here are some of our guaranteed results:

• Automate 70% of customer queries
• Increase conversions by 23% with timely responses
• Reduce cart abandonment by 13%
• Boost retention by 30%

How have we achieved these numbers for over 125 brands?

With the power of AI!

LimeChat’s eCommerce helpdesk support software is powered by state-of-the-art Level 3 Artificial Intelligence – the first of its kind in the world!

Our powerhouse of a helpdesk comes equipped with tools that automate and personalise support efforts, and work to turn queries into strategic sales!

Queries signify an interest or existing investment in your brand – which you shouldn’t let go to waste!

Our technology captures this data to build customer profiles that are then used to suggest custom, personalised product recommendations to a user!

LimeChat helps your brand use these insights to grow your marketing and remarketing efforts with strategy and precision as well.

So what are you waiting for? Book a demo with us today to see the magic for yourself!

Check out our next post in our series here- How to create a customer support strategy for your ecommerce business

This post is the fourth in our Masterclass series on Ecommerce Customer Support & Service, where we will go through an in-depth understanding of the current expectations and strategies some of the best D2C brands use and how to execute them in simple, actionable ways.