5 Elements of The Best Customer Experience

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In our modern ecommerce marketplace, customer acquisition has become almost prohibitively expensive. With more retailers to choose from than ever and the ending of third-party cookies, savvy companies have shifted their sights to retention. Now, customer loyalty is the new gold for ecommerce brands, but it’s far from a guarantee.

At the core of the loyalty challenge, tolerance for sub-par customer experience is at an all-time low. Shoppers now operate with a simple two strike rule: after just two bad service experiences, a customer will leave a brand for life. So, where can companies make the biggest impact on customer experience to inspire customer loyalty? By investing in customer service.

Let’s take a look at the five most effective elements of customer service for a better customer experience, and how your ecommerce brand can start earning those loyal, life-long shoppers.

Dynamic Conversations Without Interruption

In ticket-based support systems, individual requests from shoppers are treated case-by-case according to a number. This approach lacks personalization,making it hard to deliver the level of customer service that shoppers expect.

Instead, the best customer experience has dynamic conversations informed by customer’s information and their history of interacting with the brand. If a customer support agent can see the entire breadth of a conversation with a customer, they can more accurately diagnose the problem and send them on their way happily, instead of running around in circles trying to get customers to track down some 10-digit order number.

More Customer Interaction Resources:

Help People, Not Tickets or Cases
Efficient Customer Service Doesn’t Have To Be Impersonal

The Right Level of Personalization

Brands are realizing the power of making customer experiences more personal and directly targeted using their data. Think about a support interaction in the context of a normal conversation, rather than some robotic ticketing fiasco. Using information that shoppers readily share, support agents can address them directly, speak to their recent shopping history and immediate needs, and have better, actionable insight into where they need help next.

When support teams solve customer problems through radical personalization, they foster the kinds of long-term relationships that make shoppers feel appreciated and listened to. This approach is the foundation of building loyalty and turning one-off buyers into repeat spenders.

More Personalization Resources:

Automated Personalization: Using AI for Bespoke CX
Direct-To-Consumer Customer Service: 5 Ways to Get Personal

Sensible Self-Service

Your customer service agents should always be ready and able to solve customer issues. Still, during times of high-volume inquiries, it’s important to protect your staff and customers by bolstering self-service through a mix of technology, personalization, and easy access.

Balancing self-service and human support is key. With real-time FAQs that answer the most repetitive customer issues and AI-driven chatbots that can help sort customer queries can help solve a lot of shoppers’ needs before involving an agent while also keeping customers happy. At the same time, these experiences should seamlessly carry into a conversation with your support team. Your support team should be on hand to take over or elaborate on the conversation, yet another area where personalization and dynamic conversations are key.

More Self Service Resources:

Online Self Service Best Practices
Natively Built-in Customer Self Service

Timely Responses, No Matter the Channel

A common complaint correlated with bad customer experiences is that people feel they’re waiting too long for a response. The best customer support systems must use technology to respond to requests quickly. More importantly, they need to do so on every channel their customers reach out to. But it’s not just about responding on every channel. The key is providing your team with a platform that consolidates all pings into one streamlined experience.

Availability on all channels makes it easy for support agents to meet customers on the platform where they feel the most comfortable communicating. At the same time, it allows customers the freedom to reach out however they please.

Channel & Customer Communication Resources:

Single Conversations, Across Every Channel
Five Ways Channel-Independence Can Save Your CX

Creating Actionable Moments

Brands should ensure total clarity throughout all aspects of the shopper’s journey. But beyond creating navigable customer experiences, customer support agents should also be empowered to drive moments of action and delight proactively. This can include seamless transitions into upselling and engaging and expanding the shopper conversation beyond just the simple context of a question and answer.

Take, for example, Gladly’s Payments tool, which lets vendors accept payment directly in the context of a support conversation. As a result, shoppers can reach out within a chat box, receive assistance from a designated customer service agent, and complete their purchase without any deviation from that single channel. These tools are the extra steps that differentiate the best customer experience from one that is merely satisfactory.

More Upselling & Connecting Resources:

Turning Agents Into Natural Sellers
Drive Online Sales with Proactive Chat + Customer Context

Digital Tooling that Supports the Best Customer Experience

Ecommerce brands are taking advantage of software like Gladly’s to significantly increase their shoppers’ experiences. As a result, companies are noticing more customer loyalty, providing the long-term revenue that helps them thrive in a competitive space.