Direct-To-Consumer Customer Service: 5 Ways to Get Personal

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If you’re a direct-to-consumer business, your website is more than just a place to sell your products. It’s also the best opportunity you have to show your customers who you are as a brand.

Most if not all of a customer’s interaction with your brand will happen online, which means that empowering your agents to proactively engage with them is key. Connecting a customer with a personalized, knowledgeable human help can turn an “okay” shopping experience into a truly great one—and help turn a one-time shopper into a loyal fan.

We’ve put together a couple of tips to help you make the most of your service team’s efforts, so you can give your customers an experience they’ll want to tell their friends about.

1. Getting help should be easy

Today’s customers use a number of different channels to reach out for help, and they expect to be able to reach your agents through the channels they already use. To help create the most seamless experience possible for your shoppers, you’ll want to integrate support for channels like texting and chat, which have been gaining in popularity among online consumers.

Brands looking to provide an effortless shopping experience will need to go further than simply adding chat support, however—customers looking for help will often send follow-up messages over multiple channels, leading to duplicate tickets, less efficient service, and customer frustration. Most consumers say they expect service agents to know their whole conversation history, so it’s worth considering a software platform like Gladly, which allows an agent to easily view a customer’s communications across all channels.

Proactively communicating with shoppers through chat can also help to smooth the shopping process and ensure that your customers feel cared for. Consider reaching out to customers who have stalled on a product page or during the checkout process.

2. Customers want to feel known

Gladly’s surveys have shown that consumers want to feel known and heard by the brands they shop with. Try to ensure that your service agents have access to a shopper’s name, purchasing history, and recent communications before an interaction begins.

Empowering your service agents with this information can help them make sure a customer feels like a person, not just a ticket. It also gives them the opportunity to go the extra mile by offering personalized recommendations based on shopping history.

3. Take the time to offer exceptional service

Service teams want to be able to resolve any issues quickly and efficiently—but that doesn’t mean they should speed through their interactions with customers.

Taking a few extra minutes to make sure each customer’s cared for helps to build brand loyalty and also drives higher sales: 80% of consumers say they go out of their way to spend more money with the brands they love, and 82% will spend more money on brands with great online service.

Encourage your team to spend the time they need to make each person feel valued, and set them up with tech that can help them make personal suggestions.

4. Keep track of the details

One of the best ways to let a customer know that you care is to add small details you learn about them to their customer profile.

For example, if an agent discovers that a customer is shopping for their child’s birthday, they can mark down the date along with the kind of gifts this customer’s child prefers. Then they can set a reminder to reach out a year from now with a personal note or a set of personalized gift recommendations.

These little gestures can really make a customer feel like a valued guest.

5. Follow up with customers after a sale

Any time your agents make a personal recommendation, encourage them to follow up with a message to see how the customer’s purchase turned out. Did the agent help a customer pick out a new pair of shoes? The agent can set a reminder to follow up once the order arrives and ask to see how the shoes fit and whether the customer wants to see more in that style.

Following up like this with your customers lets them know that you care—and that you’re eager to help if they ever decide that they’re not satisfied.

Are you ready for radically personal service?

You can find these tips and more in one convenient, downloadable package, And if you’re ready to take your online service to the next level, check out Gladly’s integrated, all-in-one service platform.