7 eCommerce Contact Center Dos and Don’ts

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For eCommerce brands, the contact center is more than just a necessity.

It’s also your front desk, your greeter, that friendly employee who offers help to shoppers who look a bit lost—in short, it’s one of your best chances to make sure your customers know who you are as a brand and know that you care.

In our latest set of customer service tips for eCommerce brands, we’re giving you a quick-but-critical list of practices that can set your brand’s contact center apart—and some mistakes that can bring down your brands’ whole support experience. Whether you’re setting up a contact center for the first time or are looking to continually improve your brand’s CX, the following checklist will help you make the most of your contact center.

Contact center Do’s

Use a channel-independent strategy

Yes, we know it’s referred to as a contact center—but that doesn’t mean it should be just for phone calls.

Today’s consumers increasingly want to reach your service team using a wide array of different channels, including texting, chat, and social media messaging. They also use these channels interchangeably according to convenience, and surveys show that most consumers expect their conversations to move seamlessly across channels.

A channel-independent solution like Gladly’s all-in-one customer service platform allows your agents to move between channels without switching tabs or looking up past service tickets—it’s easier for the customer and easier for your agents.

Provide a personalized experience

Great service is all about people—and consumers consistently say they’re more likely to return to brands who recognize them and treat them like more than a ticket number. That means your service heroes need to be equipped and encouraged to provide a more personal experience.

Look for tech solutions that allow your agents to view a customer’s personal information and conversation history right off the bat, so they can greet each shopper by name and provide personalized recommendations.

“It’s amazing to be able to quickly scroll up and see what I said previously to a customer. It allows me to understand the customer’s history with our brand.”

Alexa Adler

Head of Customer Experience, Jupiter Haircare

Leverage online chat and self-service options

Not every customer wants to talk on the phone—and funneling all requests for help through your contact center can lead to long wait times and frustrated shoppers.

Accessible online chat gives your customers options when it comes to how they’d like to reach out to agents, and robust self-service options can help your customers help themselves, cutting down on call volume and clearing the way for more efficient service.

Leverage your interactive voice response to efficiently route your calls

One of the best ways to cut down on wait times for your customers is to leverage the power of your interactive voice response (IVR) system to route calls to the service heroes who can best help them. Gladly’s customer service platform allows you to route calls based on customer history, situation, or needs—so you can ensure that each customer gets to the agent who can best help them to resolve their issues quickly.

Contact center don’ts

Limit yourself by piecing together software systems

Many brands provide cross-channel support by trying to integrate multiple software systems into a single support framework. Unfortunately, juggling or piecing together multiple software solutions isn’t a great alternative to a genuinely channel-independent platform.

Switching between windows and tabs may not seem like a major issue, but the majority of service agents report that juggling tabs is one of their greatest frustrations with their job—and constantly switching between windows can quickly siphon off your team’s efficiency.

Be dismissive or defensive

If there’s one thing you never want to do in customer service, it’s to make a customer feel like they don’t matter to you—or that your agents are an obstacle they need to fight through to get the help they need.

Instead, train and encourage your service heroes to use compassionate, empathetic language. Every customer should know that their problem matters to your brand and that caring, human support is only a phone call (or chat message) away.

Leave your customers waiting

Let’s be honest: even the catchiest hold music gets pretty old after four or five minutes. And when you’re waiting to get the help you need, that five minutes can start to feel like an eternity.

One of the simplest but most effective ways to improve your customer experience is to minimize wait times and ensure that your customers get answers quickly. Avoid infinitely long IVR trees and long holds—as mentioned above, robust self-service and chat options can go a long way toward cutting your average wait time.

Radically personal eCommerce customer support with Gladly

Gladly’s all-in-one customer service platform isn’t just radically simple and easy to use—it’s also designed to transform your customer experience by putting people first. Gladly brings all of a consumer’s personal information, purchasing history, and previous conversations into a seamless, integrated view, empowering your service heroes to build relationships with them over the course of a single, lifelong conversation.