5 Secrets to an Effective Shopify Store Customer Service

Every business has to deal with customers starting with pre-order processes down to after-order issues and complaints. There is so much that happens in every transaction and when issues arise especially after a customer orders and receives the product, a good customer service strategy along with highly trained support agents should come into play.

A successful business can’t ignore the role of customer service but making sure that your team is performing well is an enormous challenge. Finding skilled agents for instance already is a tedious task. Training them and ensuring that they have the right attitude for every type of mood that a customer might have is just another part of the overall challenge.

Skills and overall attitude really matters in customer service and if you are to make your Shopify business grow not just with new customers but also increase in the number of loyal ones, having an effective customer service would really be of great help.

Effective Customer Service Strategies for Shopify

Through the years, Shopify store owners have used several strategies in order to take care of customer issues and resolve complaints. Back in the days when customer service apps were not yet available, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and other email services were used as a method for customers to get in touch with support agents. This strategy has been effective in collecting every query and putting them all in one place but the issue is in categorizing each email and getting the most urgent ones answered in the quickest time possible.

Thankfully, developers have come up with some apps that work seamlessly in Shopify and even have some tools that can help group similar issues and queries so they can be answered by agents who are most knowledgeable in their assigned areas. But aside from providing a good customer service system, giving your customers a way in contacting your business bears more benefit than you think and that’s what we’re going to discuss in this article.

But before getting into that part of the topic, here are some essential customer service strategies that you can employ in your Shopify store business.

1. Offer More Than One Method For Customers To Get In Touch

Back when customer service apps were yet available, Shopify business owners only offered customers contact with support agents via email. This has been a big problem especially for customers who need quick issue resolution since typing a response for every query really takes time.

And when there’s too many email messages, some are not answered and resolved within the day. A late response is a useless response as they say and when such responses come late all the time, customers have the high possibility of turning angry or disappointed.

This is a very bad happening that you need to prevent at all cost and one way that you can do so is by offering not just one but two or more methods for customers to get in touch with your customer service agents. You can still use emails but if you have the budget then definitely try some apps that will enable live chat, phone support, and any other method that you see fit. Doing this will ensure that customer issues are resolved quickly every single time!

2. Assign Agents To Different Departments

No all customers would ask for a refund. Others are just concerned about their product not being delivered to them while there are some who would simply want to ask for a tracking number so they can know where their order already is. To effectively serve all customers within a day’s shift, you can divide your customer service team into different groups whom you will train for answering certain customer queries for their assigned department.

Give them clear guidelines and teach them your store’s policies so that everyone says the same thing. Customers want to know that the agent they are talking to actually knows how to resolve their issue so be sure to train and inform your customers with every crucial detail so they can give the correct answers every time.

3. Equip Your Agents With Every Human Skill

Human skills are also referred to as soft skills and they can become a valuable asset for your customer service team to have. Agents should not only answer questions and resolve problems; they must also be able to gain your customer’s trust along the way. That is why equipping them with the right human skills is important and if you’re struggling to understand what these skills are, here’s a list for your reference:

- Empathy

- Compassion

- Adaptability

- Patience

- Honesty

Customers can have different moods as they approach your shop so be sure to train your agents on how to apply human skills as they deal with each one. Doing this will increase your shop’s overall trust rating and even turn customers into loyal ones especially as they get more engaged and develop friendship with your agents.

4. Resolve Urgent Issues Speedily

Customer is always right and even if they are wrong, you need to still be able to offer resolution to the underlying issue if you want to keep them loyal to your brand. There are several issues that customers can experience but making sure that you’re resolving the urgent ones as quickly as possible is very important.

You don’t want to wait until customers are fed up before offering a resolution as they can turn into a negative review machine very quickly. Tell your customer service team to always deal with the urgent issues first to prevent any loss from refunds, chargebacks, and other related problems that will contribute to the overall decline of your ones successful brand.

5. Be There For Them All The Time

This doesn’t just point to 24/7 customer support but also being there for your customers in every step of the overall journey that they take as they make business with your shop. Some customers may have questions about placing an order, others would like to ask about size or design variant, there are some that would want to be offered discount. There are several instances and situations where customers need the presence of your support agents so be sure that someone is taking care of such situations every time.

Of course, providing 24/7 customer service is a must especially if you’re selling worldwide so definitely make sure that there’s always someone who’s online in your support team so that customer queries are getting answered and resolved no matter what time of the day or night it is.

Customer Service: An Important Tool For Customer Retention!

Growing your Shopify Store business does not only depend on your marketing strategies and how big your ad campaign expenditures are. It’s not just getting new leads and website visits. It’s also about customer retention and one way that customers can stay loyal to your brand is by offering them with the best customer service that’s possible.

Some say it’s expensive to pay for support agents but the truth is there are several ways on how you can save in this matter. You can go for outsourcing and find Filipino customer service agents for instance. Doing so will save you in salaries and benefits but of course, don’t forget to also invest in training and further skills improvement if you really want to get the best out of your customer service efforts.

Efficient customer service doesn’t just solve problems; it should be able to turn customers into loyal ones as well. Make it a goal for your support team and you’ll see how this simple tool can turn into a double edged sword that will make your Shopify business sharper and bigger in time!

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