Shopify Tips: Best Practices For Your Customer Support Department

Through the years, Shopify has been topping any list that talk about the best in e-commerce. Whether it’s for being simple yet efficient or for the many different businesses that can run an online sales campaign through its beautifully designed platform, Shopify simply has captivated the hears of businessmen and women around the world which other e-commerce platforms failed to achieve. One of the aspects of the Shopify platform which several customers really love and admire is its very efficient customer support.

No matter what type of business it is that you see out there, customer service is always part of their business model. This department plays a crucial role in taking care and solving customer issues about your product or brand in the friendliest manner. It is through customer support that buyers learn what your business really is about and with the right attitude exhibited by your agents, this aspect of your business can easily turn into an asset that will drive sales on to the next level.

Why You Need Customer Support

Ask any of the most successful global brands right now and you will see that one of their secrets is customer support. It is customer support that businesses need in order to build trust and good reputation among its customers and even its prospective customers. When your customer support team performs very well, your business becomes more productive. Satisfied customers become loyal ones and when loyal ones speak, all those doubters and skeptics would start listening.

As an important foundational pillar for your Shopify business, customer support is probably one that you should never ignore! It is something that needs some serious focus and as you start growing your business, your customer support team should also go with that growth. You can’t have an enormous shop and only hire a single customer support agent. The bigger the shop, the more agents you would need and the more training they would need to have.

Customer support is how you ensure that your business is doing well even in after-order scenarios and situations and this stage of the customer’s journey is crucial as it is the part where they would remember how well you treated them, how efficient your customer service agents were in solving their issues and problems, and how trustworthy and truthful your business is overall.

Shopify Store Customer Support Best Practices

So now that we’re done talking about the importance of customer support to your online business, let us start exploring the best practices that you need to adopt in order to have an efficient customer support team. It is crucial that you focus on this one important pillar because it is one of the secrets to achieving overall success. So let’s start learning the best things that you can do one by one from the list below:

Start With the Basics: Training

Hiring someone that already has a background in BPO and other jobs related to customer service is definitely a good idea. But no matter how experienced your first agent is, he/she still needs to be trained with the kind of tools and overall strategy that you want to implement for your business’s customer support department. Give your newly hired agents enough training and tour them through your business so they can be familiar with what your product is all about and learn what kind of tools they’re going to use for the job.

Some Shopify stores prefer using just email while others would want to use voice calls. There is much option for your customer support department to choose from but if you’re out of budget, you can start offering email customer support as a starting point.

Hire Agents Who Possess Innate Human Skills

Human skills or what is also known as “Soft Skills” are essential interpersonal skills which some people possess and others are even born with it. But these human skills can also be learned and that is why the need of the first step we’ve listed above. Agents that have good human skills are rare but if you find one, definitely hire him/her so you can have a good example of how the skills actually work.

When your customer support agents are able to empathize with customers and make them feel comfortable, your business will surely become a magnet. Positivity attracts good karma so strive to build up a team that possesses good human skills and your customer service department will surely be loved by everyone!

Give Clear Resolutions and Processes

One thing that most customers hate is when they feel they are being fooled or played upon by customer service agents. But these agents are not to be blamed especially if it’s the fault of the business owner! That is why you need to prepare some steps that every customer should follow and your support agents must be able to know what these steps are.

Refunds is the most common issue that agents face each day so making an advance process flow for this will surely save time while increasing your overall profit. It is also crucial that your agents are trained on what to do for specific problems being reported to them. Preparing response templates for different issues that could arise is also a good strategy especially if you’re only offering email support.

Offer Help Proactively

A good customer service agent is one that is capable of foreseeing the problems and any additional conflict that could arise in every interaction that the business has with its customers. Being able to know and see things in advance is an awesome gift and imagine if you can apply that to your business. Being proactive is being able to see what lies ahead so that proper measures can be done and in customer support, it would mean being able to offer help even before customers ask.

Be sure to check with your support agents every now and then to see which problems really occur in common and once you zero in on that, you can start formulating any steps that are needed to solve such issues. This is how to be proactive and how you can offer such to your customers.

Communicate with Clarity

Another complain that I keep seeing when it comes to Shopify business growth and development is the fact that there are times when customer support agents don’t even know how to speak proper English. While we agree that speaking is a gift and being able to communicate effectively with others is another one of those gifts, being an online customer support agent would require such gifts and skills in order to be as effective as possible.

This matters even more if you’re planning to sell products online. Being able to speak good English and deliver message with clarity is one important rule when choosing an agent so take all the time you need before picking the final choice.

Conclusion

Customer support has always been and will always be an important part of any business and if we talk about a global business like a Shopify store, it is everything! We say that because it is the big reality that every online businessman or woman needs to be aware of. It is not just the shop’s design, its streamlined checkout process, or the beautifully written product descriptions that matter, it is also the customer support team that makes or breaks a business.

That is why it’s important that you give time developing a strong one. Helping customers ensures continuity of your business and it builds good reputation. Your store may close at any point in the future but if you were able to provide for your customers the best pre-order and post-order experiences, they will surely remember you by that. Start building a team today and just develop it as time goes by.

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