Everyone knows time is money. So here are some uncommonly thought of ways to save your company money by saving your customer service team time.
1. Force or Auto-select Your Free Shipping Option
This has to be one of the most common issues on eCommerce websites. Either a customer thinks the paid option might be faster (then complains when it’s not) or they are in a hurry and miss the free shipping option until after checkout. Processing refunds takes up a good amount of time, especially if you have internal review processes for them. Instead, help your customers help themselves: auto-select free shipping options when they are available or force free shipping.
In Magento there is no easy way to do this 100% of the time, so you’ll either need to use a checkout extension or have your developer make this update for you.
2. Orders & Returns Page
Including a page where guests or logged in users can check the status of their order or return can cut down on the amount of time your team spends answering inquiries. Be sure to link to this page in any of your related transactional emails, FAQ and other helpful areas.
3. Label Your Icons
Everyone reading this post probably knows what a hamburger menu is and what it means. That doesn’t mean your customers do. Even those of us who know icons well probably can’t guess all of these:
Reformation might be able to get away with this because they give you the answer when you hover over them. But honestly, how many people do you think just completely missed these icons and bailed on making a purchase because they never moused over those icons? Keep it simple, keep it obvious and just put a label on your icon like this:
Want proof? Read this study on icon usability.
4. Deals or Offers Page
Customers are not always the best at figuring out how to use a coupon. Especially if the deal you are running is a little more complicated; such as a BOGO or free X with purchase of Y. This is where having a deals or offers page can help you cut down on customer questions. Simply update the page with your current deals and include short instructions on how to take advantage of them.
5. Offer Weight Conversions
If you sell anything by weight, volume, etc. then it’s time to offer conversions right there on the product page. Customers don’t want to Google X lbs to X kg and if you’re sending them away from the product page, your probably loosing them anyways. Your customer service team is probably tired of having to Google this for your customers as well.
6. Touch & Hover
Are you hiding important information behind touch or hover effects? Almost everyone is because it’s about the only way to clean up a website with a lot of content. Still, even the best of us have been duped by these effects and missed what we were looking for. Don’t make your customers waste time crawling through your website trying to find the information they need. Or sending your customer service team questions because they didn’t see it. Just tell them the effect is there.
A handy indicator like this wastes no one’s time!
7. Show Chat When There’s No Queue
No one likes to wait in line and most customers forget to check the chat window after they move away from it. Save your customer service team a little time by only showing the chat window when an agent is available immediately. Otherwise, the chat link should be hidden so customers are encouraged to email or call with their question. Many livechat providers such as LivePerson and Zopim offer this functionality.
8. Set Timing Expectations
Do you emails go into a queue and send every 5 minutes? Tell your customer that their confirmation email may take a few minutes to appear in their inbox on your confirmation or success page. Does processing the order take a couple days on top of shipping time? Settings these expectations on the confirmation page can help save your customer service team from answering these common questions.
9. List Product Components & Amounts
Do your products have ingredients in them? List them. Is your product a set? List each component and how many of each there are. Even if the image shows this information, customers may not “believe” the image. Instead they’ll want to see something in writing.
10. Update Your FAQ
Too many store managers neglect this page, but customers with questions often head straight here. Customers who are in a rush or simply don’t want to talk to a customer service agent will often times give up after taking a look at your FAQ. Meaning you lose a sale! If you haven’t updated it in the past year, take a moment to sit down with your customer service team and review it. Doing this at least once a year will help you stay on top of any regular questions or concerns customers have.
