7 Strategies To Improve Customer Satisfaction In 2023
To quote Zendesk’s Customer Experience Trends Report from 2022, managing customer satisfaction is now a “high-stakes game,” with 61% of customers prepared to defect to a competitor after one bad experience. Therefore, it’s no surprise that more companies are prioritizing their customer experience, given that over half of consumers now expect a higher standard from their favorite brands.
Why Should You Prioritize Customer Satisfaction in Your E-Commerce Business?
Today, there’s more transparency than ever between top brands and consumers, and it’s allowed brands to foster deeper and more meaningful connections with customers. However, it’s also given customers the ability to express feedback both privately and publicly, share their experiences with others, and hold brands accountable, which is why maintaining customer satisfaction is so crucial. When customers leave an interaction feeling satisfied and valued, they’re more likely to express loyalty to a brand by:
- Returning to make repeat purchases
- Referring to their friends & family
- Enrolling in subscriptions
- Leaving positive reviews online
These powerful actions not only save your brand money on marketing efforts for attracting new leads, but they will also increase your CLTV by improving loyalty and retention amongst previous or existing customers.
How to Improve Customer Satisfaction with a Few Techniques and Strategies
Improving customer satisfaction in your business doesn’t have to be rocket science, and we’re here to prove it. To get started on making customer satisfaction a hallmark of your e-commerce brand, dive into our top 7 strategies below.
1. Offer omnichannel customer service
Omnichannel customer service is absolutely essential for your e-commerce brand, as seamless communication across all channels benefits both your customers and your team. When customer service agents can quickly and efficiently get up to speed on a ticket or inquiry, it prevents unnecessarily long hold times for customers. Plus, when your agents aren’t spending time gathering data to resolve and close a ticket, they’re able to address more inquiries and keep ticket queues manageable. Here are a few ways we suggest optimizing your omnichannel customer service strategies to communicate efficiently with customers:
- Implement a helpdesk software to keep track of tickets across all channels, including your brand’s social media platforms
- Use live chat or chatbots on your website to respond to customers and offer links & answers to FAQs
- Create & maintain a resource hub or thorough FAQ page that addresses common questions
- Analyze your most-used channels to ensure you have proper coverage during peak hours across various time zones
2. Collect and analyze customer feedback
As an E-Commerce brand, customer feedback is perhaps one of the most valuable resources you can use to improve or enhance your customer experience. By proactively seeking feedback from customers at various touchpoints throughout their customer journey, you’ll get direct insight into what is working well and what needs improvement within your brand while simultaneously strengthening your relationship with them. Here are a few suggestions we have for collecting and analyzing customer feedback to improve customer satisfaction:
- Create a variety of surveys, polls, and feedback opportunities for customers at key points throughout their customer journey
- Monitor your social media channels for posts or comments that relate to areas for improvement in your brand
- Review data from your online store to identify trends, pain points, or opportunities
3. Examine your customer journey touchpoints
Though we touched on this topic above (pun most definitely intended), we believe that customer touchpoints deserve more elaboration to highlight how important they are for customer satisfaction. You see, customer touchpoints are the foundation of a successful customer journey map and, therefore, they must be regularly reviewed and analyzed by your team. Without consistent review, one or more crucial touchpoints may be forgotten or neglected, which could result in an unpleasant experience for a customer. To get you started, here are a few tips we recommend when examining and improving your customer touchpoints:
- Identify & document all of the touchpoints throughout your customer journey (and be sure to make this documentation accessible to all departments)
- Examine the purpose of each touchpoint and determine which department(s) is responsible for it
- Measure the success of each touchpoint with tracking tools, customer surveys, or by sending team members through the customer journey to identify potential pain points
4. Offer fast & reliable shipping
There’s nothing worse than ordering an exciting new product backed by incredible marketing only to sit around for weeks waiting on its arrival. Today, 33% of consumers have higher expectations for fast shipping, making it more important than ever for brands to get products out to customers as soon as possible.Follow these quick tips for making fast & reliable shipping an easier part of your brand’s customer service experience:
- Take regular inventory of your products to prevent orders for out-of-stock items
- Automate admin tasks and steps in your order fulfillment process
- Keep an open line of communication with customers and proactively address order delays to avoid ticket spikes
- Prepare your warehouse and customer service teams for returns and exchanges
5. Respond to customers across all channels
No one likes feeling ignored, especially by a brand you consistently support with your business. Show your customers you care about their experience by prioritizing clear communication across all channels, especially social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Here are a few tips we recommend:
- Create a social media customer service strategy that defines which departments (either marketing or customer service) will handle inquiries
- Respond to every post and comment – customers who share positivity want to be acknowledged just as much as customers who voice their complaints
- Use templates that can be easily changed or adjusted for each post or comment
6. Add a special touch to your customer service interactions
The brands that are famous for world-class customer service don’t just do the bare minimum – they empower their customer service agents to add a personal or special touch when appropriate to enhance the experience even further. Interested to hear how they do it? Check out a few tips we’ve got for you:
- Offer a special discount or free shipping
- Train your agents in your sizing chart so they can help customers find the perfect fit every time
- Allow your customers room to vent when necessary and thank them whenever they share their feedback, good or bad, with you
7. Outsource customer service to trusted experts like TalentPop
It takes a village to truly master customer satisfaction, and partnering with our team of customer service professionals at TalentPop is a cost-effective way to enhance your overall customer experience. From social media and live chat to email and phone support, TalentPop’s skilled agents are equipped to handle both simple and complex inquiries across a range of channels. We know you’ll love us for our:
- Comprehensive training programs
- Seamless hiring and onboarding processes
- Simple pricing model
- Weekly quality assurance & ongoing management
- Friendly, quick-learning agents who dedicate themselves to your brand
Improve customer satisfaction by outsourcing customer service to TalentPop’s team of professionals
At TalentPop, there’s nothing more important to us than improving and maintaining customer satisfaction in your brand. Our dedication to your success is why top brands like Wandering Bear Coffee Co., JAXXON, and Espin Bikes have partnered with us to manage and perfect their customer service strategies, and we’re confident we can help you reach new heights with our expertise as well. To get started today and learn how we can match your brand with qualified agents in as little as 2 weeks, schedule a call with our team today.
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