Why A Helpdesk Should Be a Top Priority For Your E-Commerce Brand in 2023

To truly set yourself apart from the competition in 2023, your brand must be prepared to up the ante on your customer service experience.

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If you’re not arming your customer service team with all of the tools and resources they need to cut down on support queues, efficiently resolve customer issues & manage ticket spikes during busy seasons, and deliver the level of high-caliber service that customers demand, you’re risking both your reputation and your bottom line.

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Knowing how crucial it is to have the right items in your toolbox, we’re here to tell you how helpdesk software can help your customer service team drive both customer satisfaction and revenue goals, and why it should be a top priority for your E-Commerce brand this upcoming year.

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What Is A Helpdesk And Why Is It Important?

In the world of E-Commerce, a helpdesk is a platform that consolidates tickets from multiple sources into a single, easy-to-use interface so businesses can respond to customer inquiries more efficiently.

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Helpdesk software is absolutely essential to any E-Commerce business because the synchronization of several support channels will help you better support customers and create a stronger CX. And, as we know all too well if the customer service experience is poor, everything else – including customer satisfaction, retention, revenue, and CLTV – will unfortunately suffer.

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Therefore, to make the customer support process super streamlined and easy to navigate, the best helpdesk software will integrate all of your business communication channels into one platform that keeps documentation and historical data of each customer (and their corresponding tickets) organized.

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Most helpdesk software also incorporates automation rules and additional functions that shrink the amount of tiny administrative tasks a customer service agent would otherwise have to perform manually (and therefore give agents more time to handle complicated issues).

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Why Use Helpdesk Software In Your E-Commerce Business?

Helpdesk software is a must-have for any business in the E-Commerce space, because it not only increases your team’s productivity and efficiency around serving customers, but it also helps to achieve the high level of customer service that more than 60% of consumers say they are expecting from companies in 2023.

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To give you a full scope of why you should consider implementing a helpdesk in your E-Commerce business in 2023, we’ve compiled a list of the top benefits we’ve seen from our very own clients who utilize this vital asset:

• Smoother day-to-day operations. Your helpdesk software will ensure everything you need to solve a ticket and manage customer inquiries is in one spot – that means no more jumping from folder to folder trying to find the proper responses or processes you need to resolve a customer’s issue.
• Higher rates of customer satisfaction. Here at TalentPop, we’ll tell you that customer service is the backbone of your business until we’re blue in the face – that’s how intensely we believe it. And, it’s exactly why we recommend utilizing a helpdesk in your business. Not only does helpdesk software help your team stay on track (and on-brand – hello, consistent messaging!) but by establishing a seamless, organized experience, it also reduces response and resolution times, which was rated as the leading contributor to a negative customer experience in 2021.
• Data and knowledge base storage. In a recent blog post, we discussed how important it is to regularly update your knowledge base for customers to help reduce customer service ticket spikes, but it’s also important to note that these resources can be super useful for your internal customer service team as well. As tickets come into your queue, your helpdesk software will keep a record of recurring issues that frequently pop up, which will help you establish better (or brand-new) processes to guide your agents through handling common issues more efficiently.
• Higher ROI. By implementing helpdesk software into your E-Commerce business’ customer service department, you can significantly increase your ROI by:
• Establishing greater efficiency and productivity within your team
• Saving time on post-purchase surveys by getting real-time feedback from customers on their experience
• Improving your CX to retain more customers
• Brand Awareness & Trust. Customers are 5x more likely to recommend your brand to friends and relatives if they have a positive experience than if they had a poor experience, which explains why consistently great customer service is crucial to your E-Commerce business’s success. Without the seamless experience that a helpdesk can help you achieve, you are risking your brand’s reputation and, therefore, its growth and profitability.

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Common Helpdesk Features

If you’re ready to start hunting for the right helpdesk for your E-Commerce business, keep in mind that a great helpdesk software should have several features to help you increase efficiency and productivity in your business.

• Helpful automations: As we mentioned earlier, most helpdesk software will have automation rules you can establish to handle the tiny administrative tasks that otherwise clog your agents’ bandwidth. For example, some helpdesks allow you to auto-tag & even auto-assign certain tickets to specific agents based on pre-determined keywords.
• Brand customization: Brand messaging and consistency is going to be huge in 2023, which is why most helpdesk software now allows you to customize it with your brand colors and logos to keep everything aligned.
• Reporting & analytics: You can’t improve without data, which is why helpdesk software provides reporting metrics and analytics that you can use to make business decisions and shifts within your organization.
• Self-service portal: We love a great self-service portal, not only because it helps cut down on ticket queues and response times, but also because we know that 89% of consumers will spend more with companies that allow them to find answers online without having to contact anyone.
• Thorough knowledge base: Many helpdesk software include a knowledge base feature where FAQs, helpful troubleshooting articles, and self-help resources can be stored to reduce customer service ticket spikes.
• Omnichannel support: We can’t stress enough how important omnichannel support is in 2023 (heck, we just wrote a blog about it last week!). By syncing all of your brand’s customer support channels into a single, easy-to-navigate interface, improves customer satisfaction while also making day-to-day operations easier on your team. Therefore, omnichannel support has become a common feature in helpdesk software to keep the customer support process streamlined and efficient.

What Goals Should You Try To Achieve With Your Helpdesk Software?

At this point, you might be wondering how you can actually gauge whether a helpdesk will be beneficial to your specific business.

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To help you better understand, we’ve listed a few common KPIs you can track to determine the effectiveness of both the software and your CS team.

• Average response & resolution times. Fast response and resolution times can have a huge impact on your bottom line, so monitoring these within your helpdesk will give you insight into gaps or opportunities for improving them.
• Cost per ticket. Tracking the average costs involved in resolving customer tickets will help you evaluate how efficiently your customer support agents are able to address each issue.
• Customer satisfaction. Listening to customer feedback will help you determine how effectively your brand is managing customer interactions to promote retention and higher rates of CLTV.

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Our Top Recommendations For E-Commerce Helpdesk Software

The helpdesk industry may be growing, but not all helpdesk software is created equal. To get you started on your search, here are a few options you can explore for your business.

Gorgias

Gorgias is an intuitive helpdesk software loved by E-Commerce businesses for its integrations with Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento. Its user-friendly interface displays customer data from various sources ranging from email and live chat to Instagram and SMS text conversations.

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Plus, with its built-in chatbot, Gorgias is your one-stop shop for managing customer service tickets from initial inquiries to processing.

Re:amaze

Much like Gorgias, Re:amaze also integrates with top E-Commerce platforms like Shopify and Woocommerce and can even pull data from your E-Commerce storefront to personalize your customer responses.

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Though Re:amaze wasn’t originally created for E-Commerce businesses, the helpdesk software can still be connected to multiple stores within (or outside) your E-Commerce platform so that all customer inquiries can be handled in one central location.

Zendesk

Our favorite Zendesk features are the multitasking tools that allow your customer service team to keep response and resolution times (and backlog – phew!) low by working on multiple tickets at once.

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However, Zendesk has an extensive collection of even more exciting features including omnichannel support, a knowledge base, analytics, and instant messaging that make it an excellent helpdesk software.

Gladly

Gladly offers a channel-free solution that weaves all of the standard customer support channels into a single stream (similar to a modern messaging app). Perhaps the most unique features of the software are the built-in voice and SMS options that make customer service more personalized than ever before.

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Gladly also offers extensive analytics and reporting data, customer histories that can be accessed within seconds of addressing a customer inquiry, and the ability to process payments via live chat to increase sales.

Make Helpdesk Software A Priority In Your E-Commerce Business This Year With TalentPop

A highly-functional and reliable helpdesk is a must-have for your E-Commerce business this year. However, if you’re unsure of whether your existing team has the bandwidth to manage the integration of new software, TalentPop is here to support you.

We’ve helped over 500 E-Commerce businesses provide 5-star customer service experiences with the use of helpdesk software like Gorgias, Zendesk, and Gladly. From setting up views and macros to establishing automation rules, we’ll build out your helpdesk and help you optimize it further to meet the needs of your team and customers.

Ready to outsource customer service for your brand and experience the ease of our done-for-you helpdesk setups? We’ve got you covered.

We provide top agents trained in E-Commerce software and customer support best practices at affordable rates (as little as $8 an hour per agent), and our straightforward services can be scaled up or down as needed to give you the resources to successfully manage your helpdesk.

Start the process of investing in customer service outsourcing today by booking a call with our team.