The Complete Guide to E-commerce Contact Center Success with HoduSoft
E-commerce companies have revolutionized the way people purchase products, as well as services. They also made prices so competitive that they gave their brick-and-mortar counterparts a run for their money!
However, what do you think is the most important element for e-commerce companies? Technology? Logistics? Packaging? Or communication?
You guessed it right! It’s communication. Noted business professional and former United States Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman was right on point when she said, “Communication is at the heart of e-commerce and community.”
The quote pretty much sums up the importance of communication and customer service for e-commerce companies.
But how well are e-commerce companies able to deliver customer service? Here are some recently released insights:
As per a stat published by Salesforce, seven out of every ten agents say balancing customer service speed and quality is difficult.
A PwC study found three out of every five customers around the world feel online retailers have lost the human element of customer experience (CX).
Another data found that four out of every five customers feel that brands have significant room for improvement in delivering a consistently exceptional CX.
E-commerce companies (their contact centers, in particular) face certain unique challenges while delivering customer service. This is a matter of concern as it can mean potential customers abandoning their shopping carts and switching to a different website. As noted banker Douglas A. Warner III rightly said, “In the world of internet customer service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away.”
However, the good news is, addressing the challenges is easy and it requires a combination of technology and streamlined processes to improve the overall CX and operational efficiency.
At HoduSoft, we have helped many e-commerce companies streamline their contact center operations and take their customer service to the next level.
Our contact center software—HoduCC omnichannel CX suite has helped many e-commerce companies of different sizes in delivering exceptional CX.
In this blog post, we have discussed some major issues e-commerce companies face in customer service and how leveraging sophisticated contact center software such as HoduCC omnichannel contact center software and CX suite can help them resolve the challenges.
For an e-commerce professional, this blog post can be immensely valuable. If you are curious to know more about how the right contact center solutions can help e-commerce companies overcome various customer service challenges, build customer trust, and provide seamless customer experiences, read on and you will be glad to do so.
What Are Some Key Challenges E-commerce Companies' Contact Centers Face?
The contact centers of e-commerce firms handle various types of queries and issues pertaining to products, delivery status, billing payment issues, problems with checkout, and more. They face many unique challenges that are different from contact centers in various other industries. Here are some of those:
1. Managing Customers’ Expectations for Instant Support
Would you be surprised to know that many online shoppers expect e-commerce companies to provide instant customer support?
As per recent data, nine out of every ten customers consider instant response as extremely important. Almost half of respondents (46 percent to be precise) expect online stores to take less than four hours to respond to their queries. And 12 percent expect a response within 15 minutes or less.
When it comes to speed of support, online customers expect a lot from e-commerce companies and brands need to be well-equipped to deliver that.
2. 24/7 Availability
A considerable number of online shoppers prefer to shop online because of round-the-clock availability.
So, it’s but natural that customers would expect e-commerce companies to provide customer support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year.
E-commerce businesses that are unable to provide this have a massive disadvantage.
3. High Volume of Customer Queries
Go to any e-commerce company’s contact center during peak time of the day and you will be astonished to witness the volume of customer queries!
During peak seasons like holidays, sales, or promotion, the situation gets critical. The wait times are usually long.
The pressure on customer service representatives is crushing. And the frustration of customers is palpable.
4. Seamless Experience across Channels
A majority of customers today prefer contacting customer service using various communication channels other than plain-old voice calls.
Those are text messages, instant messages, emails, live chat, social media, and more.
They expect consistency in customer service as well as seamless communication and experience across channels. That’s where some e-commerce companies face challenges.
5. Delivering Personalized Communication
For e-commerce companies, providing personalized customer support can be challenging due to the large volume of customers.
Apart from that, not every firm is equipped with efficient systems to capture and leverage customer data to tailor responses.
This results in extremely bland and generic communication that feels like addressing “whomever-it-concerns.”
6. Integration with Backend Systems and Various Business Applications
It’s imperative for contact centers to have access to real-time information, such as:
- Order status
- Inventory levels
- Shipping data
- Product availability
- Delivery tracking information
- Returns and exchange status
- Billing or payment status
Ensuring that the contact center software integrates smoothly with various other backend systems and business applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), order management, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Knowledge Management systems, Workforce Management (WFM) software can be a technical challenge for many e-commerce companies.
7. Automation and Self-service
It’s not uncommon to find that many e-commerce companies are automating many of their customer service processes. Especially the ones that can handle common queries and reduce the strain on human agents.
But finding the right balance between automation and human touch can be tricky!
That’s because low-end chatbots and automated response systems cannot provide personalized service.
5 Ways to leverage eCommerce Contact Center Software to improve CX
How Can HoduSoft's E-commerce Contact Center Solutions Overcome Challenges?
HoduSoft’s HoduCC contact center software can play a huge role in helping e-commerce companies overcome a wide array of customer support challenges. Here are some of those:
1. Seamless Omnichannel Communication
HoduCC omnichannel contact center software can seamlessly integrate various communication channels such as voice calls, video calls, live chats, text messages, instant messages, emails, social media, and more.
Unified on a single platform, customer communication across all these channels enable e-commerce businesses to provide a consistent experience throughout the customer journey.
HoduCC omnichannel CX suite ensures that all customer queries, regardless of the channel through which they were initiated, gets resolved in the most efficient way.
2. AI-Powered Chatbots and Automated Tools
The availability of 24/7 customer service is a basic thing for e-commerce companies. To give an analogy, it’s like hygiene! Its presence may not necessarily boost a company’s financial health. But its absence will cause serious adverse effects.
E-commerce companies can provide uninterrupted round-the-clock customer support by leveraging AI-powered chatbots and automated tools. HoduCC omnichannel contact center software incorporates AI-driven tools such as chatbots and automated responses that help reduce the workload on human agents.
These tools can handle common queries, order status updates, and FAQs. That would enable agents to focus on more complex issues and help them deliver personalized customer service. It’ll also speed up response times, reduce operational costs, and improve overall efficiency.
3. Multi-level IVR
Customers reach out to e-commerce contact centers due to several reasons. Some may have issues with billing and payment. Some may contact after finding it difficult to place an order. Some may initiate a query as they find the checkout process complex. A single department in an e-commerce call center cannot handle all issues.
However, by leveraging a multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, e-commerce companies can ensure that the right department handles relevant queries and issues.
HoduCC contact center software comes equipped with a multi-level IVR system that helps e-commerce firms handle high call volumes. The functionality also ensures that customers reach the right support team quickly and get the help they need without unnecessary delays or transfers.
4. Skill-Based Routing
In e-commerce contact centers, different customers call with various inquiries. It can range from order issues, technical support, product information, returns, and more.
Skill-based routing is effective in handling these calls. It can route each customer’s call to the right agent who is best equipped to address the former’s specific needs.
HoduCC omnichannel contact center software comes equipped with a skill-based routing feature that can ensure that all incoming calls are routed to the right agent. This not only ensures a high first contact resolution (FCR) rate, it reduces frustration and enhances customer satisfaction by leaps and bounds.
5. Automatic Call Distribution
As call centers of e-commerce companies deal with a large number of contact requests ranging from product inquiries, order status, returns, or technical support, they need to manage and route inbound customer calls to the right department.
For example, calls regarding order tracking can be routed to a logistics department, while billing questions go to the finance team.
HoduCC omnichannel contact center software ensures that customers are connected to agents who are best equipped to resolve their issues quickly. The functionality helps avoid overloading specific teams. This optimizes the workload for agents and minimizes wait times for customers.
6. Omnichannel Communication
In the present time, a majority of online shoppers would prefer to contact e-commerce companies using communication channels other than plain-old audio calls. E-commerce companies must keep that in mind and leverage the right solutions to provide seamless communication irrespective of channels.
This is where HoduCC contact center software can be immensely helpful. HoduCC sophisticated omnichannel CX suite is well-equipped to integrate all communication channels into a single platform and manage customer interactions in a seamless manner.
With HoduCC, e-commerce contact centers can ensure quicker resolution of customer queries and issues and enhance CX by leaps and bounds.
7. Real-Time Analytics and Reporting
Real-time metrics and reports can make a huge difference to an e-commerce company’s operations. Some of the key metrics in the e-commerce sector are:
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT): Measures the level of satisfaction customers have with the support they receive.
- Net promoter score (NPS): Measures how likely customers are to recommend the company or brand to others.
- First response time (FRT): Measures the amount of time it takes for a customer service agent to respond to a customer’s initial inquiry.
- Average handle time (AHT): Measures the average time an agent spends handling a customer interaction, including talk time, hold time, and any follow-up actions.
- First Contact Resolution: Measures the percentage of customer issues resolved on the first contact.
HoduCC omnichannel CX suite comes equipped with cutting-edge real-time and reporting tools that helps e-commerce companies to make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement.
Everything Said and Done,
E-commerce companies need to do whatever it takes to make sure to provide nothing less than exceptional customer service and CX.
For that, they need to leverage the right tech solutions such as HoduCC contact center software and omnichannel CX suite.
At HoduSoft, we have engineered our HoduCC contact center software to enable e-commerce companies of different sizes streamline their customer service operations.
