7 Steps to improving customer satisfaction for your eCommerce business

Why is Customer Satisfaction Important?

Customer Satisfaction is the lifeblood of any good business- a company can exist only as long as it has the support of its customers. If people refuse to buy anything in the first place, no amount of marketing or delivery optimization or perks will save your eCommerce business. 

This is why knowing how to keep your customers happy and satisfied is of the utmost importance. In today’s article, we shall be taking a long hard look at how to do just that- improve customer experience and satisfaction and keep your business running with smiles for the years to come.

Tips for Improving Customer Satisfaction for your eCommerce business

1) Collect Feedback from your Customers

First and foremost, and perhaps the most obvious tip, is to figure out what your buyers actually want.

The best way to do that is, of course, to actively ask them for their feedback and suggestions. After all, who knows better what the customers want than the customers themselves, right?

Customer feedback is an incredibly powerful tool. It provides valuable real-time insight into the success of your eCommerce business. While shipping analytics can show you the raw figures of your sales, only with customer feedback do you get the complete picture.

It allows you to analyze the performance of your business and figure out whether your buyers are happy or unhappy. Depending on this feedback, companies make changes to their product line-ups and sales strategies.

This is because success in such areas is all about adaptability. The one who is able to adapt to the customer’s needs comes out on top.

But of course, simply knowing the importance of feedback collection won’t get you anywhere. So here are some tips that list down how actually to go about the process and do it efficiently.

• Conduct regular surveys that customers can use to make suggestions and offer criticism.
• Make use of as many channels and sources as you can- your website, social media page, email, mobile application, and so on.
• Conduct campaigns that measure customer satisfaction and research where you can make improvements

2) Act upon Customer Feedback

Once the collection process is done and over with, it is time for action. Just having the feedback on hand does not mean much if you are not implementing the suggestions or strategies you received.

It is important to be aware of customer priorities and preferences and switch up your goals and plans accordingly. That is the quickest and most sure-fire way of becoming a customer-centric eCommerce business. 

Some easy tips would be to create dedicated service groups and communities for your most loyal customers, catering to any problems they might have with your business.

Another function they can perform is recording their suggestions and criticism, and in the case of qualified professionals, even enlisting their help as consultants or freelancers. Such strategies might be unorthodox, but they help provide many eCommerce companies with a much-needed human touch. 

On the safer side, you might want to change your design language or fix any branding issues that your customers might want you to.

It is important to remember, however, that it is ultimately not advisable to compromise on the core identity or fundamental values of a company just to accommodate a few fringe buyers. It is only after careful research and deliberation that any major changes should be made.

3) Treat your Customers with Passion

While on the topic of core identity, as mentioned above, it is important to ensure that your business is a friendly and welcoming place for new and old customers alike.

It is human nature to want to feel respected and important, and the sooner businesses understand this, the more successful they will be.

The customer service representatives and support staff should be trained extensively to treat customers with respect and deference. Go out of your way to thank customers for shopping from your company. 

You can even send surprise gifts, discount vouchers, or postcards to your most loyal buyers. The objective here is to make them feel valued.

To do this, you can even send them personalized messages on special occasions such as birthdays or anniversaries, bundled with special limited offers just for them.

When they offer a suggestion or criticism, listen to them with patience and attention, and assure them that their views are valid and essential to the company. 

Once you put all these steps in motion, following them diligently, you are sure to witness a considerable uptick in customer retention and satisfaction.

4) Ensure Employee Satisfaction

Happy and satisfied employees are just as crucial to the performance of a business as happy and satisfied customers. Perhaps even slightly more, considering the fact that unsatisfied employees might perform poorly, leading in turn to unsatisfied customers.

It is therefore extremely important to ensure that your workers and teams are happy with the working conditions and are equipped with good facilities to perform to their fullest potential. 

Well-trained employees are much better at understanding and resolving customer issues and at interacting with customers in general. Ensure your employees know they are appreciated, and their efforts are recognized.

You can also ease the workload a little by hiring contractual workers during peak season or expanding your roster of full-time employees if you so wish. This ensures that there are always at least a couple of staff workers available to attend to customers and their needs.

Other things that you can do to elevate morale and boost performance are staff outings, holidays, and perks. While all these cost significant money, they can be considered an investment to motivate your workers, satisfy customers, and make your business the best possible version of itself.

5) Use Customer Satisfaction Statistics

There are more than several external surveys and metrics out there that purport to accurately measure and evaluate customer satisfaction with respect to your business. Some of the most popular ones are:-

• NPS (Net Promoter Score): It is a metric that attempts to survey how satisfied a customer is with your business and how likely it is that they would recommend you to their friends, relatives, or colleagues over other alternative platforms. Hundreds of companies use NPS Score to get an idea of their customer service performance and what areas they need to improve upon.
• CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score): It is another metric that tries to measure whether your customers are happy with the performance and products of your eCommerce business. It collects information using surveys that ask questions like how they would rate their overall satisfaction with your products, facilities, or services.
• CES (Customer Effort Score): The final metric here is the Customer Effort Score, which is used to determine the ease of doing business. In other words, it is used to determine whether customers are satisfied with the shopping process, website interface, whether they have faced any difficulties with refunds or returns, and so on.

6) Use Customer Satisfaction Statistics for your Business

Once you have a somewhat accurate indicator of your customer satisfaction performance, you can set about formulating strategies to increase your score and reach the next level.

Observe your competitors, and see what they are doing differently, where they have succeeded, and where they have failed.

Next, implement changes to your business according to your own observations and judgment. Good NPS and CSAT scores go a long way in boosting brand image and reputation.

You can improve them by keeping in touch with your customers at all times and keeping tabs on their issues, solving them with speed and efficiency.

You can also leverage and improve these scores using logistics technology platforms like ClickPost that use shipping API and courier integration to simplify the end-user experience and enhance overall customer satisfaction.

7) Take advantage of Social Media Platforms

With the explosion of social media channels and platforms throughout the globe, the whole world is more interconnected than ever before. You can leverage this opportunity by setting up brand accounts on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

These accounts can be used to keep customers informed of updates and changes, as well as to resolve issues. You can also use social media for queries, marketing campaigns, and effective two-way communication with both employees and customers. The opportunities are honestly endless.

Summing Up

So there you have it, seven simple tricks that are sure to boost the customer satisfaction rankings for your eCommerce business by a wide margin.

Tools like social media, CSAT and NPS scores, etc., can help you gauge your overall performance and provide much-needed insight into how to keep your customers happy.

Third-party platforms such as ClickPost can also alleviate your workload and help you apply these tips in an efficient and effortless manner. We hope you can use these strategies and implement them in your own business as well.