When establishing an online store, you may not be thinking about the importance of customer service – after all, you won’t be seeing anyone face to face. However, it’s still crucial you’re communicating with those who do business with you, and here’s just a few reasons why.

You’ll keep them coming back

One of the most important things to ensure you’re practicing within your business is relationship building with customers. It’s absolutely vital – you want these customers to keep coming back, and existing customers are much more likely to buy from you than new customers would be.

By building these relationships, you’re letting the customer know just how trustworthy and reliable you are as a business. When shopping online these customers will likely encounter several competitors that could steal them away should your customer service be lacklustre – be sure to establish your business as the frontrunner.

It’s a sign of a reliable company

Another benefit of having a good level of customer service is you’ll be establishing your business as reliable. Although there are plenty of other ways to prove your reliability, when you’re regularly communicating with customers they’re going to keep coming back to you, and others will see that you’re building these relationships and effectively do business with you as a result.

Answering to customers’ queries in real time is one way to show that your company is dependable and reliable.  For this purpose, you may want to use services like Ivy Answer, which allow you to provide 24/7 call answering services by real persons.

If you’re looking to make a name for yourself and become a company customers can rely on, customer service is the way to do it. Without it, you’re indistinguishable from any competitor – you want your paying customers to stay with you as you grow.

Your customers need to communicate with you

Simply put, customers have to communicate with you. Should they encounter an issue with a product they’ve purchased from you or simply want to postulate a question, if there’s no point of contact where they can reach you, their eventual frustration will almost certainly lead them elsewhere.

Make sure you have a phone line or an email address for your customers to use as a point of call. The former is perhaps the best option – it’s said to be the most effective method of communication in forming customer relationships, so if it’s viable it’s definitely worth providing a phone number.

You’ll be building brand awareness

If you’re looking for publicity, nothing’s better than traditional word-of-mouth. By having good customer service you’ll be ensuring some recommendations from the customers left impressed by your communication; draw in new customers and give them the same level of service to continuously grow.

Of course, this shouldn’t be the only reason to ensure a good level of customer service, but it’s definitely a bonus that works in your favour. Keep impressing those who interact with you and they’ll most likely put in a good word to those who are interested.

It improves attitudes between colleagues, too

If you’re treating your customers well, it’s likely the morale with your business will improve alongside it. Good attitudes lead to good feedback, which then will likely lead to increased productivity and a much more positive working environment. If you’re looking to boost team spirits and have your employees more energised and productive, their customer service may be the root of it.

Below are a few useful tips and resources to help you deliver a reliable, seamless customer service experience:

• Build your site on a proven and reliable platform. Do your assignment and review some of the best ecommerce platforms today such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento so you can decide which one would best fit our goals.
• Streamline your support process. This includes building a proper helpdesk and support ticket system where customers can send their enquiries and complaints, as well as providing your customers a ready knowledgebase and FAQ that will help them quickly find answers and solutions relating to your product or services. Zendesk and Freshdesk are just two of the many modern customer support softwares available to choose from!
• Use Net Promoter (or Net Promoter Score) to get data on customer loyalty. It is a widely adopted survey technique that measures the loyalty that exists between you and your customers (are the ‘promoters’ or ‘detractors’ of your brand?). Tools such as Promoter.io and Delighted can help you set this up quickly and painlessly.

If you have any more reasons to give, be sure to let us know in the comments below.