best live chat for ecommerce

 3. Enable self-service

One of the most underrated tactics of good ecommerce customer service is self-service. Over 60% of U.S. consumers prefer automated self-service, such as through a website or mobile app, for simple customer service tasks.

What’s more, 77% of consumers have used a self-service support portal. According to Forrester, among all self-service channels, customers prefer knowledge bases the most. With a knowledge base, you can create and publish answers for customers and reduce your customer support volume by at least 20%.

Customers unconsciously look for the line of least resistance, so if something is too complicated, they will likely quit.

 best live chat for ecommerce

Antonio King, the director of experience at Shinesty, has built this principle into every piece of the Shinesty customer service strategy. Through measuring customer effort alongside customer lifetime value, King has been able to showcase the impact of great customer service on their bottom line.

“We’ve focused on customer effort rather than customer satisfaction, as a low effort experience is a much bigger indication of customer loyalty,” King said. “Being able to associate customer retention directly with customer support has been an eye-opening move for everyone in our organization to the extent of identifying ways, across the org, to continue to minimize the customer’s effort.”

Using a live chat tool like Help Scout’s Beacon, which is designed to surface instant answers, can help companies keep up with demand during high-volume stretches or when customers look for quick answers. When you’re preparing for busy sales seasons, anything that helps customers find their own answers will improve your sales.