How to Improve Customer Experience During Peak Times in Ecommerce

E-commerce customer service is how your business will respond to customers, with either assistance or to resolve any issues. With peak season coming up soon, making sure your e-commerce business is prepared to provide exemplary customer service is key.

Preparing for Peak Season

Peak season in 2022 is likely to be impacted by the rise in food and energy prices, with consumers tightening their belts to be able to afford to pay their bills. With Black Friday and Christmas fast approaching could we be about to see a Recessional Peak? If so, how do you keep your valuable customers during this time?

In the past 32 years, ILG has seen a variety of economic highs and lows, but no matter the current economic climate we always focus on an exemplary fulfilment experience because we know that a positive e-commerce experience brings your customers back time and time again.

Customer Service

Every business and company should have a customer service option available to their customers. Having a proactive customer service team to field queries and complaints can benefit your business. Proactive customer service means predicting any potential queries and issues from customers and engaging with them first.

During peak periods your customer service can be put under strain dealing with customer feedback and complaints. Providing easy access and feedback opportunities can reduce customer frustrations as well as any stress put on your customer service team during this time.

Firstly, instead of waiting, why not proactively ask your customers for feedback? You can request feedback for any part of the e-commerce process, from the product to the delivery, thereby getting a first-hand experience review from your customers and helping improve your business. You may have spotted them before, but a customer satisfaction tracker is a great way to keep up with your customers’ overall sentiment. Those little smiley face buttons look fun which means people are more likely to use them, and they can give you a great view of how your e-commerce business is being experienced.

Keep an eye on your social media as more and more customers are likely to contact you via your social channels for customer service enquiries. Social media is quick and easy for them to use, and sending a message feels much more personal than trying to access customer service via your company’s website. Make sure your customer service team avoids any unanswered messages that may turn into customer frustrations, which will look bad for your business.

Make Your Website User Friendly

When designing or updating your website you should always look at it from your customer’s point of view. How easy is it to navigate, have you organised by relevant categories, do you have a working search bar that takes you to where you need to go? Is it optimised for mobile use, and can your customers use filters to help them drill down to which products they’d like to purchase? 

Customers visiting your website might know exactly what they want, might be just browsing, or might need your help. Making sure your website caters to each customer’s individual needs is essential for improving your e-commerce.

Having a seamless checkout process will improve your customers’ experience as well as reduce the number of abandoned baskets on your website. A customer’s cart should be visible from every page so your customers can find it easily. Make sure your checkout process also clearly states delivery options and which payment methods are available – this will ensure that your customers don’t get to the checkout and discover you don’t offer a suitable delivery window or support their preferred payment method.

Frequently Add Questions to Your FAQ Page

Having an FAQ page available on your website will help current and potential customers find the answers they are looking for without needing to contact your customer service team unnecessarily during peak seasons. These questions should be updated regularly, to reflect the questions you are asked on a regular basis (across all channels). Any questions that you see that you think may be relevant should be answered on your FAQ page to reduce customer confusion.

Include All Relevant Information

This may seem like an obvious one, but ensuring you include as much relevant information as possible on each product, service or order will save you time in the long run. Making sure you include product information, delivery speeds and prices and any other information you can to keep your customers in the know about their purchase will reduce confusion and improve customers’ e-commerce experience.

Remember to keep your customers up to date. Issues, errors and delays are more common during peak season, and keeping your customer informed about any issues with their order offers them peace of mind. If your customer has no idea their item is delayed they will probably get in touch with your customer services team, and they probably won’t be happy. However, if they know their item has been delayed, they can rest easy knowing it’s still on the way, and whilst they still may not be happy about the delay, you’ll have saved yourself from potentially receiving a negative review.

Delivery

When receiving a parcel that you’ve been excited about, quick and efficient delivery is something that improves your experience as a consumer, which is why offering exemplary delivery should always be an important part of your e-commerce process. 

When offering delivery options, you should always be clear with your customers about things like next-day delivery and free returns during peak seasons. Peak season often impacts the speed of delivery, due to the high demand placed upon delivery service providers. To avoid disappointing customers you should keep them up to date with delivery timescales during these peak periods.

Carrier apps and alerts can be a great way to keep your customers updated on the status of their orders, from dispatch to delivery, and will prevent frustrated customer feedback. These options are great for recipients as your carriers can provide customers with final mile delivery management, such as ‘leave with a neighbour’ or ‘leave in a safe place’ to prevent undelivered parcels that may cause customer service frustrations.

Delays may be inevitable in delivery, but high-quality fulfilment service is not. As a brand you do not want to send your customers orders that have been damaged, badly packaged or sat in a delivery facility for weeks with no reason why. Using a professional, specialist 3PL provider for your fulfilment services can enhance your customers’ experience by using personalisation, attention to detail, and reliable delivery service options.

Get in touch to find out about our fulfilment and delivery services now

If you are looking for exemplary fulfilment and delivery services for your business then get in touch with our team here at ILG for more information, or check out our FAQ page to find answers to any questions you may have.