How can a helpdesk help ecommerce companies?

The popularity of e-commerce sites needs no elaboration. Thousands of companies now sell online across the world and online shopping has become the default choice for millions of people, across age and income groups. However, running an ecommerce business is not equivalent of cakewalk! As the owner of an ecommerce site, you have to offer excellent customer support. The competition is high in online marketplaces and modern customers are really well informed. They also have plenty of choices when it comes to shopping online. To ensure the customers of your e commerce business stay loyal and revenue growth remains on track, it is necessary to deploy suitable measures. Using suitable helpdesk software can benefit your e-commerce venture for sure.

How help desk solutions can be beneficial for ecommerce companies

Helpdesk software solution usage brings a plethora of benefits to any organization including ecommerce brands. The major benefits of deploying such applications include simplified workflow, speedy problem resolution, cost reduction, better customer experience etc.

• Support for all modes for customer service-For an ecommerce company, having provisions to support the customers through all modes is important. The latest help desk applications offer support for all modes of customer support and unite them under one umbrella.

  Phone- The helpdesk applications can be used to integrate VoiP service- using which telephonic support can be provided to the customers.

Email- email has been and still is one major form of support for the customer service section. Helpdesk tools support Gmail and major email clients like Outlook. In most such tools, the email clients can be accessed from within the UI.

Live chat- Owing to its inherent benefits, most companies are adding live chat to their existing customer support channels, E-commerce giants like Amazon also offer live chat. Most of the new helpdesk tools integrate with live chat and some even offer toggle options to switch on and off chat software.

All these modes of customer support are integrated in a unified way by the helpdesk tools. From one interface the agents can access all support modes and interact with the customers without hassles.

• Good integration with social media channels- Nowadays finding people who do not use any type of social media services is tough. The customers of your ecommerce brand are also likely to use several social media services. To cater to such customers, you need to use helpdesk tool that offers good social media integration options. This way the social media savvy customers can reach out to the support team without leaving their social media profiles.

• Automated and hassle free ticket handling- Your customers may lodge grievances for myriads of reasons. Most of these are likely to be related with product, service, delivery, cancellation and refund etc. In any case, your brand should be able to resolve their grievances without delay. Lack of promptness and professionalism in customer grievance handling can cost your e-commerce company dearly. From this perspective, using a helpdesk solution can be useful. These software solutions have embedded ticket handling capabilities

The customers can raise tickets online in many ways when such helpdesk software is in place. They can directly issue tickets by using the software UI and using their login ID. As an alternative, they can send emails and use chat-which is converted to tickets by the software. In fact, some such software solutions are capable of turning social media posts of the customers into tickets.

Apart from ticket creation and automated conversion, the modern helpdesk tools can also be used to handle ticket assigning in a nice way. Filters can be set so that the software can automatically assign tickets to suitable agents. This takes the workload off the agents. In busy ecommerce setups, thousands of tickets are generated on daily basis. Using a capable helpdesk tool with comprehensive ticket handling features is sheer bliss in such setups.

• Automation to speed up workflow- In e-commerce companies, the support agents are bombarded with repetitive customer queries every day. These are basic product and policy related queries which take up a lot of their time. If the queries can be handled otherwise, the agents feel less taxed and they can focus on resolving complex customer issues. This is where modern helpdesk solutions come as saviors! These software applications can be used to prepare templates for quick response to such equerries through email. Such software also supports integration of chat bots in live chat setup. This ensures the software, aided by bots can revert to basic queries –regardless of whether the agents are present or not.

• Integration with CRM database- Using helpdesk tool makes it easy for the support agents in an ecommerce company to cater to the customers better. The loyal customers of such a company are nothing less than assets. When the CRM database of the company is linked with the helpdesk software, the agents can figure out when existing customers call or mail them. They can handle such customers in the apt ways thereafter.

• Knowledge base and self service portal creation- For a section of people who use ecommerce sites to buy various products and services, the traditional means of support do not seem much desirable. The younger and technology living customers often like troubleshooting their problems without calling up an agent or using email. For them a self service portal and knowledgebase seems the best choice. Modern help desk solutions come with robust options to create self service portals. E commerce companies can use such software apps to create self service portals and customize them. These portals can be customized with FAQ, video guides, tutorials and many other resources. This will benefit the customers majorly and the workload on support agents will go down after the portal is made active.

Things to check when buying help desk solution for ecommerce companies

You need to be careful when choosing helpdesk solution for e commerce companies. It is necessary that you check for the below listed aspects:

• Simplified UI, ease of setup- The helpdesk tool chosen for your ecommerce venture should be simple to deploy and learning curve has to be as minimal as possible. An e-commerce company cannot afford to keep operations hanging for long, as it is. Complicated UI and tedious navigation will make things harder for both the agents and the end users.

• Solid app integration- Your ecommerce online store may already be relying on several apps and online services including database, shopping cart app, security tools. Ensure the helpdesk tool you buy is a compatible with such apps and software. It is better if the application natively support apps and cloud services used in your ecommerce venture. Or else, you will have to use third party APIs for app integration.

• Automation features and customization scope- The help desk tool selected for your e-commerce business should have enough and required automation features. The automation features should be customizable too. These include automation for setting norms for alert notifications, automation for ticket raising and assigning, and generating periodic reports etc.

Final words

Compare and assess available popular help desk tools carefully before selecting one for your e- commerce venture. You may surely check out the web reviews to ease the selection process.

Vaishali Gopi is an enthusiastic Digital Marketer who has keen interest towards customer support management and related stuff and voices about it frequently.