Guide to Improving B2C Marketing Customer Service

B2C companies are also known as online retailers selling services and products via the internet in various forms. They may directly sell to consumers (e.g., manufacturers), go between buyers and sellers (e.g., trivago), use free content to get users to visit websites and come across online ads (e.g., HuffPost), sell to a community (e.g., Meta/Facebook), or charge fee for consumers to access their content (e.g., Netflix). 

Before the internet, traditional brick-and-mortar stores connected to their customers were already considered B2C models, as coined by Michael Aldrich in 1979 for using television as a major medium for reaching consumers. However, with the advent of the internet, eCommerce businesses have risen, and to this day, purely traditional stores see online B2C models as a threat. 

In the eCommerce industry, the competition has become more intense too, especially for smaller businesses. A handful of competitors leading in the industry, such as eBay and Amazon, give them more pressure to have leverage in the market. 

One of the many ways to do that is to improve customer service. Here are several ways B2C businesses improve their customer service and get ahead of their other competitors:  

Customer Self-Service 

B2C stores should make it a priority to tend to their customers’ issues all the time, whatever they are. But with a fewer support staff, it may be impossible to respond to all of them. Providing customers with self-service options can greatly help to reduce support tickets as they can already help themselves.  

Before they call the store for help or submit a support ticket, they usually look online for help. In light of this, businesses can prepare in-depth guides or AI chatbots which customers can turn to for issues. They can identify the most common issues from their help desk tickets and from there, improve their customer knowledge base.  

They may choose to offer a comprehensive documentation page that elaborates all their products or services’ features and benefits, in-depth articles, how-to guides, video tutorials, linked social media profiles for easier contact, request or idea-sharing choices, community forums, or related topics in the search bar. 

Instant Service

Making sure the support staff is available at all times is just as crucial. A good customer self-service can definitely get businesses up in the field. Customers usually just contact online stores as a last resort and anticipate quick solutions from the support staff.  

The more efficient support staff handles the customer’s issues, the more satisfied customers businesses will get. Most buyers abandon their plans to purchase products or services when they can’t find answers to their queries. Customers value their time, and if they don’t find solutions, they tend to reject their purchasing immediately.  

It helps to have a support staff ready to provide proactive solutions around the clock. Through these, businesses are well able to establish a loyal customer base. Even without support staff 24/7 to answer the calls, they can also opt for automated email responses based on words and topics.  

Help desk plugins are a great help as businesses can use them for automatic replies on specific ticket issues. Making customers satisfied paves the way to their loyalty to the brand. 

Mobile-Friendly and Engaging Customer Support

Nowadays, most purchases are made via smartphones and desktops, least on tablets. Whilst desktop sites are just as important, mobile sites should also not be neglected. When reaching for customer support, consumers generally use their smartphones.  

Businesses should pay attention to how easily accessible they are via smartphones, or they risk losing a large portion of their revenue per month. Amongst the many mobile-friendly SEO optimisations they need to apply to their sites, making their help desk mobile-friendly should be one of the goals. Learn more about how to make your website mobile friendly. 

They can provide various channels through which customers can easily reach, not just their customer service numbers but also their social media platforms. Businesses can directly engage with consumers, such as in tweets, comments, and more. 

Proactive and properly handled public interactions let others know that the business takes care of its consumers, giving the latter a positive image. Word of mouth is a major influence too, and even when some people are not direct customers, they might recommend the business to their family or friends. 

Convenient Access to Customer Data

Customers might get assigned various support staff in their queries. It would be more difficult when the support agents don’t have knowledge of customers’ previous problems. These data should be accessible for them, so they get on track from the previous tickets, give continuous support, and, most importantly, not have to ask customers some additional information. 

There are several plugins’ businesses can use to sync support ticket data, informing them of the customers’ previous purchases and conversations with any support agent and presenting themselves to consumers that they value their time. 

Prioritise Customer Satisfaction

As abovementioned, customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty. It’s easy for customers to abandon their plan to avail businesses’ products or services when they are not given the right attention. One way to do this is to go beyond their expectations and tend to them one on one, even when they are not expecting much. 

Customer loyalty is difficult to gain. How businesses treat their customers will determine whether they can outstand their competitors or not. They may have to figure out what makes their customers tick and apply them to each one. 

Consistent good customer service paves the way for businesses to establish better connections with their customers, retaining customers and reinforcing their brand image and values as a result. By word of mouth from satisfied customers, they can gain more sales opportunities too. 

When businesses scale up, they can also segment their consumers properly to target them the next time around via several digital marketing means. Legend Digitech is here to help B2C models flourish, especially in their marketing endeavours. Reach us today!