It makes no difference whether you have one buyer or one million, excellent customer service should always be your top priority. One of the unfortunate aspects of owning your own business, no matter if it’s on Amazon or any other site, is you’ll have to soothe customers’ worries about perceived ills and misfortunes. How you end up handling this might not make you into a superstar seller, but it can definitely break your chances of ever reaching that level. For example, the route to Amazon’s prized Buy Boxes is a closely guarded secret, but good customer support and reviews are widely thought to be one of the most influential factors. At RepricerExpress, we’re true believers it really doesn’t take as much as you think to provide stellar customer support, so here are 5 tips to keep in mind the next time an issue arises.
1. Above All Else, Be Timely
Regardless of whether you choose FBA or your own method, your customers want you to address them as soon as possible. They don’t care that you have a business to run, orders to package and ship, and mounds of paperwork — the only thing on their minds is what went wrong. And the longer you take to let them know you’ve heard them and are working on it (never mind actually fixing what went wrong), the angrier they’ll be at you and likelier to leave a bad review on your site.
2. Practice Delicate, Tactful Honesty
We’ve all had customers that have made us roll our eyes at their inanity, but we know better than to actually tell them what we really think. However, that doesn’t mean you should lie to their faces in the name of telling them what you think they want to hear. Instead, try and find that sweet spot in the middle where you’re able to calm their fears, yet be realistic about exactly what the situation entails and what you can do about it. If you can’t find an exact replacement for Product X in 24 hours, don’t tell them, but do tell them you’re looking for it right away and will update them as soon as it’s in your hands and ready to ship out.
3. Create an FAQ Page for the Meantime
You can’t be in all places every second of the day, so do the next best thing: anticipate your customers’ questions in a separate section. Yes, it’ll take time to set up an extensive FAQ section where you anticipatorily troubleshoot every possible thing that can go wrong, but it’ll save you oodles of time in the future. Plus, it won’t leave your customers wondering just what the heck your policy is on returns, defects, issues, and anything else that’s on their minds.
4. Have Amazon Handle the Customer Support Aspect
One of the really cool aspects about joining up with Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) is you instantly get access to their 24/7 customer support. If anything pops up, Amazon can handle it any time of day in any language supported by an Amazon marketplace. You may be trying to grow your business internationally, but if you can’t communicate with customers about issues, they’ll quickly get the sense you don’t even care enough to try.
5. Take Matters into Your Own Hands
One of the downsides of using FBA for customer support is you’re using a standardised approach that may rankle your customers. After all, when they encounter a problem, they want to feel as though you truly care about them and not like they’re just another number on the list. A common way of doing this is to set up a chat window on your site — if you don’t sell on Amazon — or make yourself available within a 24-hour window by email, if you do sell on Amazon.
No doubt you already practice these five tips in an attempt to provide the best customer support possible each day you do business, but it’s good to have on hand to pass onto your peers who don’t. But one tip you’ll want to keep to yourself is repricing because you definitely don’t want your competitors having the same great prices as yourself. And if you use RepricerExpress for your repricing software, keep that nugget to yourself, especially the part about being able to try it out for free for 15 days.
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