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TL;DR:

• Automating customer experience (CX) can save costs, reduce agent burnout, and increase customer satisfaction
• A good website user experience consists of fast load times, informative product pages, mobile optimization, and guest checkout
• Automate CX by using automated chat, replacing email links with contact forms, updating your help center, and deploying onsite campaigns
• Do not overcomplicate the user journey by only providing automatic support — route back to human agents

Nowhere is the customer experience more important than on your website. CX is so much more than post-purchase troubleshooting. CX that grows your brand makes the entire buying journey as effortless as possible, from the first ad to the 10th item purchased.

Your website isn’t only the marketing team’s domain. Your support team’s input is crucial to ensure customers can find all the answers they need without waiting around.

With a better website experience for your customers, you enable more sales and reduce the repetitive inquiries for your agents.

Here are some tips to enrich your website with CX automations that will delight your customers and your team.

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Why automating CX is essential

With 63% of consumers expecting service agents to know their unique needs and preferences, your efforts should be focused on improving support speed and responsiveness — and that starts with automation. 

Here are the five benefits of automating your customer experience:

1. Cost efficient: Automating routine questions cuts down the cost of human labor, redirecting resources to more impactful areas of customer service.
2. Reduced workload for agents: Your support team can focus on more complex issues instead of spending time on questions that can be answered with automated replies.
3. Increased customer satisfaction: Automation provides fast answers, keeping the shopping experience uninterrupted.
4. Enhanced navigation and user experience (UX): A website optimized for automation is easier to navigate and shop from, and reduces cart abandonment rates.
5. Prevents support overload: Automation helps your agents from lessening their touchpoints with customers where it’s not needed, allowing customers to feel in control of their own journeys.

How website UX and CX work together

If done correctly, your website's UX should be so intuitive and smooth that shoppers barely notice it. For ecommerce stores, a well-thought-out website UX consists of everything from a logical menu to a straightforward checkout flow. 

Below, pay attention to the following website elements as they directly influence the buying journey and can impact customer satisfaction.

Informative product pages

Engaging and detailed product descriptions add substantial value by influencing buying decisions and simplifying the shopping experience.

Take a look at how Good Protein keeps descriptions engaging but short in three bullet points, includes social proof by displaying customer ratings, and provides flavor, size, and subscription options in one section:

Mobile optimization

According to Airship’s 11,000-respondent survey, 76% of shoppers shop through retailers’ mobile websites. With a significant portion of online sales coming from smartphones, it’s best to test your website on mobile devices. If users can’t complete a purchase through mobile, you lose out on a large fraction of sales.

Minimized distractions

Reducing distractions like unnecessary pop-ups and banners keeps the shopper focused on the main goal of conversion. Streamlining content to spotlight key campaigns or product launches can dramatically improve conversion rates.

Quick page load times

Fast-loading pages are crucial for keeping potential customers engaged. Delays can significantly deter shoppers, as studies show that even a one-second delay in page loading can reduce conversions by 7%.

Check out Google’s PageSpeed Insights to assess your website's performance.

Streamlined checkout process

Simplifying the checkout process and providing multiple payment options, such as guest checkout, removes common barriers to conversion by offering a convenient purchasing process.

Swimwear brand TRIANGL makes shopping easy and fast by adding a Quick Buy button to every product:

‎Exceptional customer support

Tools like live chat or help centers provide a portal through fast support. AI-powered support tools like Gorgias Automate combine automated responses with the option for human interaction, ensuring customer inquiries are addressed promptly.

This integration of website UX with automated customer experience strategies creates a more efficient, enjoyable, and productive shopping environment that exceeds customer expectations.

Related: Stop Marketing, Start Converting playbook

Implement these 5 strategies to prep your website for automation

Keeping your customer support options visible is the key to prepping your website for automation. 

Follow these five methods to provide easily accessible support routes, simplify communication, and help customers quickly find the information they need. 

1. Keep chat active 24/7

When you hear “chat,” you may think about not having enough bandwidth to offer live chat all the time. Well, that’s just a common chat myth. 

In fact, chat doesn’t require agents to operate 24/7. You can configure live chat to only be active during your busiest hours or even deactivate it altogether and replace it with automated FAQs to keep customer questions answered throughout the day. 

Here’s how ALOHAS keeps their chat running using Gorgias Automate’s Quick Responses:

‎Beyond automating common questions, chat can also accomplish other support-related tasks:

• Email Capture: When live agents aren’t available, automation can ask for customer emails so that their inquiries can be routed to your support inbox.
• Article Recommendations: Chat questions can be scanned and matched with the most relevant article, reducing the need to talk to an agent.
• Order Management: Automate WISMO requests with an order management portal right in chat. Customers can track, return, cancel, or report an issue on their own without waiting for an agent to do it for them.

Don’t forget that chat is one of the most visible components on your website. Make sure the chat dialog can be minimized and hidden to avoid disrupting the shopping journey.

2. Replace email with structured contact forms

Leaving your customer support email on your contact page is the equivalent of leaving plain URLs on your website — it’s disorganized and can attract spam like no other channel.

Contact forms are far superior to email links because they collect all necessary information (like issue type and contact information). This helps agents provide resolutions as efficiently as possible because tickets are already structured and include the necessary details.

For example, Gorgias Chat includes Offline Capture to collect customer inquiries while agents are offline. Gorgias Helpdesk then uses the structured information to detect customer intent, making interactions easier to manage.

3. Display your Help Center and contact form prominently

Make your Help Center visible no matter which page shoppers are on. Displaying important customer support resources like this in your website's header, footer, and various emails like marketing messages and order confirmations allows customers to self-serve, without having to contact a live agent.

With Gorgias, you can use one-page Help Centers to create a seamless experience from one page to another on your online store. This setup allows customers to quickly find the answers they need, improving accessibility while reducing the demand on your team.

Here’s what clothing brand Princess Polly’s one-page Help Center looks like:

4. Make sure your knowledge base is up-to-date and comprehensive

Updating your knowledge base, whether it's a Gorgias Help Center or another FAQ page, directly impacts the customer journey. Gorgias's AI Agent uses the Help Center as its primary source to autonomously handle over 30% of customer email inquiries, drawing on articles that cover necessary topics like shipping, orders, product information, and account management. 

To optimize your Help Center for AI, ensure your content is comprehensive and current, particularly in areas such as policies and product updates. All articles should be published, not saved as drafts, to be accessible to AI Agent. Regularly reviewing your articles encourages customer self-service and reduces reliance on agent assistance.

5. Maintain engagement with targeted campaigns

Targeted onsite campaigns on product pages educate customers and boost confidence, especially when tailored to your top-selling products. For instance, when items are out of stock, campaigns can redirect customers to similar products, as demonstrated by Glamnetic during their product launches.

Additionally, Gorgias Convert chat campaigns like those used by Manduka, which highlight product guarantees, provide valuable pre-sales information that mimics the support of a physical store.

Related: Convert Campaigns playbook

The 3 don’t s of website optimization

There are pitfalls to avoid when optimizing your website for better user experiences. Keep the user journey simple and always provide options for human assistance like live email or voice. Below are three key mistakes to steer clear of.

1. Don't complicate the user journey

The user journey includes all interactions from browsing to the post-purchase experience, and automation should make this process seamless, not hinder it. Avoid adding unnecessary steps or making critical information hard to find, as this can disrupt the shopping experience and force customers to seek help when it isn't needed.

For instance, include a guest checkout option on the checkout page to simplify purchases, and ensure that links to your Help Center or Contact page are easily accessible in the top navigation. 

Watch out for these common elements that can confuse the user journey:

• Complex navigation: A convoluted menu system can make it difficult for customers to find what they need.
• Hidden support information: Essential details like shipping costs and return policies should be visible and easy to find.
• Excessive pop-ups: Overloading pages with pop-ups can frustrate users.

2. Don't only provide automated support

Automation is valuable but don’t rely on it — it's still important to provide avenues for human assistance when needed. This includes support options like live chat, email, phone, and social media. 

The key is balance: make it easy for them to reach out to human support once they realize self-service options are insufficient. This might involve including contact options in a Help Center or contact page rather than displaying raw email addresses everywhere.

3. Don't forget to test regularly

Maintaining an optimized website requires data-driven testing and optimization. You can improve your website by following customer feedback and suggestions. Once changes have been applied, monitoring performance metrics and user behavior can ensure the user journey remains solid.

Metrics to track: 

• Cart abandonment rate: A high abandonment rate may mean that your checkout process is too complex, causing shoppers to exit early.
• Page load time: Slow-loading webpages negatively impact the customer experience. 
• Bounce rate: Difficult navigation, slow loading times, or an unattractive layout are all factors that contribute to a high bounce rate. 
• Conversion rate: Conversion rate indicates which areas of your website are performing well and which are not. Pay attention to conversion rate to prioritize areas for improvement, such as optimizing landing pages or adjusting the user journey.

Automate 30% of CX for exceptional customer experiences

July, a leading luggage brand, uses the power of Gorgias Automate to deliver unbeatable user experiences. With Automate, routine tasks typically handled by level 1 agents are accomplished automatically. Agents are then able to free up valuable resources to focus on more complex inquiries.

Ready to elevate your CX game? Book a demo today and unlock the full potential of automation for your business.

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TL;DR:

• Key customer service techniques for agents include understanding customer issues, using positive language, thoroughly understanding products, adapting to different communication styles, and setting clear expectations.
• Key techniques for support leaders include providing agents with enriched customer data, building a library of templates, specializing agents in specific channels or issues, and training the entire organization to be customer-first.
• Gorgias offers features such as automated responses, self-service options, live chat for pre-sales support, and integrations with other tools to enhance customer service.

Amid the barrage of social media ads, email campaigns, and influencer endorsements that consumers navigate weekly, PWC highlights that 73% of people see customer experience as a pivotal factor in their buying decisions. 

The techniques today’s customer service teams use are the foundation for those excellent experiences.

Below, learn five key customer service techniques for agents and four for CS leaders.

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9 customer service techniques for agents, leads, and managers

Here are five essential techniques for agents to provide great customer service.

Effective techniques for agents to enhance customer service

To deliver good customer service, agents should first aim to understand customers’ issues at the beginning of each interaction. Then, they can leverage other tactics like reframing statements and setting clear expectations.

1) Get an understanding of the issue before you start the interaction

Every customer service encounter is unique and should be approached with a fresh perspective. Here’s how to make sure you understand the customer’s issue before diving into problem-solving mode:

• Active listening: Context is key. Start every conversation by allowing the customer to feel heard by giving them the space to fully express their concerns before making any recommendations.
• Review previous interactions: Skim past customer interactions to gain context. Tools like Gorgias streamline this process by integrating data across multiple channels, offering a comprehensive customer history at a glance.
• Ask clarifying questions: Politely ask for more details if the customer’s problem isn’t immediately clear.
• Avoid assumptions: Never assume you know the issue before the customer fully explains it, even if it seems familiar. 
• Empathy: Demonstrate understanding and concern for the customer’s issue to empathize with them.

2) Maintain a positive and uplifting tone in your communication

The words we choose in customer service can significantly impact the tone of an interaction. 

Psychology professor Albert Mehrabian conducted insightful research on communication and found a fascinating breakdown: only 7% of a message's meaning is derived from the actual words spoken, while a much larger portion, 38%, is understood through tone. Meanwhile, body language proves to be the most influential factor, accounting for 55% of how the message is interpreted.

Since all customer conversations for ecommerce brands happen via chat, email, or on the phone (not face-to-face), agents can’t rely on body language. This means tone of voice becomes even more important for agents to get right.

How can you maintain positive language? 

1️⃣ ‎First, avoid negative words: “can't,” “won't,” or “don't” can often be reframed in a positive manner. Swap them for phrases like "I understand," "I'm here to help," and "Let's see what we can do," which are much more reassuring to customers.

2️⃣ ‎ Second, aim to be solution-oriented. Focus on potential solutions or next steps rather than dwelling on the problem.

3) Develop a comprehensive knowledge of the products or services

What happens when a recent customer sends an email asking about how to fix a broken part from the product they purchased from you, and your agents don’t know enough about it to help?

Or, if your skincare line recently underwent a formula change that your agents get asked about, but they aren’t sure what was changed and how it alters the performance of your products?

Knowledge of the products you’re selling is critical for accurately informing customers and managing their expectations.

💡 ‎Our recommendation: Encourage a culture of sharing by creating feedback loops across the entire organization. The product team should communicate product details and capabilities, marketing teams should share information about customer behavior, and support teams should share the pain points they hear from customers.

Plus, when one agent learns something new about a product, such as an undocumented use case or a common customer complaint, sharing this insight with fellow agents can enrich everyone with deeper product knowledge.

4) Adapt your communication style to suit different customers

Every customer comes with a unique set of expectations and comfort levels, making flexibility in your communication skills a key skill for customer service agents.

Whether you’re talking on the phone or messaging the customer on Instagram, you can match a customer’s preferred style by recognizing customer profiles.

Pay attention to cues that suggest how each customer prefers to interact. Some customers are straight to the point, desiring quick, factual information with minimal fuss. 

Others might appreciate a more personable and reassuring approach, especially if they're dealing with a stressful issue. 

Take it from Deja Jefferson, CX and Consumer Insights Manager at Topicals: “I ensure that customer service provided by Topicals not only exhibits empathy when issues arise but should be seamlessly integrated throughout the entire transaction process. Our priority is to ensure that our customers feel fully supported at every step.”

If you use ‎Gorgias Helpdesk to manage your customer support channels, you’ll easily be able to see historical conversations with customers to give you an idea of their preferred communication style. You can also leverage sentiment detection, a Gorgias feature that automatically detects the tone of voice the customer is using. Using sentiment detection, you can also prioritize support tickets based on customers' urgent needs.

5) Establish clear expectations with customers

Managing customer expectations is a delicate balance. You don’t want to overpromise services, but you also don’t want customers to feel like you aren’t able to help them.

The balance? Be optimistic about solving their issues, but equally crucial not to promise more than can be delivered. Here's how to set realistic expectations:

• Be transparent: When a resolution might take some time, communicate this to the customer, providing a realistic timeline. It's better for a customer to be pleasantly surprised by an early resolution than frustrated by a late one.
• Keep commitments achievable: Assure the customer that what you know can be delivered within the set constraints. 
• Follow up: If you've provided a timeframe, check back in with the customer within this period. If there’s a delay, communicate it promptly—customers will appreciate the update even if it's not the news they were hoping for.
• Acknowledge limitations: If a request falls outside the scope of what the company can provide or if there are factors beyond your control, it’s better to be upfront about it. Honesty goes a long way in maintaining a respectful and professional relationship with customers.

The truth is, you won't always have the answers customers want to hear. But being clear and honest with them can help them grasp why things are the way they are.

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Techniques for leads and managers

Effective leadership in customer service hinges on empowering agents with the right tools and strategies to excel in their roles. 

Considering that 78% of customers will switch to a competitor after multiple bad customer service experiences, it’s important for your team to be well-equipped for success.

Let’s talk about how to do that.

1) Provide agents with enriched customer data

For customer service teams to excel, they require more than just basic customer information. Leads and managers can empower their teams by providing enriched customer data, leading to more personalized and efficient service.

A helpdesk software will make this easy — if it offers a range of integrations. This is an essential feature to look for because you want your helpdesk to mesh with your existing tech stack. Here’s why: agents need access to data beyond a customer’s name. Integrations are the only way a helpdesk can pull in this additional context.

We’re talking about past orders, historical conversations, engagement info, and conversion metrics into comprehensive customer profiles. This will help agents get a holistic view of the customer, paving the way for tailored interactions. 

Bonus tip: Beyond your helpdesk, share any feedback you hear from customers with the rest of the team. Integrating your helpdesk with a tool like Slack can make this easy, and it’s one way the Love Wellness team actions quickly on the advice from customers:

“We have a channel in Slack dedicated to customer feedback. Dropping in feedback is part of the team’s daily and weekly responsibilities, which helps them get really familiar with all of the content.

“It also allows our team to dissect them and collaborate on how we can improve. You could also schedule recurring feedback share sessions with the Product or Website teams, or even invite them directly into Gorgias (at no extra cost) and create a dedicated view for product feedback, website feedback, and so on.”

—Amanda Kwasniewicz, VP of CX at Love Wellness

2) Create a library of templates to streamline agent responses

Templates are a big help for customer support teams, especially those who are strapped for time (which, let’s be honest, that’s 99% of them). 

Two types to build include:

• Standard responses for common queries: Develop and include a set of pre-written answers tailored to frequently asked questions and routine issues. This ensures quick, consistent, and accurate responses to customer queries.
• Scenario-specific templates: Different situations call for different responses. Having templates specifically designed for complaints, product inquiries, returns, and other common scenarios can guide agents to handle each situation with the appropriate tone and information.

Gorgias offers dynamic, reusable answers, so your agents can build a template of canned responses for all your FAQs. These are easily accessible for agents to swiftly locate and use when replying to customers.

         

If you want some tips on how to craft these templated responses, check out this article with tips for responding to frustrated customers for a good start. 

3) Specialize agents in specific channels or issues

Just as every customer is unique, so too is every communication channel. Providing specialized training for agents in their chosen channels — be it phone, email, social media, or live chat — ensures they are not just familiar but highly skilled in navigating the nuances of these platforms.

But you can take this one step further by encouraging agents to become connoisseurs of specific product lines or types of issues. This deep dive into a particular area enables them to provide not just answers but insights, elevating the customer experience from good to great.

However, remember that specialization doesn’t mean working in silos. It's still crucial for specialized agents to also have a broad understanding across all areas. 

💡 Tip: With Gorgias, you can auto-assign tickets to an agent based on issue or channel. This way, you’re routing tickets to agents who can best help every customer. 

4) Promote a customer-first mindset across the entire organization

A tip that we love from Amanda Kwasniewicz at Love Wellness is the idea that to truly excel in customer service, a customer-first mentality needs to be woven into the very fabric of your organization. 

This goes beyond the customer service department and includes everyone, from the C-suite to the front lines.

She suggests organizing workshops that paint the picture of the crucial role a customer-centric approach plays in every department. These sessions should highlight how each team member's contributions echo in the symphony of customer satisfaction.

“At Love Wellness, we believe that every single team member plays a vital role in creating a haven of care and understanding. That’s why we created an immersive customer experience training program that involves each and every one of us, including the president of the company and even our office manager!” she said.

Read more: Why customer service is important (according to a VP of CX)

Additional resources to support customer service teams

For those who are eager to dive deeper into the world of customer service and sharpen their skills even further, Gorgias offers a treasure trove of resources. 

Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to refine your expertise, these materials are designed to enhance your understanding and execution of top-tier customer service:

• Customer Service Terms: A comprehensive glossary to get you fluent in the language of customer service. 
• Customer Service Phrases: This collection of key phrases can help guide your communication towards more positive and impactful interactions. 
• Customer Service Skills:An outline of the essential skills every customer service professional should master, for any situation. 
• Customer Service Tips: A series of actionable tips that can be implemented to improve your customer service delivery immediately.
• Customer Service Email Templates: Save time and maintain consistency with a variety of templates that cover common customer service scenarios. 

Each of these resources is designed to instruct and inspire your customer service team to exceed expectations and create memorable customer experiences.

Enhance agent support with Gorgias

Exceptional customer service isn't just about the right words; the helpdesk tool you use is equally important to enhance efficiency and deliver exceptional service. 

Gorgias is tailored to provide such support with innovative features that streamline your customer service processes. Let’s review a few in detail:

Automate responses with reusable Macros 

Macros are pre-scripted customer service templates that accelerate response times by using automation to tackle those repetitive but essential customer inquiries that come in droves. Think of them as pre-made customer service scripts. 

Often called ‘empty-calorie tickets,’ queries like “Where is my order?” don't require personalized responses and can be time-consuming if handled manually. Automating responses to these repetitive questions frees your agents to focus on more complex issues.

Here are some other times when Macros help:

• Welcome emails: A friendly and informative welcome message can set a positive tone for the customer relationship.
• Order status updates: For updates on transactions, shipping, and delivery, a Macro can provide customers with the information they need promptly.
• Refund confirmations: When processing refunds, a clear and courteous Macro can assure customers that their request has been handled.
• Customer loyalty messages: Keep your loyal customers engaged with updates and rewards information through efficient Macro communication.

Enable customers to find answers themselves

A staggering 88% of customers prefer to find answers independently, according to Statista. This tells us that the modern customer values autonomy, which is why self-service options are key.

Self-service options are resources for customers to get the answers they need without contacting an agent. These include FAQ pages, help centers, chat widgets, and interactive quizzes.

Here’s how each self-service option can benefit you:

• FAQ page: Centralizes customers’ most commonly asked questions on one page to prevent your inbox from being filled with the same questions.
• Help center: Larger in scope than an FAQ page or contact center, a Help Center is a database of detailed resources like articles and how-to videos to help customers learn more about your brand and product.
• Chat: Chat can turn into a self-service option with the implementation of Quick Responses, or preset conversations that can answer customers without a live agent.
• Interactive quiz: A fun self-service addition to online stores that carry highly specialized products, like skincare, health supplements, and apparel. 

Here’s a great example from BrüMate, which uses a product finder quiz in its customer knowledge base:

         

Use live chat for pre-sales support

Live chat has become an indispensable tool for connecting with customers in real-time. Some inquiries present a great opportunity to sell a specific product, which Olipop shows here: 

         

Gorgias live chat is designed to integrate seamlessly with the leading platforms for ecommerce customer support. It allows you to manage live chat tickets alongside those from email, phone, and social media, providing a unified interface to serve your online customers more effectively.

Chat campaigns can trigger when certain conditions are met (like visiting/dwelling on a certain page or being a repeat shopper). You can hit these targeted shoppers with personalized product recommendations or provide a unique discount code. 

To sum it up: You're not only addressing customer needs in real-time with live chat but also creating opportunities to influence purchasing decisions positively.

Integrates your helpdesk with the rest of your tech stack

Gorgias boasts a suite of over 100 app integrations, covering every facet of your store's tech stack like CRMs, loyalty tools, ERPs, and more. Some popular choices are Shopify (ecommerce), Okendo (reviews), Yotpo (loyalty rewards and referrals), and Recharge (subscriptions). 

This extensive range means that Gorgias can likely connect with whatever tools you use to manage your ecommerce business, creating a streamlined workflow for your customer service agents.

The real win with these integrations? They let your agents get super personal with support. 

When an agent pulls up a ticket, they’re able to see everything they need to know— past buys, loyalty points, you name it. This means they can give spot-on help that feels really tailored to each customer, cutting down on all that back-and-forth and making the whole experience smoother.

“Having quick access to previous order info in the helpdesk is super convenient and helps us turn our support agents into sales people.”

—Ian Anderson, Operations Manager @ mnml

Boost revenue through improved customer satisfaction

When it comes to turning satisfied customers into sales, Gorgias users are living proof of the potential.

Take Kirby Allison, for instance, who saw a 23% uptick in conversions after automating 30% of their customer support tickets. Or consider TUSHY, influencing a whopping 25% of their sales through Gorgias Convert.

These success stories highlight a clear message: customer service strategy isn’t just about problem-solving but about creating opportunities.

Ready to see the difference a proactive customer-first approach can make for your bottom line? Give Gorgias a try.

TL;DR:

• Tone of voice builds trust. A consistent tone of voice helps create personal connections with customers and builds trust in your brand, even when using AI.
• Analyze your brand's personality to find your tone. Review customer conversations, website copy, and marketing materials.
• AI can mimic brand voice by learning your data. This data includes your brand’s help docs, internal guidebooks, macros, and brand guidelines.‍
• Keeping AI on-brand requires regular training. Audit your brand voice, set guidance, and monitor responses to keep your AI accurate.

Tone of voice — and a strong brand personality — have become essential components of exceptional customer service. 

As many brands introduce AI to automate customer service interactions, the challenge of ensuring that AI is helpful looms. Part of that helpfulness means speaking to customers in a way that connects with them, not alienates them.

That’s why implementing AI that uses your brand’s signature tone of voice has never been so important.

This post will explore why tone of voice matters in customer service and provide insights on how AI can effectively replicate brand voice, with tips on implementing it successfully. 

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Why tone of voice matters in customer service

Through a customer service lens, tone of voice is the style, word choice, and general vibe of how your brand speaks when it communicates with customers. Tone of voice is one of the key components of brand identity, so the tone of voice a support team uses will always align with its greater brand.

According to Statista, 64% of customers prefer making purchases from companies that create experiences tailored to their needs and wants. A consistent tone of voice does just that, building trust, creating better relationships between customers and brands, and making experiences more personal.

On the flip side, brands that don’t prioritize tone of voice — especially when it comes to AI — will see robotic tones cause a loss of customer trust. 

How AI effectively replicates brand voice

51% of customers share concerns that brands that use AI won’t connect them to a human. But if you choose the right AI tools that leverage your brand’s information and use it effectively, you can train it to mimic your unique voice — sometimes to the point where customers don’t even know that it’s the AI talking.

That’s true for the CX team at toddler carrier brand Wildride. 

”An influencer emailed us saying, 'I really love you guys,' and our AI Agent replied, 'Love you too,' with heart emojis, which was really funny. It was just like an email from me and my other team members,” says Amber van den Berg, their Head of Customer Experience. 

Wildride trusts Gorgias’s AI Agent to manage a high volume of tickets while still providing each customer with a great experience.  

📚 Further reading: How Wildride automated 33% of email tickets with AI Agent 

AI Agent uses a few key components to mimic tone of voice, including LLMs (Large Language Models) to form human-like responses, guidance from you, and the internal resources you provide it. 

“We’ve had customers respond to AI Agent thinking they were speaking to a real person. That’s how elevated the response was from AI,” says Emily McEnany, Senior CX Manager at Dr. Bronner’s. 

4 tips for successfully infusing AI with your brand’s tone of voice

You can absolutely train AI to match your brand's specific voice and style. Here are a couple of tips that will help you be successful: 

• Audit your brand’s existing voice and tone
• Set up guidance
• Monitor responses and give feedback
• Keep up with regular training

1. Audit your brand’s existing voice and tone 

If your brand has an established voice and tone, make sure that you either have internal documents that detail it or can describe it accurately in a couple of paragraphs. 

You’ll use that information to help train the AI, so it’s essential that it’s up-to-date and accurate. 

If you don’t have an established tone, now is a great time to generate your brand voice. Review customer conversations and the copy on your website. Chat with your marketing team and even your brand’s founder to get a clear picture of what it is or what you’d like it to be. 

Here’s a quick-start guide for how to find your tone of voice: 

1. Think about the brands you want to be similar to and pick two. 
2. Now, take a look at those brands’ websites. Make a list of what you love — it could be the way these brands speak to customers, leverage active verbs, write their product descriptions, or how they talk on social media. 
3. Now that you have your list, circle the things that feel most relative to your brand. 
4. Can you put an overarching “vibe” to this list? For example, you might choose a word like friendly, sophisticated, or fun.  
5. Then, fill in this sentence: “We are (Your Brand) and our tone of voice is (the vibe word you chose). 
6. Now, see if you can expand on that a little more, with some thoughts about how you might interact with your target audience or write about your products.

2. Set up guidance

Most AI-powered tools will allow you to set up some sort of guidance around how they interact with customers. If you use Gorgias’s AI Agent, you’ll be able to set specific tone of voice parameters. Choose from three pre-built options — Friendly, Professional, Sophisticated — or Custom to give it your own instructions.

For example, jewelry brand Baby Gold uses an upbeat, friendly, warm, and personable tone. They would likely choose the Friendly option, which is the go-to option for many teams. 

“Sometimes agents forget personal details to call out when communicating with our customers, like birthdays or weddings,” says Sindi Melgar, their Customer Service Manager.  

“But I noticed on a few different occasions where the AI Agent is highlighting these things and is saying, congratulations on your wedding! Just the tone of voice that Michelle is able to adopt is definitely on brand for us.”

If you’re looking to provide your own specific guidelines, create custom guidance like Wildride did below: 

📚 Recommended reading: How to customize AI Agent with 7 brand voice examples

3. Monitor responses and give feedback

In general, you should always keep an eye on how your AI tool is answering questions to ensure that it’s providing accurate responses and that your customers aren’t getting frustrated. Combing through responses manually can be overwhelming, so that’s why Gorgias offers an AI Feedback feature. 

In the ticket sidebar you’ll find a summary of the response AI Agent provided, including why it responded the way it did and the resource it pulled the response from. 

Then, give feedback by using the 👍 or 👎 icons to mark AI Agent’s response as correct or incorrect. AI Agent uses this feedback to improve responses over time.

📚 Recommended reading: How to coach AI Agent and give feedback

4. Keep up with regular training

Any time you add new policies or update existing ones, make sure you add them to your helpdocs and Macros, which are the main resources the AI is going to draw from. 

The more consistently you can go in and provide the AI direct feedback on each response, the more easily AI will nail your unique tone. 

Create on-brand responses with AI 

Your brand’s tone of voice makes a huge impact on the relationships you build with customers. Combining your unique brand voice with AI means you’ll provide more personalized responses and resolve customer issues faster. 

“We were hesitant at first, but AI Agent has really picked up on our brand’s voice,” says Lynsay Schrader, Lab and Customer Service Senior Manager at Jonas Paul Eyewear. “We’ve had feedback from customers who didn’t even realize they were talking to an AI.” 

Gorgias’s AI Agent is the go-to tool for AI-driven customer support that aligns with brand tone.

Sign up →

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As rising inflation, higher-than-ever customer acquisition costs, and the looming possibility of a global recession continue to weigh heavy on the minds of many brands, driving revenue via great customer service is now more important than ever before. In these turbulent times, many online businesses are doubling down on customer experience to retain and grow business through upsells, repeat purchases, and referrals — all of which offer higher ROI than pursuing new customers.

It’s clear that happy customers are a great path to growth. But how can you create a customer service strategy that leads to happy customers? We’ll suggest 16 tactics below to improve customer service in 2024, including new ways to incentivize your customer support team and self-service resources you can use to reduce customer effort. 

What’s the link between customer service and revenue?

Business leaders often view customer service as a necessary expense rather than an opportunity for business growth. However, every customer interaction along the entire customer journey presents a chance to create revenue for your business. Your customer service team’s exceptional customer service can generate revenue by:

• Answering pre-sales questions to improve your conversion rate
• Encourages happy customers to refer others to your brand
• Create loyal customers through helpful customer support
• Drive upsells and customer retention

According to data from Emplify, one in six customers will leave a company after just one negative customer care experience, while 86% of customers will leave a company after two negative customer service interactions. And 73% of customers will leave a brand after just a few poor interactions, according to a 2022 Coveo report. These negative interactions catch like wildfire and are an early warning of a sinking ship.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though — better customer service can be a huge differentiator for your brand, especially when you consider the value of loyal customers. According to data from 10,000 Gorgias, returning customers make up only 21% of a brand’s customers but generate 41% of orders and 44% of overall revenue.

‎16 tips to improve your customer service and drive more revenue

Let’s take a look at our top 16 tips to get your team on the way to creating a better customer experience — and generating more revenue in the process.

1) Incentivize your customer service agents to meet business goals

We already discussed the impact your customer service representatives can have on business outcomes. To get serious about providing the best customer service possible, align your customer service team’s KPIs around demonstrated business goals.

Here are a few business-related KPIs that your team can focus on improving:

• Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
• Conversion rate
• Total sales from support

Consider going a step beyond setting KPIs and offering bonuses, gift cards, and other incentives for individual agents or teams that reach their goals as part of your customer support team management strategy. It’s common for sales — why not customer support, if they’re also driving revenue through customer interactions?

2) Build a user-friendly customer help center

When customers encounter a problem, they won’t reach out to you immediately. In fact, 88% of customers say that they expect companies to provide self-service support tools so that they can resolve issues on their own.

How can you help your customers help themselves? You need to build a good FAQ page or knowledge base, also called a help center, to help your customers answer their questions without having to contact an agent. Important considerations to keep in mind as you go about designing your help center include:

• Have a clearly visible search bar at the top of every page
• Include a prominent CTA to contact a human agent
• Organize your help center in categories like Product, Shipping, and Returns

For an example of an excellent ecommerce help center that accomplishes all of these objectives, check out our post on FAQ pages and help centers.

‎3) Use technology to remember 100% of customer details

Every customer has a unique conversation history, order history, and sentiment toward your brand. Whenever you talk to those customers, you should make an effort to personalize the conversation by using their names, acknowledging past interactions, using past order information instead of asking them to repeat it, and so on. Thankfully, technology makes offering this sort of personalized customer service much easier than it used to be.

Tools such as Gorgias’ Customer Sidebar can provide your customer support team with the data that they need to offer each customer a personalized customer service experience:

‎4) Prioritize complaints and pre-sale actions

Customer complaints and pre-sale actions are high-priority customer service tickets since they can directly impact your company's revenue. Addressing customer complaints prevents customer churn and encourages repeat purchases. Pre-sale actions such as questions about product sizing or your shipping policy present the opportunity to drive a sale home — if your agents answer in time.

You can develop your customer service team to prioritize these tickets manually, or you can prioritize them automatically within your helpdesk. If you use Gorgias, a combination of automated Rules and Intents can automatically identify certain ticket types — like customer complaints, pre-sales questions, or tickets from VIP customers — and flag them as high priority.

Check out our Director of Support’s post on how to prioritize customer service requests for guidance.

5) Only use positive/professional language

Sometimes, it’s not about what you say — it’s about how you say it. This rings especially true for customer service. You must make sure you sound level-headed, calm, and collected whenever you contact a customer.

If you’re delivering bad news, there’s no way to sugarcoat it. You need to be direct and professional about it. At the same time, you should also try to find a way to solve the problem.

For instance, if a customer has ordered something that was out of stock, an automated email telling them that you don’t have the product right now won’t cut it. You should tell the customer when you expect it to be available or perhaps offer some other products instead.

It's best to have a written procedure ready to respond to frustrated customers so your customer support agents know how to deal with them without having to worry too much. Of course, active listening is important to hear the customer’s response and settle on next steps.

See our post on customer support tips for more suggestions like this.

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6) Introduce proactive customer support to your strategy

‎The classic image of customer support is reactive. When your customers encounter a problem, they come to your customer service reps for a solution. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t approach certain problems proactively.

Case in point: shipping delays. In the past couple of months, ecommerce shipments have increased drastically. Recent reports indicate that there have been 47% more shipments since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. With such an increase, shipment delays are bound to happen.

To keep your customers in the loop, you can send out proactive communication about shipping setbacks. This will set customer expectations right and prepare them for any possible delays.

Another great example of proactive customer service is Gorgias' live chat campaigns, a tool that lets your team automatically reach out proactively to visitors browsing your website to ask if they need help, offer product recommendations or discounts, and guide them through the buying process. 

‎Creating clear product descriptions and convenient self-help resources is another great way to be proactive about customer service and can help reduce ticket volume while also improving the customer experience.

7) Be as clear as possible about your policies

More often than not, customers are worried about the fine print. As a matter of fact, 67% of online shoppers will check a company's return policy before making a purchase. Sloppily-written policies will turn off a lot of customers. Every policy on your website needs to be clearly articulated so users can easily find what they’re looking for.

Creating or updating your refund and return policies? Our policy generator can help you get started. We’re a big fan of the detail and organization of Steve Madden’s return policy:

8) Use automation strategically to dedicate your attention to high-impact tickets

Many tickets that a customer service rep handles throughout the day are repetitive, straightforward questions. Many of your agents are likely spending hours each day simply telling customers where their order is. Answering these common customer questions is a key part of good customer service, but these tickets are not high-impact tickets for revenue generation.

Fortunately, a customer service platform like Gorgias can help you completely automate these tickets so that your team can focus on more impactful tickets (such as escalated complaints and pre-sale discussions).

‎By creating Macros with answers to common questions and automated Rules to trigger with zero agent effort, you can free up your support agents to go the extra mile and provide a more personalized touch to the tickets that matter most.

9) Nurture customer relationships with community engagement

For some, a community engagement strategy consists of asking customers to like their page on Facebook, follow their business on Twitter, and not much else. Having thousands of followers and likes is a good look for your business, sure. But you can’t let those followers go to waste.

Engage your followers and get them talking about the experience with your brand. Then, ask them for some feedback about your business, operations, and employees. You can then use that information to tweak your business.

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself before building a community:

• What do you plan on doing with the community?
• Are you doing everything you can to engage the members?
• What type of information can you get from the members?

10) Use post-interaction surveys to collect customer feedback in real-time

If you’re looking to improve your customer service, you should send a customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey after every interaction. These short, simple surveys give you a snapshot of the quality of customer support you currently offer, which is a great first step toward improving customer support. 

Gorgias’ CSAT survey feature can be automatically sent out every time a customer interacts with one of your service reps. After every interaction, customers will get the following simple survey asking them to rate the interaction and, if they want, explain their answer:

‎Read our full guide to improving CSAT scores.

11) Train your employees in the areas where your customer service is weak

Many companies don’t place as much emphasis as they should on hiring and training talented customer service reps. Instead, they view the position as an entry-level, outsourceable role that doesn't justify a comprehensive onboarding process. However, if you want your customer service agents to perform like sales associates and drive revenue, then it’s essential to teach them the right customer service skills.

Your customer service reps are the front lines of your company and some of the only employees your customers will directly interact with. When you train customer service reps with an emphasis on revenue generation, you can turn your customer service team into a source of revenue that more than justifies its investment. Rather than simply instructing your agents to put out fires, train them on how to convert customer interactions into sales and promote customer loyalty. 

‎Read our complete guide to customer service training for more guidance. 

12) Follow up with the customer after they've had a chance to use your product or service

Following up with customers who have purchased your product/service (even if they don't contact you first) has many benefits: For one, it shows that you are committed to their satisfaction, even with their post-purchase experience.

It also provides you with the opportunity to collect valuable customer feedback. This feedback can be used to improve your product and overall customer experience and is something that many successful companies go to great lengths to collect.

Lastly, following up with customers can be a direct source of revenue generation. Recommending additional products to customers based on their experience with a previous purchase is an example of how following up with customers can lead to sales.

The most effective way to follow up with your customers is by setting up an automated email campaign that sends them an email after their purchase. What these emails include will depend on your specific goals (i.e., survey forms if you are trying to collect customer feedback or personalized product recommendations if you are trying to generate repeat sales).

13) Create a customer loyalty program

The more incentives you create for your customers to remain loyal to your brand, the better. While many considerations go into generating high ecommerce retention rates, creating a customer loyalty program is one proven effective option.

Customer loyalty programs give customers a financial incentive to remain loyal to your brand. They also turn the shopping experience into somewhat of a game, where reward points are the goal and making repeat purchases is how you score them. The more creative and fun you can make your customer loyalty program, the more effective it stands to be.

Along with repeat purchases, you can use customer loyalty programs to encourage other customer actions such as referrals, reviews, and survey responses by rewarding these actions with reward points as well.

Software solutions such as Smile.io and LoyaltyLion make it incredibly easy to create and manage customer loyalty programs – and they integrate with Gorgias to pull loyalty data into your helpdesk. These tools allow you to automatically track customer actions and reward loyalty-building actions with points and discounts.

14) Consider offering free shipping to qualifying customers

According to Small Business Trends, 66% of U.S. customers expect free shipping on every online purchase, while 80% expect free shipping if their purchase total exceeds a certain amount. 

Even if you have to raise your product pricing by a small percentage to maintain profitable margins, it’s still likely to positively impact both customer satisfaction and your conversion rates. Logical or not, a $50 subtotal plus free shipping is more appealing than a $45 plus $5 shipping.

If you can't afford to offer free shipping on every purchase, offering free shipping on purchases that exceed a certain amount can help you meet customer expectations and increase your average order value. For example, offering free shipping on orders over $100 will encourage many customers who have purchased just under that total to add an extra product or two to their cart.

Here’s what qualified free shipping looks like on apparel brand Woxer’s website:

15) Provide a solution for items that are out of stock

Create a policy for handling customer support tickets regarding out-of-stock products. Just a few ways to head off customer complaints regarding out-of-stock products include:

• Offering customers alternative products
• Placing an emergency order from your supplier
• Purchasing from an alternative supplier
• Offering customers discounts for their inconvenience

Along with offering one or more of these remedies, it’s also important to communicate effectively with customers trying to purchase an out-of-stock product. Follow up with them frequently to let them know the status of their order and when they can expect it to arrive.

Solutions for out-of-stock products can also be proactive and don't always require a customer to contact support. Giving customers the option to sign up for automated email alerts when a product is back in stock is one passive way to generate sales while improving customer satisfaction.

16) Add more customer touchpoints to shift to an omnichannel approach

According to a Salesforce report, 78% of customers prefer to choose between a variety of channels to reach a brand’s customer support. Depending on the issue, their mood, or the company, a customer may want to send a DM on social media, have a phone call, send a text message, or ask you their question on your website’s live chat. 

One of the biggest challenges support teams face when managing multiple channels is keeping up with messages spread across platforms. That’s why a helpdesk that unifies all these channels is so valuable: Your team can spend less time looking for messages and copy/pasting information, and more time providing quality care across all channels.

‎Examples of excellent customer service

Good customer service entails much more than being willing and able to help solve a customer's problems. If you want to transform your customer service team into a powerful source of revenue, here are some elements of great customer service to strive for:

• Your first-response time is below two minutes and your average-handle time is below one hour: Customers expect quick responses, making first-response/average-handle times two of the most important customer support metrics to track and lower.
• You have clear and lenient return and refund policies: Use Gorgias' refund policy generator to easily create a clear and well-thought-out return/refund policy for your store. (By the way, Gorgias data shows that offering free returns is actually cost-neutral because of the boost in revenue from customer loyalty it provides.)
• You reduce customer effort with self-service options like an FAQ page, a help center, self-service flows, and/or chatbots: Providing customers with self-service options can reduce the workload for your team members and improve customer satisfaction.
• You can clearly present the impact customer service has on revenue: Customer service teams often have to prove their ROI to earn the budget they need for additional agents and new tools, making it important to connect the dots between customer service and revenue growth.

Examples of bad customer service

Bad customer experience comes in many shapes and sizes. But some recurring elements leave customers feeling completely frustrated. Research from Hotjar reveals the top issues that have the most damaging effect on customer experience:

• Long waits and slow response times: If your customers are left waiting for your response for too long, they’ll probably go to your competitor.
• Failing to understand customer needs: Answering customer questions before truly understanding them will result in a frustrating customer experience.
• Unresolved issues and unanswered questions: Leaving tickets unanswered won’t leave a good impression and will leave your customer dissatisfied
• Lack of customer service personalization: Sending out generic responses to customer inquiries only shows that you don’t really care about your customers

Learn more about why customer service matters and how to measure it in this post from our Head of Success & Support: Evaluating Your Customer Service Program: Why, Challenges, and KPIs That Matter

Build a customer service engine that generates revenue

So far, the past few years have presented plenty of challenges for online retailers and 2024 will likely be no different. Moving forward, the ecommerce stores that can leverage customer service to their full revenue-generating potential will be the ones that succeed.

Want to learn more about how you can build a customer service operation designed to maximize your company's bottom line? Check out our CX growth playbook, a free resource that dives into 18 tactics to boost revenue by 44% by improving customer experience, based on 25+ interviews with top ecommerce brands and analysis of 10,000+ Gorgias customers.

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TL;DR:

• Manual QA is time-consuming and inconsistent. Reviewing conversations manually makes it difficult to ensure uniform quality across agents and touchpoints.
• Automating QA saves time and improves accuracy. Automation ensures all tickets are reviewed with the same quality, freeing up agent time to create stronger customer connections.
• QA helps teams continuously improve. It enables better agent training and brings forth actionable feedback to exceed customer expectations.
• Implement QA one step at a time. Begin by setting KPIs, introducing small changes, and investing in automation tools to streamline and measure success effectively.

Forrester’s 2024 Customer Experience Index reports that 39% of brands’ customer experience (CX) quality has declined over the past year.

It can be challenging to get a full understanding of how your team –– and AI, if you use it –– are truly performing.

This is true even with metrics like CSAT. 

“A 5-point scale only tells you and your agents so much, and relying on consumers providing feedback further limits what you’re able to look at and learn from,” says Kayla Oberlin, Senior Manager of Customer Experience at amika. 

Quality Assurance (QA) is becoming a more crucial component of a customer experience strategy, especially one that prioritizes customer happiness. 

We’ll cover the importance of customer service QA, best practices, tools, and tips to implement QA effectively.

🗺️ This article at-a-glance

• What is QA (Quality Assurance) in CX?
• Why QA is critical for customer experience
• Best practices for implementing QA in CX
• Challenges

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What is QA (Quality Assurance) in CX? 

In the CX context, QA (Quality Assurance) refers to reviewing customer conversations to improve your support team’s performance and enhance customer satisfaction. QA ensures a consistent and satisfying customer journey across touchpoints, including your website, support channels, and social media.

Common QA pain points for CX teams 

Aside from accuracy issues, a manual quality assurance process is:

• Time-consuming: Manual conversation reviews are slow and labor-intensive.
• Limited visibility: It’s difficult to get a clear, scalable view of team and AI performance.
• Inconsistent: Maintaining uniform quality across customer service teams can be tough.
• Resource allocation: Difficulty in ensuring the right skills, training, and resources are in place.
• CSAT limitations: Negative scores often reflect policies, not agent performance.

The solution isn’t for CX teams to skip the QA process altogether but to automate it.

According to research from McKinsey, “A largely automated QA process could achieve more than 90 percent accuracy — compared to 70 to 80 percent accuracy through manual scoring — and savings of more than 50 percent in QA costs.”

With an automated QA process, brands can:

• Save time: Automated quality checks help support agents to focus on the most critical tickets.
• Ensure consistency: Both human agents and AI agents are evaluated with a unified, comprehensive QA score.
• Boost performance: Agents receive targeted coaching to provide more consistent customer experiences.
• Meet customer expectations: Customers benefit from higher-quality support with quicker resolutions and accurate responses.

Why QA is critical for customer experience

According to Statista, 94% of customers are more likely to purchase again after receiving top-notch support. Quality assurance ensures that every customer gets the same experience, and provides agents with the feedback to learn and stay on-brand with each resolution.

At its core, QA: 

• Prevents errors
• Ensures consistency
• Builds trust with customers ‍
• Helps with personalization
• Aids in better coaching and training ‍
• Offers opportunities for continuous improvement

Prevent errors 

Addressing errors early is important, as even small mistakes can harm customer trust and create lasting negative impressions. QA tools can prevent mistakes because of better coaching and training. This can stop misinformation in its tracks –– and from escalating into bigger problems down the line. 

Ensure consistency 

QA makes sure that all customer touchpoints, like calls, emails, live chat, and even AI responses, are handled with the same level of care. This is especially helpful when training new team members, introducing new products or policies, or during high-traffic periods.

Build trust 

Consistent and reliable experiences build customer trust and loyalty. If you were to reach out to a brand and have an amazing experience the first time but a bad experience the next, you’d probably question which experience was the norm. 

Top-notch experiences that happen time and time again tell your customers that you’ll always be there to help. This can boost repeat sales and even referrals:  According to Statista, 82% of customers recommend a brand after a great experience.

Personalize experiences 

Aside from increasing happiness and making customers feel heard and appreciated, personalized support also affects your bottom line. Statista notes that 80% of businesses found that providing personalized customer experiences led to increased spending for consumers.

Aids in better coaching and training 

With QA, teams are able to rate and review all tickets instead of spot-checking. This provides them with a:

• Quicker turnaround on coaching opportunities
• Wider volume of tickets they can review, learn from, and use for training
• Better understanding of when a Macro or a process is leading to incomplete or unhelpful conversations
• Bigger opportunity for constructive feedback and flow improvements that are based on real responses and not frustrations with brand policies

Continuously improve

Whether it’s lowering resolution times, introducing a knowledge base, or adding an AI agent to your team, making continuous improvements will help you stay ahead of the competition.

Implementing a QA program (especially if you can automate it) is one of those additions that provides you with the refinements you need on a resolution-to-resolution level.

Best practices for implementing QA in CX

QA best practices include: 

• Establish a baseline for metrics and KPIs
• Monitor and evaluate regularly
• Implement automation tools
• Collect customer feedback

Establish a baseline for metrics and KPIs 

As you set out to integrate a Quality Assurance process into your CX program, first establish benchmarks for various metrics and KPIs. These benchmarks help track and evaluate the performance of QA as you implement it. 

If you don’t already track customer support metrics, CSAT, first response time (FRT), resolution time, and net promoter score (NPS) are great ones to start with. 

💡Tip: If you use Gorgias, you’ll find your current support performance statistics in the Statistics menu. Make sure that you can see back at least six months. Then, compare an equal time frame for post-QA implementation.

Monitor and evaluate regularly

While it might sound a bit “meta” to monitor your quality assurance (which is already monitoring your support responses), it’s still worth noting. 

Ensure that your QA process works smoothly, helps your metrics rather than hurts them, and provides actual helpful feedback to your agents. 

Implement automation tools 

The simplest way to maintain your support quality standards is to use an automated QA tool. Automating the QA process lets CX teams get deeper insights into agent strengths and areas for improvement, and captures deeper insights than a CSAT score could.

Collect customer feedback 

Understanding how customers feel will allow you to fine-tune your processes and ensure you’re delivering a consistent and high-quality experience. Here are a few ways to collect feedback:

• Surveys and reviews - Post-interaction surveys or direct reviews provide real-time feedback on what customers think of their experience.
• Social listening and real-time feedback - Monitoring online reviews, social media mentions, and customer comments offers insight into how your customers are feeling that might not be captured through formal surveys. 

Challenges of adding QA

Lack of resources, ineffective training, poor communication between team members, not having the right tools, and doing everything manually are some of the challenges you can encounter when adding a QA process.

Here are a couple of solutions we recommend:

• Start with phased rollouts. Rather than rolling out a QA process across your whole team, let more seasoned agents experiment with it first to give you feedback and make tweaks.
• Make incremental improvements. Changing an entire CX process at once to include QA can be overwhelming. We recommend making small changes (like starting to send CSAT surveys if you don’t already) one at a time. These changes will allow you to better measure what’s really working. 
• Invest in better technology. A manual QA process can be more time-consuming than helpful. Look for an automated QA tool that’s already integrated into your helpdesk. It will allow you to measure AI and agent responses equally, while also measuring results from a handy dashboard. 

Ensure customer experience meets quality standards

By prioritizing QA, your team can identify potential problems early, reduce errors, and improve overall performance, leading to a smoother, more reliable experience for customers –– and your CX team. 

In the long run, brands that focus on QA can gain a competitive edge, building stronger relationships with customers and driving sustainable growth. Book a demo now.

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TL;DR:

• Great customer service drives more than just satisfaction — it generates revenue. Retaining customers, increasing order sizes, and gaining referrals are key ways to grow your bottom line through excellent support.
• Customer feedback is a goldmine for improvement. Use insights from support tickets, surveys, and conversations to address common pain points and refine processes.
• Automation and self-service options enhance efficiency. Automate repetitive requests like WISMO and offer self-service resources so agents can focus on complex interactions.‍
• Train agents for deeper product knowledge. Providing agents with comprehensive training ensures they can handle inquiries confidently.

Many customer service guides focus on individual actions: be patient, show empathy, and listen actively. While these customer support tips are valuable, they only scratch the surface. 

The goal of ecommerce customer service isn’t just to please customers. Just like any function of a business, great customer service has to drive revenue — and having positive interactions with customers is just one part of that goal. Excellent customer service can help an online store grow its bottom line revenue through:

• Better customer retention (and more loyal customers)
• Higher average order volume (AOV) from loyal customers
• Better word-of-mouth advertising and referrals from high net promoter score
• More chances to drive sales with new customers through proactive customer service

With that in mind, here are 20 customer support tips for improvements on many levels, from operational changes down to individual agents’ day-to-day.

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Tips for making high-impact changes to your customer experience

For a top-down revamp, focus on high-impact, cost-effective changes that customer support leaders can implement. 

Here are five tips to tackle major customer service challenges and elevate your service experience:

1. Collect and use customer feedback

Customer feedback is the single best resource to improve the overall quality of your product and customer experience. Analyzing customer feedback from support tickets, NPS and CSAT surveys, and face-to-face conversations can surface patterns harming customer satisfaction and opportunities for improvement. 

Consider the following example: if customers frequently ask questions about return policies, you may need to make the policy clearer. Or, if feedback shows frustration with response times, consider implementing real-time support options, such as social media, chat, or SMS. You could also consider using automation and templated responses to resolve common questions quickly.

These direct channels provide immediate answers and reduce wait times for customers who want quick resolutions.

Your customer service team can use feedback to share insights with product, shipping, and other teams—often leading to broader improvements. For example, feedback about shipping issues can guide adjustments in fulfillment, while comments on product quality can drive updates in manufacturing. 

We recommend setting up a system to pass feedback to relevant departments. With Gorgias, you can automatically tag feedback for specific teams, create custom views, and invite team members to access this feedback directly. Plus, with unlimited seats on most Gorgias plans, it’s easy to involve everyone who needs to see it.

2. Automate simple ticket requests such as WISMO to let agents focus on valuable conversations

Automating responses to frequently asked questions, such as “where is my order” (WISMO), has two major benefits. First, it reduces response times by instantly providing answers to common inquiries. Fast, accurate responses to these questions are crucial for reducing customer effort.

Second, automation lets your agents focus on more complex inquiries. Without having to handle repetitive tickets, they can prioritize high-impact conversations that involve troubleshooting or personalized assistance. In practice, this means fewer hours spent on “one-size-fits-all” tickets and more time available to resolve unique customer issues and address inquiries that require customer service skills.

3. Provide self-service options

Most customers prefer to find answers on their own when possible––according to Heretto, customers overwhelmingly prefer self-service solutions as their first point of contact for support.

Options like knowledge bases, detailed FAQ pages, and interactive help centers help customers solve issues independently, without relying on customer service representatives.

Here’s a quick breakdown of effective self-service solutions:

• FAQ pages: Concise answers to frequently asked questions about shipping, return policies, and product details.
• Knowledge bases: Comprehensive guides covering product use, troubleshooting, and company policies.
• Automated chat: Quick responses that guide customers through standard issues, providing an “in-person” feel while freeing up your support team.

Automated chat bridge self-service and hands-on support, offering customers a personalized experience without tying up your team. With Gorgias, you can set up flows in your help center or chat, allowing customers to find answers or track and modify orders—all without waiting for an agent.

Read our complete guide to customer self-service.

4. Train agents to have a strong understanding of your products and processes

Effective customer service skills go beyond soft skills like empathy. Agents need a deep understanding of your product to give accurate advice and solve issues effectively. Similarly, they need to deeply understand customer service techniques and processes (for things like escalation and returns) to give clear, accurate instructions. 

Here’s how you can set your customer service reps up for success:

1. Product knowledge: Agents should have a strong command of product details, features, and common troubleshooting steps. When they know the product inside and out, they can solve customer issues faster and with more confidence.
2. Process knowledge: Every company has unique processes, from returns to issue escalation. Clear instructions help agents navigate these processes smoothly and give customers a streamlined experience.
3. Customer service training: Empathy and positive language are crucial in customer service. An agent who can put themselves in the customer’s shoes, show understanding, and avoid negative language is more likely to resolve issues successfully. For example, phrases like “I understand how this must be frustrating” validate the customer’s experience and demonstrate that the agent is there to help.

When guiding customers—like through checkout—agents must provide accurate information to avoid negative interactions. Macros help standardize responses and reduce human error. 

In training, prioritize product knowledge and create an internal knowledge base for quick reference. It’s also key to train agents on your service tools. Gorgias Academy offers courses and certifications, along with help center documentation for setting up automation and managing accounts. 

Plus, our help center has detailed documentation on how to configure your account, set up new automation, and so much more.

Explore effective ways to organize your customer service team for a more streamlined operation.

5. Track your customer service's impact on your brand's revenue

Exceptional customer service doesn’t just benefit the customer—it can also contribute significantly to revenue. Satisfied customers are more likely to become repeat buyers, and customer loyalty directly impacts long-term revenue. 

In-depth tracking is a challenge, but you can start by seeing how many customers place an order within five days of a customer service interaction and attribute that revenue to customer service.

If you want more suggestions, check out our list of 25 customer support metrics, which walk through revenue-related metrics like customer churn, revenue backlog, and more. 

Tracking this revenue contribution will help you understand the value of great customer service. With revenue statistics, brands can access detailed metrics and analysis regarding how much revenue their customer service team generates. By using Gorgias to analyze support ticket details and identify sales trends, you'll be able to figure out what works and what doesn't and use data to develop a customer service strategy optimized for revenue generation.​​

Explore more about how to drive customer retention through effective customer service.

4 Tips for driving sales through customer service

Customer service is more than damage control—it’s a chance to boost sales and drive revenue. By empowering your team to focus on increasing customer satisfaction, you can turn each interaction into a sales opportunity.

Here are three tips to help you get started:

6. Enable chat at checkout

Around 70% of all online shopping carts get abandoned. While there are many reasons why shoppers abandon shopping carts, questions or issues arising during the checkout process are some of the most common reasons.

Adding Gorgias chat to your checkout page helps prevent this by allowing customers to request help instantly.

With Gorgias, you can also reach out proactively during checkout—offering assistance, reminding customers of free shipping thresholds, or sharing discounts. This approach reduces cart abandonment and boosts average order value through strategic upsells and recommendations.

7. Proactively reach out during the shopping journey

You can boost conversion rates by proactively assisting customers through chat at key points in their journey. For example, if a customer has placed best-selling items in their cart, reaching out with a discount or answering questions could make the difference between a completed purchase and an abandoned cart.

By offering discounts, personalized recommendations, or quick assistance, you can turn an abandoned cart into a completed sale.

With Gorgias, you can automate these interactions through Gorgias Convert. Trigger responses based on customer actions—like adding high-value items or pausing on the checkout page.

Taking proactive approach drives sales and reduces cart abandonment, even when your customer service agents are offline.

3 Tips for boosting agent productivity

Boosting agent productivity speeds up response and resolution times, freeing your team to focus on delivering value. Here are three effective customer service techniques to help eliminate productivity blockers:

8. Encourage regular breaks

Sitting for prolonged periods takes a mental and a physical toll on a person, even if they don't notice it at first. 

Taking brief breaks throughout the day helps agents stay focused and reduces burnout. Something as simple as stepping away for a few minutes or doing light stretches can reset their energy and prepare them to handle the next ticket with a clear mind.

9. Set clear goals

Setting daily and long-term goals provides direction for customer service reps and keeps productivity high.

Setting daily goals keeps agents focused and motivated. These short-term goals might include:

• Resolving unresolved tickets from the previous day
• Addressing urgent requests or flagged issues
• Staying updated on team changes, like new tickets or inventory updates

Setting long-term goals helps reps stay committed to growing and developing their skillset, some goals might include: 

• Building product knowledge and customer service skills
• Providing feedback and support to help the team grow
• Reducing response times for specific inquiries

Encourage agents to discuss any roadblocks openly. By supporting them through challenges, you create a positive environment that helps them achieve their goals without added stress.

10. Prepare your workspace

With remote work becoming the norm––87% of support agents worked from home in 2021 maintaining a clear boundary between work and home life is essential. Creating a dedicated "work corner" helps remote agents stay productive.

Here are some tips to help you set up a workspace optimized for productivity:

• Use natural lighting, a nice comfy chair, and a few decorations to make your workspace more comfortable and inviting.
• Write a task plan for the workday, and then cross out everything you complete. Not only is it satisfying to cross things off the list, but it can motivate you for the day ahead.

3 Tips for avoiding common customer support mistakes

Avoiding common mistakes is just as crucial as following best practices. Here are three frequent support agent pitfalls to watch out for to protect your brand’s reputation and meet customer expectations:

11. Never interrupt customers

One of the most critical rules in customer service is to never interrupt a customer. Your customers may think you don’t want to listen to them and don’t respect them. 

They probably aren't going to be very happy as a result — even if the rep who interrupted does eventually resolve their issue.

12. Use inappropriate language

Words can have a huge impact on people. A customer support team needs to understand the power of words and always use positive language while avoiding phrases that customers could interpret as rude.

Check out our guide to customer service phrases for additional phrases to avoid.

13. Use canned responses strategically

Canned responses speed up replies but can fall flat if overused. The best practice? Personalize each response—adding the customer’s name or tweaking it for the situation can make a big difference.

That way, agents don’t need to recreate the wheel with every response, but it still puts a personal touch on each response; even something as small as including the customer’s name can make a big difference. 

Avoid canned responses if you’re unsure what the customer needs. And if there’s no relevant template, ask a teammate instead of forcing a one-size-fits-all answer.

Check out these 16 email templates to get started. Or, if you use phone support heavily, check out these customer service scripts.

6 Tips for handling angry customers

Handling unhappy customers is one of the toughest but most important parts of support. 

Here are six tips to help your team turn complaints into good customer experiences.

14. Try to always use positive language

Customers may not always have the kindest words for support agents, but it’s essential for your agents to always use positive language themselves — no matter what the customer is saying to them.

For example:

• Instead of “I might be able to help,” say, “I can definitely help with that.”
• Replace “Don’t get angry; I’m going to help you” with “I’m so sorry you’re experiencing this. Let me fix it for you.”

Training agents to use positive language helps build better customer relationships. Creating a library of positive response scripts can also be a valuable resource for your team.

15. Keep your composure

Dealing with angry customers can be challenging, but staying calm is crucial to avoid negative fallout. If emotions take over, customers may share their experience online, potentially deterring future shoppers.

Here are a few tips to keep your cool:

• Address requests from upset customers promptly. Reassure them by involving others if needed.
• Use clear explanations and soft skills. Stay composed to keep the interaction positive.

For more insights, check out our guide to handling angry customer emails.

16. Put yourself in the customer's shoes

Attempting to fully understand a customer's problems first before you try to resolve them can go a long way. 

Empathy is the ability to understand the issue from their perspective. Practicing this often leads to deeper understanding and better solutions.

17. Be transparent about what happened

Brands should take ownership of mistakes rather than cover them up. Be completely transparent about whatever happened, as your customers will likely get agitated if they feel like you're giving them the runaround.

Your customers need to know you’re always going the extra mile to help them resolve whatever issue they’re experiencing. If the problem was from your end, you need to communicate what you’re doing to prevent it from happening again.

18. Practice active listening

No matter the outcome, customers want to feel heard. If agents aren’t truly listening, frustration can grow.

Active listening means fully understanding the customer’s concerns and responding with feedback that shows you’re paying attention. Repeating details of what a customer tells you back to them is one effective way to demonstrate active listening and is sure to help calm a frustrated customer.

19. Thank the customer for bringing this issue to your attention

When an upset customer shares their issue, thank them. Negative feedback is valuable, as it highlights areas for improvement. Showing genuine appreciation reassures customers that you’re committed to solving their problem, which can help diffuse frustration.

With Gorgias and Yotpo, you can track customer reviews to tailor responses or even launch win-back campaigns, like offering a discount. 

Better customer support experience, better customer journey — more revenue generation

Implement a few of these customer support tips and see how much you boost revenue and productivity. Start by giving your customer service reps in-depth product training and automating simple responses that don’t require a human touch. 

Find out how Gorgias' industry-leading customer service tools helped Kirby Allison boost conversions by 23% after automating 30% of tickets. 

To learn more about how Gorgias' cutting-edge customer service and automation features can help you improve customer service at every level, book a demo with Gorgias.

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TL;DR:

• Improve your customer experience with real-time order tracking. This will benefit your customers and brand by increasing their sense of security, creating customer loyalty, and reducing returns. 
• Integrate your order tracking system with your Helpdesk. Choose a solution like Aftership, ShipBb, ShipStation, or others that integrate with your CX platform. This lets you link shipping data with your customer data for faster response and resolution times. 
• Make tracking information accessible with self-service options. Ensure your shipping information is easy for customers to find through email and SMS notifications. You can also add order management Flows in your chat or Help Center.
• Deflect repetitive WISMO tickets with automation. Let your AI Agent answer repetitive “Where is my order?” requests so your agents can focus on revenue-generating tickets. 

The competition to provide customer satisfaction in ecommerce today is fierce. Now, shoppers demand free shipping on every order and expect lightning-fast order processing and fulfillment. What once were “nice to haves” have become necessary for growth and success. 

Customers expect quick delivery times and no shipping feels, and their order tracking expectations are just as high. Shoppers want to see an order's status and location at any given time, from purchase to doorstep. Even better are real-time alerts like SMS or email notifications at each point in an order’s journey.

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Below, discover the benefits of tracking customer orders. Learn why you should consider implementing an order tracking tool for your business. 

Why your online store should track customer order status

Huge ecommerce vendors like Amazon have trained customers to track their online orders thoroughly. From the order processing stage to when a delivery person from FedEx, UPS, or USPS leaves it at their door. In other words, expectations are high. 

Offering real-time tracking data for purchases benefits both your customer and your business in five distinct ways.

Gives shoppers and business owners a sense of security

Once customers place an online order, waiting for it to arrive can be both exciting and stressful. Questions like, “Will it get here on time?” or “Is it ever coming?” become more intense if customers can’t check the delivery status themselves in real time. Plus, as a business, you can follow along to ensure that orders are getting where they need to go. 

DHL's 2024 Delivery and Returns Report shows 43% of shoppers agree that real-time tracking improves their delivery experience. 60% of global shoppers even said that delivery speed was not as important as end-to-end tracking.

Allows customers to plan ahead

Consumers need to know that an order is on its way and when it will arrive for reasons beyond curiosity. For example, if a product is expensive, customers won’t want it to sit on their front porch all day. If customers have to sign for a package, they might have to work from home to accept it. In these instances, status updates are crucial.

According to research from Verte, 91% of consumers actively track their packages. 39% track them once a day and 19% track packages multiple times daily. Shoppers also want these updates to be convenient, with 38% preferring package updates via SMS over email. 

Customers can maintain constant contact with their order at home and on the go via a mobile device. This gives them the transparency they need to plan ahead for a fun unboxing or an essential item they can’t live without. 

Builds customer loyalty 

The customer experience you provide on your ecommerce platform is essential to business growth. Providing shoppers tracking information, email updates, and delivery dates can help create a positive view of your brand. This builds a better customer experience and encourages loyalty and retention.

Research from Voxware shows that 69% of customers are less likely to shop with a retailer again if their package didn’t arrive within two days of the promised date. 16% of customers even said they would stop shopping with a brand if they received an incorrect delivery once. 

New customers appreciate seamless experiences and are more likely to make repeat purchases from businesses that offer them. Creating a cycle of repeat purchases will help your business grow. Encouraging loyalty through an easy-to-use order tracking tool gives you a significant advantage.

Recommended reading: 9 Revenue-Driving Ecommerce Shipping Best Practices

Frees up your customer service team (by deflecting WISMO tickets with automation)

Many ecommerce companies are looking for ways to alleviate customer service workloads and reduce time handling simple requests. Providing real-time order tracking is one of those ways since customers no longer need to ask, “Where is my order (WISMO)?” This question accounts for 16% of tickets for the average ecommerce store, according to Gorgias data.

Instead of reaching out to check their order status, tracking systems proactively send email or SMS notifications or provide access to a portal where customers can see progress in real time. This solution streamlines the process and reduces ticket volumes, increasing productivity. Your support team will have more time to handle complex issues and customers will get a better experience.

With tools like Gorgias’s AI Agent and Flows, you can automate customer order tracking through SMS, email, or chat. Or, create a self-service portal where customers can use their purchase order number to access their order status. We’ll cover both of these more in a later section. 

“Chat used to be a support tool for repetitive questions and problem-solving, but now Automate takes care of that for us. Within a month of launching, our manual live chat tickets decreased 17%.” 

—Caela Castillo, Director of Customer Experience at Jaxxon

Recommended reading: Offer More Self-Serve Options with Flows: 10 Use Cases & Best Practices

Lowers the number of returns you can expect 

People often return items because they arrive late and the customer no longer wants or needs them. With detailed order tracking and a simple returns policy, customers can better expect when their product will arrive. This makes it less likely that they will return the package when it finally gets to them. And, as you might expect, reducing returns positively impacts your business’s revenue.

Recommended reading: Ecommerce Returns: 10 Best Practices for Taking Your Online Store to the Next Level

Why ecommerce businesses should think twice before building a custom order tracking system 

Using a customer order tracking system has many advantages. We recommend using a pre-built solution because maintaining a manual tracking system is time-consuming. Find our recommendations below.

A custom-built tracking page may require more data entry than necessary. Manual processes open your system up to human error and eat up productivity.

Manual systems require extensive set-up

If you try to provide order tracking yourself, you’ll save in the short term but spend plenty of time and money building and maintaining a system to send tracking information. 

Once you successfully sync your tracking components, you'll need to create different templates that collect or communicate information to your customers. For example, you might build a form that collects order information like a customer’s name, address, phone number, and credit card details. Or, write a pre-written email that you can use to send out shipment notifications for each step of the order process. 

You can also create template responses for common questions. For example, you can answer, “Where is my order?” and provide tracking information and updates on shipment and delivery. 

You need seamless integrations to avoid tab-shuffling

For an order tracking system to work properly, all of your tools must "talk" to each other. This includes information from your manufacturers, website, helpdesk, social media commerce, SMS, inventory management software, and shipping carriers. If they don't, a bottleneck occurs, or they fail to communicate information at all. The result is that your customer can't access their order status, which causes frustration and has them turning to your customer support team.

How to set up order tracking: Let customers see the status of shipments in real time

If you manually record and send order tracking information in an Excel document, you probably feel frustrated. 

One of the most common incoming questions customer support teams get is, “Where is my order? (WISMO)”. The best way to mitigate those messages is by implementing a self-service system that automates shipping tracking notifications.

1. Decide on an order tracking tool
2. Integrate your order tracking tool with your ecommerce platform
3. Configure your tracking app’s settings
4. Let automation do its thing
5. Integrate your order tracking software with your helpdesk

This creates a better overall customer experience by providing transparency and reducing stress or frustration. Customers see exactly where their orders are at any point in time. You’ll also be available for customers when they’re most engaged. 

Here’s how to implement one. 

1) Decide on an order tracking tool 

First, you’ll choose an order tracking tool like ShipBob, ShipStation, or AfterShip — we will discuss each in more detail below. These tools take order information like tracking numbers and shipment status and automate customer notifications. Many order tracking apps integrate with different ecommerce systems like Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, 3DCart, or WooCommerce. So, you’ll need to make sure that the tool you choose integrates well with your ecommerce system. 

As an example, we’ll walk through setting up order tracking with AfterShip on a Shopify store. 

2) Integrate your order tracking tool with your ecommerce platform 

This is usually quick and easy, depending on the tool. You can add AfterShip to your Shopify store by visiting the Shopify App Store. You can navigate here from the Apps section on the sidebar of your store’s dashboard. Then, click “Customize your store” and search for the AfterShip app. 

Or, you can sign up for an AfterShip account, visit the apps section, search for Shopify, and add it that way. Either way, visit the integrated app section on your Shopify/AfterShip account to make sure that the installation succeeded. 

3) Configure your tracking app’s settings

Now, you’ll want to make sure your courier mapping, import settings, and tracking page settings are good to go. You can access these from your AfterShip account’s app page — here’s AfterShip’s help doc to assist with setup. 

• Courier mapping: Add all the shipping couriers you use so that AfterShip’s automation can pick them up. 
• Import settings: Choose your order fulfillment timeframe and select the timeframe you’d like AfterShip to pull orders from. 
• Tracking page settings: Choose the tracking page you’d like to use (in the case you had created multiple in AfterShip). 

4) Let automation do its thing 

Now that you have AfterShip set up, it will sync every three hours. It pulls shipping information from any new orders via a shopping cart, CSV file, or marketplace. You can also opt for AfterShip to send out automatic notifications via email or SMS at each milestone in the shipping process. 

5) Integrate your order tracking software with your CX platform

Create a seamless experience for your customers and support team by integrating your order tracking tool with your helpdesk and automation tools. By linking all shipping data and tracking information, you can get resolutions to customers faster and access all necessary information in one place. 

Why is this helpful? Well, you give customers multiple opportunities to find their order tracking information within seconds. Whether customers take advantage of your self-service order tracking options or ask your support team about their order status, all the information is readily available. Without the integration, you’ll have to switch tabs and copy/paste order information like tracking number, shipping address, and estimated delivery date. 

With an integration, that information automatically populates. Take a look at the image below.

On the left is a Macro, or template, sent by a customer service agent. It has variables that automatically pull tracking information from the integration. On the right is the personalized message the shopper receives.   

Setup is as simple as creating a connection between the two platforms so that they can talk to each other. To understand this better, check out the step-by-step guide. It shows how to set up the integration between AfterShip and Gorgias.

“With all the Gorgias integrations, my team doesn't need to jump between tools. This has helped us dramatically improve customer satisfaction.”

— Amanda, Director of Operations at Darn Good Yarn

Make tracking information easily accessible

Once you have your automated order tracking system set up, you’re not quite off the hook yet. Many customers choose to receive email and SMS notifications. However, some may ignore these messages or lose the tracking link. This will lead them to still visit your website or support inbox to check the status of their order.

That’s why we recommend making customer order tracking available in the following places:

Order confirmation emails

Whenever a customer places an order, they should get an order confirmation message with their receipt. This should also include any additional information they need between that moment and the arrival of their new item. This includes a prominent tracking number and a link to the order tracking portal, whether that’s with a service like AfterShip or directly on your carrier’s website. 

If your fulfillment process doesn’t let you send this information right away, consider adding a shipping confirmation email to your post-purchase experience flow.

If you don’t currently send order (or shipping) confirmation emails, this guide (for Shopify users) will help you set one up.

Embedded in the chat widget

While the primary function of the chat widget is to connect with customer support agents in a conversational way, some live chat apps like Gorgias allow you to embed buttons shoppers can click to track their orders. In Gorgias, this is called a self-service order management flow.

Self-service order tracking in chat is possible natively in Gorgias, no integration required. 

Here’s how order management Flows works for customers:

Self-service order management is convenient for customers. It also serves as a last layer of protection for your customer support inbox. When a customer opens the chat widget to send a question, they can see the status of their order much faster than an agent can tell them.

Embedded in your Help Center (or FAQ)

If you have an FAQ page or a larger knowledge base (which we call a Help Center), you can also embed order tracking here. 

Standalone self-service order tracking in the Help Center is possible natively in Gorgias, no integration required.

Much like order tracking in a chat widget, this feature lets customers track their order with just a few clicks. All available right where they’d find other help content:

Direct customers here by linking to your Help Center at the bottom of your customer support and automated emails. Or add it in your email signature, for easy clicking.

“Since launching Automation Add-on (quick response Flows) three months ago, we have doubled the revenue from customer support. We’re on our way to triple the revenue we get from chat.”

— Annalisa Micalizzi, Manager of Global Customer Service at ALOHAS 

Automated responses through AI Agent 

If customers bypass all the tracking notifications in their inbox and your self-service order management options, you still have one more automation option at your disposal. Gorgias Automate users can introduce AI Agent to handle those WISMO requests without the need for agent intervention. 

You can set up one comprehensive Guidance to detect a customer’s current order status and give them an update. This gives customers nearly instant response times. Plus, your support agents have more time to handle complex tickets than rather than focusing on repetitive tickets. 

Here is an example of how AI Agent assists a customer with their order tracking inquiry: 

The best customer order tracking app options for ecommerce stores

There are several great choices on the market for customer order tracking systems. Depending on your needs and the ecommerce platform you use, choose from options that are both scalable and flexible.

Start with customer support software that acts as your central hub.

A powerful customer service team is the building block of a successful order management system. Helpdesks like Gorgias help centralize the communication of tracking requests via apps in one place. From there, customer service teams can respond/automate responses related to tracking and order statuses. These tools optimize the response time and increase the instances of a positive customer experience.

Gorgias integrates with a ton of popular ecommerce tools, making it a great single-view hub. A few of the most popular integrations are NetSuite, Reveal, Tolstoy, Magento, ChannelReply, and Shopify.

Apps that help automate customer order tracking for Shopify and BigCommerce

Choosing the best tools to automate your customer order tracking can be overwhelming. But with so many options, you’ll end up with an order tracking system that works exactly how you need it to. Here are some of the best order tracking providers to create track customer purchases.

ShipBob

ShipBob is a global logistics platform that provides online companies with best-in-class order fulfillment. It powers ecommerce brands to ensure customers receive fast and affordable shipping. With reliable fulfillment services and connected technology that powers its fulfillment network, ShipBob improve transit times, shipping costs, and the customer delivery experience.

Check out this app in the Shopify App Store or the BigCommerce App Store. And if you use Gorgias, check out our integration with ShipBob.

AfterShip

With its seven notification triggers, easy-to-use email editor, and filter tracking tools, AfterShip helps online businesses communicate transparently with customers. It also helps you monitor delivery issues so you can address them before they become problems that could damage your customer experience.

Check out this app in the Shopify App Store and the BigCommerce App Store. And if you use Gorgias, check out our integration with AfterShip.

ShipStation

ShipStation helps you save time and money and sell more, by comparing rates and delivery times for all your carriers in one place. This ensures you offer the fastest, most cost-effective shipping for your customers. The app automates almost every facet of your shipping process. ShipStation offers intuitive dashboards and seamless interfaces for an optimal workflow.

Review this app's complete offerings in the Shopify App Store and the BigCommerce App Store. 

Extensions that help automate customer order tracking info for Magento 2

Below, check out three recommended order tracking extensions that integrate with Magento 2. 

ShipStation

ShipStation is highly scalable and provides everything you need for order management in one location. It integrates with Magento 2, as well as Shopify and BigCommerce. 

See if ShipStation is right for your ecommerce business in the Magento Marketplace.

Easyship

Whether you ship 50 or 50,000 orders a month, Easyship can help you lower shipping costs and increase conversion rates. Use this extension to manage your post-purchase process in the most efficient way for your business.

Read more about Easyship in the Magento Marketplace.

Recommended reading: Our list of the best shipping software for ecommerce.

Mageworx

The Mageworx Order Editor extension lets you edit customer errors. Quickly fix any mistakes customers make during checkout like incorrect street numbers, phone numbers, names, shipping, or billing details. You can also add or remove products, change pricing, and add coupons after an order has been placed. This saves your customer support team from having to cancel the order and start it again from the beginning.

Learn more about Mageworx in the Magento Marketplace.

Centralize your order status tracking and customer support management with Gorgias

Leverage automation to facilitate easy order tracking, status updates, and real-time delivery information for your customers. Committing to an end-to-end order tracking system lets you cut costs, increase productivity, and foster customer retention.

Gorgias is a robust and comprehensive ecommerce help desk and automation solution. It can help you deflect repetitive tickets so your team can spend more time on higher-value conversations. 

Reach out today to learn how we integrate with your order status tracking system.

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Let's talk about something that often gets overlooked in ecommerce: what happens after someone hits that "Place Order" button. You might think the hard part's over once you've made the sale, but here's the thing  the post-purchase experience can make or break your relationship with customers. 

In today's competitive online marketplace, those relationships are everything — especially considering that loyal customers spend an average of 67% more per purchase than new customers.

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The importance of post-purchase support and automation in ecommerce

Providing an excellent post-purchase customer experience can turn one-time customers into loyal advocates who are more likely to make repeat purchases and recommend your brand to others.

It's all about the customer experience

When someone buys from your store, they're not just getting a product — they're starting a relationship with your brand. 

A great post-purchase experience shows customers you actually care about their satisfaction beyond just making the sale. 90% of U.S. customers say that an immediate customer service response is "important" or "very important.”

When you nail this part, something magical happens: one-time shoppers transform into passionate advocates who not only come back for more but can't help telling others about their amazing experience with your brand.

Having accessible support and an efficient and easy returns process may make the difference between a happy customer and an unsatisfied one.

Building trust that lasts

Trust is everything in online shopping. When customers feel supported after making a purchase, they're much more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if something goes wrong down the line.

It's like building a friendship: every positive interaction adds another layer of trust. And that trust translates directly into repeat business and glowing recommendations. 

The post-purchase support experience makes a huge difference in building that trust. In fact, 96% of customers say excellent customer service builds trust.

Keeping your return rates down

Great post-purchase support can actually help reduce your return rates. By addressing concerns quickly and providing clear information upfront, you can prevent many returns before they happen.

This can save you money on shipping and restocking and create a smoother experience that keeps customers happy and your business healthy.

Making processes more efficient

Automation eliminates manual tasks, freeing up your team to focus on more strategic initiatives. By automating repetitive tasks, you can improve efficiency and productivity, allowing your team to focus on more value-added activities. 

You can automate everything from customer support to returns and exchanges to your order tracking and more. Besides meeting customers' straightforward needs, automation allows you to focus your team's energy on solving bigger problems and strengthening customer relationships.

Accuracy, guaranteed

Automation helps ensure consistency across all your post-purchase processes. 

When customers know they can count on a reliable experience every time they shop with you, it builds confidence in your brand. 

Plus, fewer mistakes mean happier customers and less time spent fixing problems.

Creating better customer experiences

Speed matters in today's world, and automation helps you deliver faster, more personalized responses to customer needs. 

Whether it's instant order updates or quick responses to questions, automation helps you meet and exceed customer expectations. The result? More satisfied customers who feel valued and understood.

How to automate the post-purchase experience for better loyalty

Here are some ways to automate the post-purchase experience:

Automate your returns and exchanges process

Streamline the returns process with automated return labels, tracking, and updates. Use ReturnGO to automate this process, saving time and reducing manual errors. With automated returns, you can provide a hassle-free experience for customers, encouraging them to return to your store in the future.

Automated returns can help to improve the customer experience by making the returns process easier and more convenient. 65% of customers say the speed and ease of refunds affect where they choose to shop. 

By automating tasks such as generating return labels and tracking packages, you can reduce the time and effort required for customers to return items. 

Think about it from their perspective — if returning an item is hassle-free, they'll feel more confident buying from you in the future. It's like having a safety net that makes customers more comfortable taking chances on new products.

Centralize customer support

In today's fast-paced world, customers expect quick and efficient support. Using a customer experience platform like Gorgias, you can manage all your customer support tickets in one place, making it easier to provide fast, accurate help when people need it.

By centralizing your post-purchase support, you can manage support tickets more efficiently, respond to customer inquiries quickly, and provide the most up-to-date information. This centralized approach can hugely improve response times.

Keep customers in the loop

Nobody likes being left in the dark about their order. Automated post-purchase notifications keep your customers informed every step of the way - from order confirmation to delivery and returns. Using tools like ReturnGO, you can send personalized updates that make customers feel looked after. This is essential for building customer loyalty. 

Keeping customers informed about their orders can help reduce customer anxiety. When customers know what to expect, they’re less likely to worry about their purchase and are more likely to keep buying from you again and again. 

Create an integrated workflow

To truly streamline your post-purchase customer service, if you connect your returns management system with your customer support system, you really bring all of the pieces of a puzzle together.

When these two systems are in sync, you can create a smooth workflow that makes things easier for both your team and your customers.

By automating tasks like creating support tickets and processing returns, you can save time and create a more reliable, efficient system that helps you serve customers better. No more jumping back and forth between systems to check on a return when a customer reaches out about it.

The ReturnGO-Gorgias integration makes this happen seamlessly, with features like:

• Automatic ticket generation: When a customer requests a return, a support ticket is automatically created on Gorgias, saving you time and preventing errors.
• Real-time updates: Return request information is automatically updated from ReturnGO to Gorgias, so your team always has the latest details right there.
• Centralized system: No more digging through multiple systems. This means your support agents always have access to the most up-to-date information and respond quickly and efficiently to customers.
• Smart widget: The ReturnGO-Gorgias integration includes a widget embedded in your Gorgias dashboard, for managing RMAs directly from within Gorgias. This widget enables your team to:
  • View RMA information: See all the relevant details about a return, including the customer's information, the items being returned, and the reason for the return.
  • Take actions on the RMA: Easily approve or reject a return request directly from Gorgias.

The ReturnGO-Gorgias integration makes it easy for your team to manage returns and communicate with customers without having to jump between systems to hunt for information.

The path to lasting customer loyalty

So, there you have it! In the world of online shopping, how you handle the after-purchase experience can be just as important as making the sale in the first place.

By automating your post-purchase process, you can create a seamless and satisfying customer experience. 

Tools like ReturnGO and Gorgias can help you create the kind of experience that builds customer loyalty.

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