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When you think of customer service, you likely imagine a team of agents responding to incoming customer complaints and questions. This type of customer support, called reactive customer service, is an important way to help customers, but it’s only one dimension of a larger customer service experience.

You can upgrade your customer service with a proactive customer service strategy that includes:

• Creating self-service resources like FAQ pages or help centers
• Live chatting with potential customers on your website to provide real-time help
• Offering tutorials, discount codes, and recommendations to help customers make a more confident purchase

With proactive customer service, you can set customer expectations, create more opportunities for positive customer interactions, and increase your brand’s conversion rate. All without requiring your shoppers to put forth the effort of reaching out to you.

Below, we’ll share a few strategies for proactive customer service that will support a happier customer base and, in turn, long-term sales. 

What is proactive customer service?

Proactive customer service means that you make the first move, proactively providing customers with support resources, rather than waiting on them to contact your brand first. Proactive customer support can be provided directly via an agent messaging customers, or indirectly via self-service resources such as an FAQ page or knowledge base. Examples of proactive customer service include:

• Contacting a customer pre-purchase via a live chat widget to walk them through the purchase process (and boost sales)
• Providing automated product recommendation pop-ups that are triggered based on specific customer actions
• Offering customers a knowledge base where they can find answers to common questions
• Responding to social media posts that mention your brand.

What is reactive customer service?

Reactive customer service is the type of customer service that most people are much more familiar with. Despite the growing popularity of a proactive customer service approach, reactive customer service remains a vital form of customer support as well. 

As the name suggests, reactive customer service involves reacting to customer issues when they are brought to your attention by the customer. Examples of reactive customer service include:

• Answering phone calls on your brand's customer support line
• Responding to SMS and email messages
• Engaging with customers via live chat support when the customer was the one to open up the live chat window

While examples of reactive customer service can be found in virtually any customer-facing business, Zappos executes especially effective reactive customer service. Part of their strategy is sending a personalized response to every single email that they receive. This level of personalization ensures that the customer feels seen and acknowledged, lending itself to more positive customer experiences. 

Why more online stores are turning to proactive customer service

There are two main categories that customer service can fall into: reactive customer service and proactive customer service. If you would like to create a customer service strategy that is as efficient and effective as possible, it's important to balance both of these approaches.

The numerous benefits of proactive customer service have led more and more online stores to adopt a more proactive approach to meeting customers' needs. According to data from MyCustomer, 73% of customers who are contacted proactively report a positive experience that changes their perception of the brand for the better. 

Here are three additional benefits of proactive customer support:

It gives you more opportunities to drive sales

Proactive customer service can be the difference between an abandoned cart and a placed order. Why? Customers need information — such as sizing guides, product details, and refund policies — before placing an order. However, a customer might opt to shop elsewhere before reaching out to customer service.

You can keep customers on your site by reaching out proactively via live chat to ask if they need any help in those key moments. With Gorgias live chat campaigns, you can even automate this process and trigger a live chat that offers support (or even a discount code) when customers reach certain cart values, linger on a purchase page, return to your site multiple times before making a purchase, or a number of other situations. 

The result? Better customer support, higher conversion rates, and more opportunities to drive upsells.

It reduces tickets and shrinks your customer support team's workload

Adopting proactive customer service means that you will be able to resolve common issues without the need for customers to contact your customer service team. In many cases, providing proactive customer service does not require the assistance of a customer support agent at all. Self-service resources, for example, allow customers to find the answers to common questions on their own. 

Self-service chatbots alone are estimated to save companies across the globe a projected total of $11 billion by 2023, according to data from Kindly. Not only can reducing the size of their customer support staff help save your company money, but shrinking your support team's workload via proactive customer support solutions can also provide your team with more time to focus on high-priority customer conversations. This can help you further increase customer satisfaction as your team can focus its efforts where they are needed the most. 

Take a look at Rio de Janeiro’s help center, powered by Gorgias. Customers have access to a number of support articles about the product, the company’s shipping and returns policies, and more. Plus, they can even track and manage their orders without ever having to contact an agent. 

It improves customer experience and can boost customer loyalty

The entire goal of proactive customer support is to provide value to customers without waiting for them to make the first move. This isn’t always easy: you have to study the customer journey, from first exposure to repeat customer, in order to anticipate and proactively address customer issues and pain points.

Providing proactive customer support lets a customer know that your company truly cares about their needs. Today, offering great products alone isn't enough to ensure high customer retention rates. Customers choose, share, and stick with companies that offer a customer-centric experience in addition to excellent products and services — it’s the secret to Amazon’s success. 

Want to learn more about live chat for proactive customer service? Check out these resources:

• The best live chat apps (general)
• The best live chat apps for ecommerce
• The best live chat apps for Shopify stores
• 22 live chat statistics
• How to add a live chat to your Shopify store

5 ways to implement proactive customer service and drive revenue

The benefits of proactive customer service are undeniable, but implementing an effective proactive customer support strategy requires a carefully developed plan. If you would like to start leveraging a proactive approach to customer support to create more happy customers, here are five strategies to consider.

1) Proactively chat shoppers with best-selling items in their cart to reduce cart abandonment

One of the most effective forms of proactive customer support is to reach out to customers while they’re shopping. It’s like a sales associate asking in a physical store asking a shopper whether they need anything — but easier to ignore if they’re happy shopping solo.

With the right helpdesk, you can automatically reach out to customers with best-selling items in their cart offering to answer questions, recommend accessories, or provide a discount code to incentivize a purchase. Customers may respond by asking for your opinion about sizing or other product details, or just feel delighted to save a few extra dollars. This kind of proactive conversation, which we call a chat campaign, can reduce cart abandonment or even lead to upsells. 

Here’s an example of a customer adding a best-selling product to their cart:

Customers with best-selling items in their cart are only one segment you can target. With chat campaigns, you can automatically start a chat with customers who:

• Add a certain amount of merchandise to their 
• Linger on a product, help, or checkout page
• Visit your website multiple times without making a purchase

If you want an inside peek at how to set up chat campaigns in Gorgias, check out our help doc on the subject. Alternatively, book a demo (and ask about chat campaigns.)

By the way, this tip is part of our CX Growth Playbook, which offers 18 tactics to boost ecommerce revenue by 44% through exceptional customer service. 

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2) Proactively welcome new followers on social media with a DM

Most brands already use social media for customer service. But in addition to managing incoming DMs and comments on your various social media accounts, you can nurture customer relationships by sending a welcome DM to new followers on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other social media platform.

You can say hello, thank them for the follow, direct them to some helpful new-shopper information, or even offer a unique code for their first purchase. Also, let them know they can chat with you right within your DMs should any issues come up now or in the future.

This kind of proactive, relationship-building activity reinforces the notion that your customer support team isn’t just there to respond to tickets (like the 21st-century version of a call center). Instead, they should find new ways to nurture long-lasting customer relationships and proactively provide the information and discounts customers need to make their first, second, or tenth purchase.

Here’s a template for welcome DMs you can use:

“Welcome to [brand] 🙌. [Personalized message related to your brand.] Here’s a 10% discount code for being a new member: [coupon]. Please explore our Insta and our products and reply here if you have any questions!”

3) Celebrate key customer moments 

Proactive customer support isn’t just helpful for new customers. You can delight your most loyal customers by proactively reaching out to celebrate key milestones like their birthday or the anniversary of their first purchase.

If you want to automate this process, you can use a tool like Zapier to trigger a workflow whenever a customer creates their first order and, if the customer spends more than a certain amount once those 11 months are up, create a support ticket in your helpdesk reminding your support team to send them a gift for their first purchase anniversary.

Plus, a customer may opt to share this special occasion on their own social media accounts, broadening your brand’s exposure in a very positive light.

4) Solicit customer feedback at every opportunity

Offering customers proactive customer support that is actually helpful first requires your brand to develop a thorough understanding of its customers' needs, pain points, and common issues. With that in mind, there's no better way to determine what your customers need from proactive customer support than asking them directly. 

For this purpose, surveys and customer feedback tools can prove incredibly valuable, helping you gather direct feedback that you can use to fine-tune your proactive customer service approach — as well as other aspects of your product and customer experience. 

If you don’t, we recommend at least measuring customer satisfaction (CSAT) with a field for open-ended responses where customers can tell you what they like and what they’d change about your business. 

Your CSAT score will give you a gauge of the quality of your offering, making it one of the most important customer service metrics out there. Plus, the qualitative feedback you receive can help you identify areas of the product and customer journey to improve, which helps you proactively avoid issues for future customers.

As you send your CSAT survey to more customers, you may get overwhelmed with responses. A customer service platform like Gorgias can give you a big-picture view of your CSAT across all tickets, as well as let you zoom in on low-scoring tickets to understand what went wrong. 

5) Implement self-service resources that proactively solve common issues

According to customer retention statistics from Microsoft, 66% of customers try self-service options before they decide to contact a brand's customer service team (see our full customer service statistics guide for more stats on consumer behavior). With this being the case, one of the best ways to provide proactive service to your customers is to offer them helpful self-service resources — such as FAQ pages, knowledge base pages, forums, and automated chatbots. 

In addition to improving the customer experience by enabling customers to quickly resolve common issues on their own, self-service resources can also dramatically reduce a company's customer support ticket volume. This way, your agents spend less time answering repetitive questions and more time on high-impact tickets that require a human touch. 

For example, childcare product brand JOONE gets notified when a customer's package runs late. JOONE passes on that information to customers rather than waiting for them to reach out and ask why their order hasn’t arrived yet. 

"If we're more proactive,” says Clara Zaoui, JOONE’s Head of CRM and Customer Care, “the customer can be only happy to be informed and to know that customer service is following their package. It's a more personalized experience."

Take your proactive customer service to the next level with Gorgias

Proactive customer service offers a wide range of benefits — from improving customer satisfaction, to building empathy, to reducing the workload of your customer service team. However, implementing a proactive approach to customer service is also something that requires a very specific set of customer service tools.

As a comprehensive customer service solution, Gorgias provides everything that ecommerce store owners need to start offering effective proactive customer support, including social listening tools, live chat widgets, an automated customer service workflow builder, and self-service solutions such as FAQ pages and knowledge bases.

If you would like to start taking a proactive approach to customer service, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce the size of your customer support staff, then Gorgias is an excellent solution to consider. To learn more about the benefits that Gorgias can have for your online store, be sure to check out our comprehensive overview of Gorgias's many features and uses.

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A Baymard Institute study finds that the average shopping cart abandonment rate for ecommerce stores is about 70%. Yup: 70% of shoppers who visit your store add products to their carts but don’t place an order. What does that mean in terms of revenue?

• Reducing cart abandonment by 33% is equivalent to growing your customer base by 23% 
• Completely eliminating cart abandonment (while not feasible) would in theory triple most online stores’ revenue

Reducing cart abandonment may not be easy, but it’s a whole lot easier (and less expensive) than acquiring tons of new customers. Fortunately, most ecommerce websites aren’t yet optimized to keep cart abandonment rates as low as possible. After reviewing the most common reasons why customers choose to abandon their cart, we'll explore 12 such proven strategies that you can use to reduce cart abandonment and increase your store's conversion rate.

What is ecommerce shopping cart abandonment?

Shopping cart abandonment occurs when a customer places an item from an online store into their cart, but navigates away from the website before completing its checkout flow. It's a phenomenon that costs online retailers a lot of potential customers, given that the average cart abandonment rate is 70%. The metric varies across industries, with the automotive industry reporting the highest shopping cart abandonment rate (89.11%), according to Statista.

12 ways to reduce cart abandonment for your ecommerce store

1. Provide the final cost upfront, including taxes and shipping
2. Include a status tracker for enhanced UI during checkout
3. Use a thumbnail image of the product throughout the checkout process
4. Make navigation between the main website and shopping cart seamless
5. Offer as many payment options as possible
6. Invest in a customer support platform with live chat
7. Create an enticing checkout button or call to action
8. Include a guest checkout option
9. Optimize website page speed and UI elements
10. Incorporate a generous refund/return policy
11. Consider marketing efforts such as retargeting
12. Display exit-intent pop-ups

Reducing online shopping cart abandonment is one of the most effective ways for ecommerce sites to increase their revenue, and there are plenty of ways to achieve this goal. If you would like to boost your store's conversion rate and start bringing more customers across the finish line, then here are 12 effective strategies to consider:

1) Provide the final cost upfront, including taxes and shipping

Considering that unexpectedly high shipping costs are the number one reason online shoppers abandon their cart, it's essential to let customers know upfront exactly how much they will have to pay. Of course, this is somewhat complicated because you usually can't calculate shipping costs and taxes until after a customer enters their address. However, setting up your checkout process in a way that calculates final shipping charges as early as possible is key to preventing customers from being discouraged by extra charges.

How to do this

One option for providing customers with a final cost upfront is to charge a flat rate for shipping and taxes regardless of where the customer is located. This allows you to display final costs on your product pages rather than making your customers wait until checkout to see what shipping fees and taxes will be. While this might have a higher upfront cost, reducing cart abandonment could more than make up for the investment.

Another option is to design your cart page or checkout page so that customers can input their address immediately, allowing your system to calculate shipping costs and taxes right away.

2) Include a status tracker for enhanced UI during checkout

Even if you create a quick and easy checkout process, your customers won't know it's quick and easy until they are finished with it. One way around this is to use a status tracker that displays how far along a customer is in your checkout process. Installing a status tracker on your checkout page reassures customers that your checkout experience is fast and simple by showing them exactly how many steps they have left.

How to do this

A checkout app that includes a status tracker is the simplest way to keep customers updated on their checkout progress. Depending on the ecommerce platform that you use and your coding skills, you may also be able to create a checkout page status tracker yourself.

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3) Use a thumbnail image of the product throughout the checkout process

There is a certain degree of disconnect between online shoppers and the products they purchase that doesn't go away until the product arrives at their door. However, displaying a thumbnail image of the product that a customer is purchasing serves to remind them of why they added the product to their cart in the first place. This encourages them to see the process through to completion, helping reduce the chance of cart abandonment.

How to do this

Once again, optimizing your checkout page in this manner is done most simply by using a checkout app that allows you to add product thumbnails to your checkout page. Or, if you can't find an app that works for you, a little coding will do the trick as well.

Gorgias customer, Glamnetic, includes product image thumbnails in the cart and checkout page. Plus, they include a countdown to encourage customers to purchase in the next 10 minutes to further incentivize completed purchases.

‎Read more: 3 tips to improve your product photography

4) Make navigation between the main website and shopping cart seamless

Once customers have added a product to their cart, navigating to their cart from the main website should be as easy as possible. The last thing you want is for customers to have to go searching for your checkout page, so be sure to design your checkout process so that navigation between the main website and shopping cart is seamless.

How to do this

Creating popups that direct customers to the checkout screen once they add a product to their cart is one effective way to make it easy for them to find your checkout page. Another option is to utilize "buy now" buttons that automatically take customers to the checkout page once they select a product.

5) Offer as many payment options as possible

Offering your customers plenty of payment methods to choose from can help reduce cart abandonment in two key ways. For one, it ensures that customers can find a payment method that works for them. For example, if you only accept credit cards and a customer is used to paying online with their PayPal account, they are likely to abandon their cart. In other cases, a customer may not feel comfortable entering their credit card information on your site and will only complete their purchase if alternative payment options are available. By offering numerous payment methods, you can ensure that you accommodate your customers' preferences no matter what those preferences happen to be.

How to do this

Choosing a payment processing solution that can accept various payment methods is the simplest way to offer your customers this level of flexibility. For example, with PayPal, ecommerce stores can accept credit card payments, debit card payments, payments via a PayPal account, and payments via PayPal credit cards.

‎6) Invest in a customer support platform with live chat

Ecommerce customer service that can catch customers at critical moments is key to reducing online shopping cart abandonment. Suppose a customer has a question about your product that needs an answer before they feel comfortable completing their purchase. In this case, it's vital to answer their question quickly — before they navigate away from your website. 

With a customer support platform such as Gorgias, you can install live chat widgets on your website that enable customers to instantly connect with a support agent, ensuring that they receive the timely support needed to nudge them toward completing their purchase.

Having live chat support ready is especially important when high average order value (AOV) customers are on the fence. Check out our customer story on CROSSNET, a Gorgias customer that once secured a whopping $450,000 through a live chat conversation:

How to do this

Gorgias makes it easy to offer live chat support, letting you provide pre-purchase support directly from your website. To see for yourself how Gorgias can help you reduce cart abandonment via pre-purchase live chat support, sign up for a demo of Gorgias today!

7) Create an enticing checkout button or call to action

Once customers add a product to their cart, you want to make the checkout button noticeable and enticing. Creating attractive checkout buttons complete with compelling CTAs will help encourage customers to take the next step once they've added a product to their cart. You may also wish to add a "buy now" button to allow customers to navigate straight to the checkout page after selecting a product.

How to do this

There are several great apps available that help with checkout button optimization. One Click Checkout is a Shopify app that allows you to create "buy now" buttons and popups that encourage customers to visit the checkout page after adding products to their cart.

8) Include a guest checkout option

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Requiring customers to create an account before they can complete their purchase will make your checkout process too much of a hassle in the eyes of many customers. Instead, offer a guest checkout option. This allows customers to complete their checkout without creating an account, making your checkout process simpler for those in a rush. At the same time, customers that do wish to create an account still have the option to do so.

How to do this

Most ecommerce platforms and checkout apps will give you the option to offer guest checkout, making this a relatively straightforward strategy to execute.

9) Optimize website page speed and UI elements

Most customers aren't likely to have much patience if your checkout page is too slow to load or does not load correctly, making it essential to optimize your site's page speed and the UI elements of your checkout process.

How to do this

There are a lot of tools that allow you to optimize page load speeds, including a great tool created by Google called PageSpeed Insights. Ensuring that you are using an ecommerce platform or checkout solution that offers an optimized UI and fast loading times is also crucial.

10) Incorporate a generous refund/return policy

Customers are much more likely to feel good about purchasing a product from an online store when they are confident that they'll be able to return the product if it doesn't meet their expectations. While offering a generous refund/return policy may be a little difficult to stomach, the resulting increase in conversions is almost sure to be more than worth the expense!

How to do this

Start by writing a refund/return policy that customers will find reassuring, then be sure to display this policy prominently on your product pages, checkout page, or both.

Parachute includes a clear label to show off their free and carbon-neutral shipping and returns:

‎Also, to make returns and exchanges even easier for your customers and agents, consider a dedicated app. Our favorites are Loop, Returnly, and ReturnLogic: they’re some of the most comprehensive and affordable apps on the market, plus they integrate with Gorgias for a more centralized returns process. 

Related: Return policy template generator

11) Consider marketing efforts such as retargeting

Retargeting customers who abandon their cart via cart abandonment emails is one proven way to reduce cart abandonment. Sometimes customers just forget about their order, and all it takes to get them back to your checkout page is a simple reminder. Best of all, many email marketing solutions enable you to create automated abandoned cart campaigns, enabling you to retarget customers with little to no manual effort.

How to do this

Many email marketing tools like Klaviyo and ActiveCampaign make it easy to create automated abandoned cart recovery campaigns. Utilizing one of these solutions is by far the easiest way to get started retargeting customers who abandon their cart.

As far as the copy, check out the cheeky email our friends and Braxley Bands send to customers who leave items in their cart: 

‎They also follow this email up with a text message that offers a 15% off discount.

12) Display exit-intent pop-ups

Our analysis of 300 Shopify store owners showed 50% of online stores use website pop-ups to engage visitors. This isn’t surprising since pop-ups can yield a conversion rate of between 3% and 11%, compared to standard rates around 2%.

An exit intent pop-up captures customers with items in their shopping cart, usually to offer more information or a coupon code to convince them to place the order. As long as you respect the user experience (and don’t create an obnoxious, hard-to-escape pop-up), you will likely see lower cart abandonment rates with a pop-up.

How to do this

Your ecommerce platform will have pop-up tools like SmartPopup or Pixelpop available for integration. If you use Shopify, check out our list of Shopify pop-ups for a complete rundown of the best tools.

Why does shopping cart abandonment happen?

There are a variety of reasons why online shoppers choose to abandon their carts. The most common offenders are as follows:

‎Complicated checkout process

The "Law of Least Effort" is an important part of the customer experience for online businesses, especially when it comes to the checkout process. The more complicated something is, the less likely it is that people will do it. If your checkout process is overly lengthy and complex to the point that it's much easier to just abandon the cart and shop on Amazon, then that's probably what most of your customers will do.

Surprising added shipping costs

According to research from the Baymard Institute, extra, unexpected costs (such as shipping costs or taxes) is the number one reason why customers choose to abandon their cart. This demonstrates how critical it is to keep these costs as low as possible and display them at the very start of the checkout process.

Want to reduce shipping costs? Read our guide on how to offer free shipping.

Requiring customers to create an account before purchasing

Requiring customers to create an account before they can complete their purchase falls under the category of making your checkout process too complex. While it's certainly beneficial to offer customers the option to create an account at checkout, it's also a good idea to offer guest checkout for those who don't want to take the extra steps to set up an account.

Customers don't feel safe with payment options

Even today, when online shopping is a normal part of almost everyone's life, most customers are still rightfully wary about where they enter their credit card information. It's important to build trust with your customers by offering payment methods they already know and trust, such as PayPal and Apple Pay. This is especially true if your website lacks trust seals (like Norton secured) and social proof (like reviews and testimonials) to prove your legitimacy.

Competitor has products that are cheaper or ship faster

Many customers continue to do product research even after adding a product to their cart. Naturally, if they can find the same product cheaper somewhere else or find an online store that offers faster shipping, the chances that they'll return to your store are slim.

Confusing or insufficient refund/return policies

Customers like the peace of mind that comes with knowing that they can easily return or exchange their product if it doesn't meet their expectations upon arrival. Without this assurance, they are much more likely to abandon their cart. Because 30% of all products ordered from online retailers are returned, an easy-to-understand and customer-friendly return policy is key to helping an online store build trust with its potential customers.

No discount codes or promo codes offering deals

Some customers add products to their cart with the expectation that they will be offered a promo code or deal at some point in the checkout process. When they don't receive any such deal, they abandon their shopping cart.

Ecomm website has performance issues

If your checkout page freezes, is slow to load, or suffers from other performance issues, customers are more likely to navigate away from the malfunctioning page and never return. These may sound like minor inconveniences to you, but may be costing you customers in the long run.

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Provide world-class customer service to help reduce cart abandonment with Gorgias

Along with offering a wealth of other business-boosting benefits, great customer service is key to optimizing an online store's conversion rate and preventing abandoned carts. With Gorgias, you can get started with live chat to provide your customers with pre-purchase support that will generate more conversions. 

Check out our case study of three stores that increased sales with live chat for more examples of the revenue-boosting power of a great customer experience. 

Or, to try our customer service platform free for seven days, sign up for Gorgias today!

Online shopping is at an all-time high. Unfortunately, so is the rate of returned items.

In 2021, online shoppers returned over 20.8% of all merchandise ordered, according to the National Retail Foundation. Added up across all ecommerce businesses, this means $761 billion of merchandise gets sold but doesn’t actually become revenue. 

We’ll cover some of the top reasons for customer returns below but most of the reasons boil down to one thing: a poor customer experience. If customers feel misled, duped, or unsupported, they’ll quickly send back an item and take their business elsewhere.  

In this post, we’ll share 10 actionable strategies (including tools and examples) to help you develop a return-proof customer experience. 

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The top reasons that customers return products

No brand can completely eliminate returns, and that’s because customers return items for a wide variety of reasons — some of them outside of your control. The top reasons that customers choose to return products purchased via online shopping include:

• Item didn't match its product description and/or customer expectations
• Item arrived late and the customer no longer needs it
• "Wardrobing," defined as items returned by serial returners who never have any intention of actually keeping the products that they purchase
• Merchant shipped the wrong product
• Item was damaged or defective

When exploring how to reduce returns, examining these common reasons for online store returns and how they apply to your own business is an important place to start.

Why reducing returns matters for most ecommerce stores

According to data from the National Retail Federation, U.S. consumers returned an estimated total of $761 billion in merchandise in 2021 alone. Thanks in part to supply chain challenges and rising prices, processing the return of a $50 product is now expected to cost ecommerce stores an average of $33 according to Axios.

The cost of having a high return rate goes far beyond lost profits. In addition to losing out on a sale, processing a returned product also means that you have to pay return shipping costs as well as any labor costs associated with your returns process, like assisting customers with returns and restocking returned products. When you consider the fact that ecommerce return rates can climb as high as 30% or higher, these expenses can quickly add up. This makes reducing your number of returns an essential goal for your ecommerce brand.

10 proven ways to minimize returns from your ecommerce customers

1. Encourage product exchanges over product returns
2. Provide in-depth and accurate product descriptions
3. Display multiple high-quality product photos that offer context
4. Leverage reviews of your product that assist other customers (especially as it relates to size and color)
5. Optimize the accuracy and speed of fulfillment
6. Don't skimp on packaging that protects your customer's product
7. Develop a clear, proactive post-purchase experience
8. Identify customers who abuse your return policy
9. Expand the length of your return policy
10. Use gift cards and loyalty points

Offering high-quality products is the first step to reducing your return rate, but great products are just the beginning. Below, read more about the 10 additional ways to boost your customer experience and reduce returns.

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1) Encourage product exchanges over product returns

Encouraging customers to exchange products rather than return them for a refund won't eliminate all of the expenses associated with processing a return. Even with exchanges, you still pay for return shipping and any labor costs associated with your returns process. 

However, exchanging a product rather than refunding it does mean that you get to keep whatever profit margins you earn from the sale, which can sometimes be a big boost to your company's bottom line. Plus, you still have a chance to delight the customer with a product and hopefully build up loyalty from there.

How you go about encouraging exchanges is ultimately up to you. Some online stores only offer store credit for returns, and state in their return policy that they will not provide cash refunds. However, refusing to offer refunds altogether may yield a returns experience that leads to a lot of unhappy customers. Another option is to encourage product exchanges with carefully-crafted messaging or incentives, like an additional store credit.

Example of exchanges over returns

If you look at Jaxxon's FAQ page, you'll see the brand has a standard 14-day returns and exchange policy that allows customers to get a refund or new product for any reason. But Jaxxon uses Loop Returns as a self-service return portal, which has two major benefits:

1. The portal is self-service, meaning customers can return or exchange an item without creating a ticket and waiting for an agent 
2. The portal gently guides users to request an exchange over a refund by giving bonus credit for exchanges and simplifying exchange shopping

Bonus credit is exactly what it sounds like: Customers can have more in-store credit than they would get as a refund in the original form of payment. This strategy is effective: Shopify stores that use Loop issue 15% fewer refunds than brands that don’t. As a result, Jaxxon rescues a sale and keeps the opportunity to delight the customer for greater customer retention.

Learn how the Gorgias + Loop integration unites your helpdesk and returns management software. 

Jaxxon also uses live chat support on their returns portal page, which is yet another line of real-time defense against an avoidable return. If customers are considering a return, they may instead reach out to customer support to resolve whatever issues drove them to the page.

The customer service agent on the other end of the live chat might be able to fix the issue, especially if it came down to user error, and lead the customer to keep the item. Or, the live chat agent gives recommendations for products that won’t have the same issue to steer toward an exchange instead of a return. 

Adding live chat to your returns portal is one of the revenue-generating tactics from our CX-Driven Growth Playbook, which is based on research of over 10,000+ top ecommerce brands. Check out the playbook for 17 more actionable tips to drive revenue by improving your CX.

2) Provide in-depth and accurate product descriptions

One of the biggest reasons why online purchases have a higher return rate than products purchased from brick-and-mortar stores is the fact that customers cannot examine products in person. This makes it much more likely for a customer who purchases a product online to end up returning their purchase due to it not meeting their expectations.

The best way to combat this is to make your product descriptions as in-depth and accurate as possible. When customers know exactly what to expect from the product they are purchasing, the odds of them being dissatisfied when it arrives are much lower.

This is especially true for apparel: size charts, size guides, and any other information to help the customer avoid buying the wrong size. Likewise, any sort of furniture must include clear dimensions, and any sort of technology must include detailed specifications.

Example of in-depth product descriptions

Marine Layer is one example of an online store that has in-depth product descriptions to minimize returns. To help customers choose the right clothing and accessories, Marine Layer offers details information in their product descriptions such as the exact dimensions of the item, the size of the model who is wearing it in the product images, and helpful size charts.

The brand uses tabs to include more information without making the page too long. Here’s the description for a pair of pants:

3) Display multiple high-quality product photos that offer context

Keeping with the theme of letting customers know exactly what they are getting, there is no element of your product description more important than your product images. 

Along with using high-quality product images that display your products in the most appealing way possible, it is also a good idea to use product images that provide context about the product. For example, you may wish to display photos of your product in action to show its intended use. Or, you can show your product next to household items to give customers a better idea of the size and dimensions. Even better, you can include product videos to show the product in action. 

By displaying multiple high-quality photos that offer context, you can ensure that there are no unwelcome surprises when your customer uses your product for the first time.

Example of contextual product photography

Native Union’s online store sells tech accessories such as charging cables and phone cases. They make use of multiple photos on each product description, including photos that display how the product is meant to be used. For example, the charging pad shown above clearly shows compatibility with iPhones, AirPods, and Apple Watches. 

4) Leverage reviews of your product that assist other customers (especially as it relates to size and color)

Customer reviews are one of the most powerful sales tools that ecommerce stores have, since they provide customers with social proof and an unbiased source of information to guide their purchase decision. 

Along with helping online retailers boost their conversion rates, customer reviews can also be leveraged to reduce return rates. Displaying reviews that provide greater details and context regarding a product — such as how an article of clothing fits certain body types or how the color of a product in-person compares to its photos — can go a long way toward helping your customers make informed purchases that they are much less likely to return.

Example of helpful product reviews

Steve Madden is one company that makes excellent use of product reviews. Each product page features searchable, filterable product reviews to set customer expectations. Steve Madden is an apparel brand, so they let you sort reviews by sizing, whether they contain images and videos, the age of the reviewer, the pros of the product (like “cute,” “comfortable,” or “value,”) and whether the reviewer recommends the product.

They also have a section where shoppers can ask questions that people who previously purchased the product can answer (e.g., “Can you exercise in these shoes?”) as well as an overall sizing scale, which shows whether reviewers tend to think the product is true to size:

5) Optimize the accuracy and speed of fulfillment

One common reason why a customer may choose to return a product is that the product showed up late and they no longer need it. To keep your customers as satisfied as possible post-purchase, optimize the accuracy and speed of fulfillment to make sure that every customer receives the exact products they purchase within the promised timeframe.

Tips to improve your shipping accuracy and speed

There's no better example of an ecommerce platform that has optimized its fulfillment process than Amazon. Offering two-day shipping on the vast majority of its products is just one way that Amazon can prioritize customer satisfaction and limit returns.

However, most brands can’t match Amazon’s speed of delivery, at least in-house — that appealing offer is only possible for massive-scale, high-GMV companies. One strategy to reduce shipping-related returns is to provide accurate shipping estimates for all customer orders: clear expectations are better than nothing at all. 

Another strategy is to work with a fulfillment partner like the Shopify Fulfillment Network or ShipBob to achieve Amazon-like shipping. Both of these fulfillment partners help DTC brand offer expedient shipping that can both drive sales and reduce returns. 

Use Gorgias? Learn how Gorgias integrates with ShipBob to unify your shipping, returns, and customer experience management.

6) Don't skimp on packaging that protects your customer's product

Receiving a damaged product is another common reason why online shoppers make returns. While good quality control can ensure that a damaged product doesn't leave your warehouse, there's only so much you can do to prevent a product from becoming damaged en route to the customer. What you can do is protect your product as much as possible by using high-quality packaging. For some products, this might not be much of a concern. However, if your products are fragile or prone to damage, put some extra padding or structural protection into the packaging to protect them in transit. Reducing the risk of damage during transit can go a long way toward lowering your return rate.

Example of protective product packaging

Apple’s packaging is renowned for its minimalist, yet immediately recognizable design. While it looks simple from the outside, Apple’s product packaging features multiple layers of sturdy cardboard and styrofoam padding to thoroughly protect Apple devices en route to the customer.

7) Develop a clear, proactive post-purchase experience

An amazing pre-purchase experience is essential for optimizing your store's conversion rate. But the buck doesn’t stop when a customer completes the purchase. A clear post-purchase experience can drive repeat business and proactively minimize your return rate.

There are several ways to offer a positive post-purchase experience for your ecommerce customers. You use self-service automation flows that let customers know about the status of their order, create and share help center articles that explain how to use the product, schedule a call to walk customers through the ins and outs of their new product or offer discounts — just to name a few.

Example of a great post-purchase experience

Warby Parker lets any customer try on a pair of glasses before confirming the purchase. In the post-checkout email, they include tips for the home try-on kit. 

While this is a little different than most use cases, since it’s a try-on shipment instead of a purchase, the step-by-step tips provide a strong example of the type of guidance that can set customer expectations, reduce avoidable issues when the customer receives the product, and directions for where to find support if an issue does arise.

8) Identify customers who abuse your return policy

The majority who return products have a legitimate reason for doing so. However, there are those known as “serial returners” who abuse ecommerce return policies. These dishonest customers purchase products with no intention of keeping them, essentially renting products for free at the expense of the store they purchased them from. If you can identify customers who are abusing your return policy in this manner, the best thing you can do is ban them from making further purchases from your store.

Resource for reducing return policy abuse

Most companies choose not to publicize their policies for dealing with serial returners. However, here is an excellent resource from Shopify on how online store owners can address this common problem.

Do you have a return policy on your site? If not — or if you want to revisit yours — visit our free return and refund policy template generator for help.

9) Expand the length of your return policy

It may sound counterintuitive, but giving customers a longer window to return products can actually reduce the return rate for your ecommerce site. If you only give customers a short period of time to decide whether they want to keep or return a product, they often feel rushed to make a decision. Giving your customers more time to become comfortable with your product before they are forced to decide whether they want to keep or return it increases the likelihood that they will choose to keep it.

Example

New mattresses tend to take a little getting used to. To prevent customers from returning mattresses before they have the chance to break them in and become used to them, Mattress Firm allows customers to return their mattresses up to 120 days after the date of purchase.

10) Use gift cards and loyalty points

At the end of the day, returns will always happen. One strategy is to mitigate losses from returns by doubling down on a customer loyalty effort like gift cards and loyalty points. 

In addition to driving long-term loyalty and repeat purchasers, loyalty points and gift cards can also be offered in place of a cash refund for returned products. This enables you to offset some of the expenses you incur when a product is returned, because it encourages customers to exchange their product rather than return it for a refund.

Example of gift cards and loyalty points

There are plenty of examples of companies that leverage gift cards and loyalty programs in a variety of different ways. The North Face's loyalty program, however, stands out because customers can earn points for many reasons — not just making a purchase — and the brand’s rewards are custom-tailored to each individual customer.

Easily manage ecommerce returns from one central customer support hub

Product returns can be a massive expense for ecommerce stores due to the high rate at which ecommerce products are returned and the high cost of processing online purchase returns. By following the 10 tips outlined above, you should be well on your way to reducing this frustrating expense.

As you read, improving your customer experience helps you lower your return rate and process returns more efficiently. Gorgias’ customer service platform helps you do just that. With Gorgias, you can limit product returns and boost customer satisfaction by offering fast, omnichannel, and self-service customer support. 

Learn more about how Gorgias can integrate with returns management software and help you reduce your ecommerce store’s return rates with outstanding customer service — contact us today.

By default, all Shopify themes include a branded “Powered by Shopify” message at the bottom of every page. The branding appears as a link in the footer that takes users to Shopify’s homepage when they click on it. 

If you’ve recently launched a store and now you’re wondering how to remove “Powered by Shopify” from your online store’s footer, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll cover everything you need to know. 

Once we explain how to remove this from your footer, we’ll look at some other steps new shops should take to build a custom store that retains shoppers and increases sales. 

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How to remove “Powered by Shopify” from the footer of your online store

The “Powered by Shopify” text is part of your Shopify theme code, meaning you’ll need administrative access to your online store’s dashboard and alter its code. Don’t worry, you don’t need much technical knowledge. Shopify makes it easy to edit code, and you don’t need any special additional knowledge beyond what we’ll share below.

1) Log to Shopify

The first thing you will need to do is log in to your Shopify store. Logging in requires your email address and password. 

If you’re reading this before launching your Shopify store, bookmark this page and come back once you’ve set up your Shopify store.

2) Navigate to themes under online store

Click Online Store on your shopify dashboard. It can be found near the bottom of the page in the left sidebar. Once you find it, click the button and a dropdown menu will appear. Click the button titled Themes.

📚 Recommended reading: Our ranking of the best Shopify Themes, based on our analysis of over 13,000 themes.

3) Edit theme content or edit language options

Depending on how new your store is, you’ll either see the option to Edit default theme content or Edit language. In the image below, you’ll see Edit default theme content, but select Edit language if that’s what you see.

If you use multiple themes, you’ll want to apply these steps to any themes you wish to remove “Powered by Shopify” from. 

4) Type “powered” into the filter items field

There’s a search bar at the top of the page under Theme content. Type in “powered” to the box to see any sections that include this word. (Other guides call this a “translation box,” but that term doesn’t appear in Shopify so no need to worry about that term)

5) Remove any mentions of “Powered by Shopify”

On the filter results page shown in the image above, you are likely to see more than one result. Only pay attention to the last two results:

• Don’t change anything in the first result, the description html section
• Delete the faded text in the Powered by Shopify section by typing a single space
• Delete the text in the Powered by Shopify html section

This will remove the instances of “Powered by Shopify” from appearing on your site.

6) Don’t forget to click save

The final step is to click the save button” in the top right of the screen. Now, the theme will display nothing. You also have the option to change it to say something else related to your store.

How to remove “Powered by Shopify” by editing the code directly

If you’re comfortable editing code, go back to the admin dashboard shown in step 2 and click the Edit code option instead.

On the left-hand portion of your screen, you’ll see a few different folders. 

• Expand the sections folder and 
• Locate the footer.liquid file in the dropdown of options
• Click the footer.liquid file and the coding window will open on the right side.

Now you’ll want to delete instances of “powered”:

• If you’re using a Mac, click command + f; if you’re on a PC, click ctrl + f
• Type “powered_by_link” into the search box you’ve pulled up
• Delete any instances of “ {{ powered_by_link }}” and click save.

Your theme may also require you to go to the password-footer.liquid file in the section folder and delete “powered_by_link” from there too. This ensures “Powered by Spotify” is removed from your password page as well.

What to put in your Shopify footer after removing “Powered by Shopify”

The footer is where you can demonstrate you’re a professional shop who’s organized and cares about the customer experience.

You can replace the “Powered by Shopify” text with your own logo and implement helpful must-haves like the following:

• Social media icons
• Payment badges
• Privacy policy and terms of use
• Newsletter signup
• Contact information
• Copyright notice
• App download

This is a space to showcase anything and everything a potential customer might be searching for. Keep it neat, otherwise you risk overwhelming and confusing users.

Let’s take a look at Princess Polly’s footer:

This store’s footer is organized and vastly improves the site’s usability. Navigation is clear and customers can easily find what they’re looking for. In addition to the informative pieces, Princess Polly also uses this space to advertise their iOS mobile app, android app, and social media links.

Why does Shopify add this branding to their themes? 

Branding is a major part of any business. And — as a major player in the ecommerce platform game — Shopify does this weel. The point of including the “powered by” link in all Shopify stores is to advertise their product to shoppers who visit a site hosted on their platform. 

Let’s examine this a bit further. 

Imagine that a shopper lands on Olive and Poppy’s store in search of totes or jewelry. 

Eventually, the shopper may find themself down in the footer of the site looking for more information about how to find the brand on social media or in search of answers to FAQs. 

That’s when they see the “Powered by Shopify” branding and think, “Well, what’s this?” And, they click through to find out, which redirects them to Shopify’s homepage where their question is answered. 

The “Powered by Shopify” copy is one tactic Shopify uses to build their business and attract new users who may have an ecommerce site opening soon. Perhaps it’s how you found out about the platform in the first place. So, if it helps them out, why would you want to remove it? 

Why should you remove Shopify’s branding?

Consider removing this text to make your shop look more professional, remove a path leading shoppers away from your site, and advertise your own brand. You are undoubtedly in a competitive industry and need to leverage every opportunity to keep shoppers shopping.

One thing we all know is that once a customer moves away from your online store, the chances of getting them to come back — especially if they have not yet entered your sales funnel — are very low. All text on your page should educate customers and move them toward a sale — a process called conversion. 

In a nutshell, you don’t want any traffic leaving your site once you’ve put all the work into getting them there in the first place. Instead, use every effort to direct shoppers through your sales funnel to place an order. 

Keep reading for a step-by-step guide on how to remove the “Powered by Shopify” link from your store to improve the odds of keeping shoppers on your website and placing an order.

What else should new Shopify stores do?

In addition to removing Shopify’s branding from your store, there are many other steps you can take to ensure that more sales take place on your site. Let’s explore some of them together. 

First, we’ll look at some live chat tips, explore an abandoned cart recovery plan, and touch on SEO basics. Then, we’ll touch on a reviews strategy, social media, and the possibility of upgrading to Shopify Plus. Let’s get started! 

Double check you have the best theme for your needs

Shopify offers store owners a variety of themes, including paid and free themes. With so many to choose from, how do you select the best theme for your store?

Here are some questions to ask yourself when looking for a theme:

• How many products will I be selling?
• How many unique features do I want?
• How much customization do I want?
• How do I want to display my products?

You can use Spotify’s theme store filters to narrow down your options. Demo any theme before publishing it to your store, and look at reviews for any additional guidance.

See a theme you like being used by another store? Use our Shopify theme detector to identify it.

Consider whether Shopify Plus is right for you

Shopify Plus is a Shopify upgrade designed for large enterprises making high-volume sales and shipments. With its higher price tag, Shopify Plus comes with more storefront functionality, support, and integrations than the basic Shopify plan.

Shopify Plus provides users with unlimited staff accounts. If you find yourself in a position where you need more Shopify admin accounts for your team, it might be a good idea to consider upgrading. 

Theme design customization is also enhanced with Shopify Plus — the checkout page is fully-customizable as it’s not part of the main theme file. Shopify Plus allows you more control over your ecommerce website, and additional statistics and data like average order value.

With Shopify Plus, you can provide shoppers with a greater number of user discounts, access more detailed reporting, and leverage a higher level of merchant support. These are just some of the advantages Shopify Plus provides to help you scale your operations. 

Install a live chat

Live chat isn’t just for answering questions. You can also use it to upsell, retain customers, and increase sales. Here are 5 ways live chat helps drive revenue:

• Builds trust with first-time visitors
• Provides timely support 
• Delivers a superior customer experience 
• Helps answer pre-sales questions right before checkout
• Enables chat campaigns to reach out to shoppers in real-time

Even if you’re a smaller business who can’t staff a live chat 24/7, there are some features you can implement to still answer customer questions as they come in. Try out self-service flows, contact forms, quick responses, article recommendations, or set business hours — all of which are covered in the link above.

Learn how to install a live chat widget and start increasing your customer engagement and satisfaction.

Set up a FAQ page/Help Center

Save your customer support teams time by implementing effective self-service resources like an FAQ page or a help center. Follow these steps to create an effective FAQ page:

• Gather the questions your customers actually frequently ask
• Create concise answers to every question
• Provide a navigation system to keep your page clean
• Make the FAQ accessible
• Make timely updates and refreshes when necessary

If your website analytics are showing heavy traffic to your FAQ page or you need more room for organization/categorization, it’s likely time to build out a help center.

Help centers are more robust and detailed than FAQ pages. You can either create a help center that expands on what you address in the FAQ section, or make it full-fledged and include images and video tutorials.

Streamline your checkout flow

Nobody likes abandoned carts — and it’s crucial to understand why customers leave the checkout process mid-way if you want to fix it.

Baymard’s research reveals the top reasons for cart abandonment:

Streamline your checkout flow and make the shopping process easy for customers. Optimize the checkout process by doing the following:

• Offer numerous payment options for your customers
• Don’t require shoppers to create an account in order to buy
• Provide total cost estimates during checkout to reduce sticker shock
• Use breadcrumbs (progress indicators) to show the number of steps in your checkout process
• Create an abandoned cart workflow automation for customers that leave items for later
• Give your customers multiple shipping options
• Offer a live chat feature on the checkout page for customer questions
• Make it easy for customers to move between their cart, product pages, and more in your online store 

Check out our detailed list of cart abandonment strategies and tools to implement these solutions on your Shopify store. 

Check (and improve) your SEO

Organic website traffic has no upfront monetary investment, yet it yields better ROI than many other paid advertising tactics. The numbers don’t lie, 37.5% of all traffic to ecommerce stores comes from search engines. 

Optimize your store’s technical, on-page, and off-page SEO so returning and new customers can find you with ease. To ensure your store boasts great technical SEO, do the following:

• Make your website crawlable
• Resolve any 4xx errors
• Have a flat site architecture
• Add Shopify tags and product schema

Once you’ve checked off those items, you can implement the following into your Shopify store to ensure a fantastic user-experience:

• Relevant title tags
• Enticing meta descriptions
• Unique product descriptions
• Descriptive images
• Usable navigation features

Don’t leave search engine rankings to chance. Most every professional organization has SEO strategies in place — your Shopify store shouldn’t be any different.

Build out your tech stack with essential Shopify apps

Don’t feel like you have to do everything on your own, a solid ecommerce tech stack can optimize many daily business functions for you. You might feel overwhelmed by the seemingly never-ending choices of apps and tools, but it’s easy to find some suitable for you when you define your needs.

Before you start downloading every helpful-looking app, here’s 3 key things to look for:

• Integrates with your other ecommerce tools and platforms
• Allows for customizations
• Receives regular updates

We’ve done some of the hard work already, narrowing down the best of the best. Whether you’re in need of some marketing help or checkout assistance, here’s some of the best apps out there:

• Customer service: Gorgias, Ada
• Email marketing and SMS: Klaviyo, Attentive, Postscript
• Sales and conversions: Cartloop, Recharge, Spently
• Development: Omega Instant Search, Buddha Mega Menu, Smart Bar
• Checkout: One-Click Checkout, Klarna, Fast Checkout In One Click
• Inventory management and returns: Katana Manufacturing ERP, Stock Sync, QuickBooks Commerce
• Social media marketing: Outfy, Zotabox, Instafeed

Implement a centralized helpdesk

Your ability to quickly satisfy customers is key to customer retention and long-term growth. 58% of businesses actively use a helpdesk, for good reason, as they’re a key component to improving the customer experience.

Choosing the right help desk is crucial for your ecommerce business. It doesn’t only help you provide the best customer support, increase engagement, and convert more sales in the process — but it seamlessly integrates with your current ecommerce platform.

If you want to create a truly valuable helpdesk, include these features:

• Multichannel communication
• Ticket management
• Self-service features
• Automation capabilities
• Reporting functionalities
• Third-party integrations

Don’t fall short when it comes to providing exceptional customer service, or it’ll negatively affect your shop’s success.

Get in the habit of ongoing CRO

Conversion rate is arguably the single most important metric in ecommerce: If you don’t have a high conversion rate, all your brand awareness, web traffic, and marketing dollars never turn into revenue.

Ecommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the strategy of gradually improving the user experience on your site to turn more browsers into buyers. If you’re not taking steps to optimize your conversion rate already, now is the time to begin.

Here are a few quick ways to get started:

• Personalize your customer journeys
• Practice landing page optimization
• Use pop-ups and promotions
• Build product pages
• Streamline your customer support
• Launch a customer loyalty program

Add reviews to your Shopify store to boost social proof

Product reviews are a powerful source of social proof, which builds trust and confidence in your brand. You can boost your revenue lift by 1.5% simply by adding reviews to your product pages.

Not only does a reviews strategy let people see what others think of you, it also lets consumers know that you care — especially when you take accountability for negative reviews. 

Here’s how you can start receiving reviews and how to strengthen your reviews strategy:

• Ask satisfied shoppers to leave reviews and make it easy for them 
• Share user reviews on social media 
• Reply to and try to clean up bad reviews by making changes to your internal operations when needed 

Integrate convenient payment methods

The payment process isn’t just an ecommerce owner’s backend concern, it’s a core part of the customer experience. If your checkout process is complex or doesn’t allow for multiple payment options, customers might go elsewhere.

Offer a one-click checkout on your Shopify store by integrating popular payment methods like Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal. These should be included alongside the traditional option to enter credit card information.

For example, here’s how the checkout screen looks like for jewelry brand Jaxxon:

Remember: Revenue hinges on customer experience

Happy customers drive your sales. They continue to shop at your store and are more likely to refer their friends and family. A seamless customer experience (CX) and a well-organized shop have a huge impact on your overall revenue.

Drive value at every stage of the customer journey and take advantage of every customer interaction to improve your business and boost your sales.

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TL;DR:

• An ecommerce returns automation tool streamlines the returns process by automating return requests, payment processing, and customer updates.
• Choose a tool with ecommerce platform and app integrations, analytics, and a self-service portal.
• ReturnLogic is the best returns management tool, providing a return portal, inventory management, and powerful analytics dashboards.

Managing product returns is often one of the most significant expenses of running an online store. Data from Invesp shows that 30% of all products purchased online are returned, compared to just 8.89% of products purchased from brick-and-mortar retailers.

There are several reasons why returns are so common in ecommerce — the most prominent listed in the image below. But regardless of the reason, the bottom line is that your store's bottom line depends on an optimized returns process. 

We’ve already discussed how you can optimize your returns process, but most growing stores need additional help. Thankfully, there are plenty of returns management software tools on the market today that are designed to reduce the expense of returned products without harming customer satisfaction.

In this article, we'll explore what to look for in great returns management software before highlighting the nine best returns management tools available today.

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What is returns management?

Returns management is the process of helping customers who need to return an item, whether online to an ecommerce shop or in person at a brick and mortar store. Typically, customers submit a return request, send or bring an item back, and the business restocks the item and credits back the customer.

What is ecommerce returns automation?

Ecommerce returns automation is a tool that manages the returns process for online stores using automation and AI.

Instead of relying on manually managing returns and refunds, automation software minimizes human error and accelerates the following processes:

• Handle customers' return requests through an online portal
• Generates and automatically provides return shipping labels
• Automatically processes refunds and exchanges
• Automatically manages inventory
• Sends automated updates to customers

What makes returns management software great?

There are several key reasons why returns management software is a valuable tool for any ecommerce business. From helping you automate your returns process to helping you reduce your return rate through insightful data, here are just a few top reasons why the right returns management solution can be highly beneficial: 

Helps automate your product returns process

Managing returns is often a time-consuming process — and an expensive one. According to Axios, returning a $50 item costs retailers an average of $33. And slow, clunky processes are a big part of the issue.

By automating much of your product returns management process, returns management software can make handling online returns much less of a hassle: 

• Automatically generating return labels
• Providing customers with a self-service return portal
• Automatically sending out shipping updates for returned products

📚 Related reading: Our guide to automating customer service processes to save time and improve support quality.

Integrates with other ecommerce tools

One of the most important things to look for in returns management software is its existing integrations. For example, returns software that integrates with your email marketing platform makes sending out customized shipping updates easy. 

Meanwhile, choosing returns software that integrates with your customer support platform makes it easy for support agents to process returns while assisting customers. Below, we’ll link whenever a returns tool integrates with Gorgias to save you the time of searching.

These are just a couple of examples of the value you gain when your returns management system integrates with the other tools your ecommerce store uses. 

Offers speedy service for returns

84% of shoppers say that they will not purchase from a retailer again after a bad returns experience. So, offering speedy service for returns is mission critical. By streamlining and automating your returns process, the right returns management software can make the process faster and more convenient for your customers. 

Provides easy to read data analytics and has a clean dashboard

According to data from Statista, reverse logistics — otherwise known as returns management — cost U.S. businesses a total of $102 billion in 2020 alone. If you want to reduce returns' impact on your store's bottom line as much as possible, it is essential to optimize both your returns process and the customer experience with your products. 

To this end, nothing is more important than the customer returns data that you collect. By providing returns data in a clean and organized dashboard, returns management software makes it much easier to draw the insights you need to process returns in a more cost-effective manner. It also offers your customers a better experience, which lends itself to a lower return rate. 

📚Recommended reading: Our VP of Success’ guide to evaluating customer service. 

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10 best tools for returns management

If you are looking for tools that will make managing returns much more efficient and convenient for you and your customers alike, there are several excellent options to consider adding to your tech stack. Here are our picks for the top nine returns management tools.

Next to each tool, we’ll list the G2 review score to help you understand current user satisfaction. 

By the way, if you already use Gorgias, check out our app store to find a list of returns and exchange apps that integrate with Gorgias.

1) ReturnLogic: 4.8 ⭐(10 reviews)

ReturnLogic is a comprehensive solution designed to automate the entire returns process, offering customizable workflows that can automate tasks such as: 

• Printing shipping labels
• Tracking return shipments
• Inventory management

ReturnLogic also offers warranty processing for accepting warranty claims from third-party purchases, powerful insights and analytics, and a customizable return portal designed to make returning products more convenient for your customers.

Another key benefit of ReturnLogic is that its return portal is designed to encourage customers to exchange items rather than request refunds, enabling you to further reduce the impact of returns on your store's profits.

Pros

• Long list of useful integrations
• Designed to encourage exchanges for returned items rather than refunds
• Wealth of insightful analytics regarding your products and returns process

Cons

• Expensive pricing
• Limited "return reasons" options in the self-service portal
• Sometimes clunky and difficult to navigate

Key Features

• Easy to create custom returns workflows
• Ready-to-use return center that automates the returns process, warranty process, and refund process

See more about ReturnLogic’s integration with Gorgias. 

2) Returnly: 3.5 ⭐(5 reviews)

With Returnly, ecommerce store owners can create customized return portals designed to optimize the customer experience and make returns less of a hassle for your customers and support team alike. Along with an attractive and easy-to-use return portal, Returnly also offers a range of automation rules that enable you to control how and when returns get processed.

Finally, Returnly provides detailed analytics and returns data that you can leverage to optimize your returns process further. The result is a well-rounded returns solution that offers everything online store owners need to reduce the expense and hassle of managing returns.

Pros

• Easy to offer store credit in exchange for returned items
• Plenty of customization options
• Instantly provides credits for returned items to improve customer retention

Cons

• Only capable of integrating with one shipping carrier at a time
• Doesn't provide the option to override automated emails
• Isn't as easy to set up and use as other returns management software

Key Features

• Tools for engaging customers at every point throughout the returns process
• Automatically sends out tracking updates for exchanged items

See more about Returnly’s integration with Gorgias. 

3) Loop Returns: 4.6 ⭐(57 reviews)

As one of the more popular returns management solutions today, there's a lot to like about Loop Returns. With Loop Returns, store owners can create a branded return portal complete with automations that streamline the returns process, and feedback forms to generate valuable insights on why customers return their products. 

The Loop Returns return portal also encourages exchanges, allowing your store to retain more revenue. Another key benefit of Loop Returns is that it enables customers to use a QR code to return their product rather than printing a shipping label (though Loop Returns does offer customers the option to print a shipping label as well).

📚Recommended reading: Learn how Kulani Kinis Saves $400k in Refunds Using Gorgias + Loop Integration

Pros

• “Reason for return” forms provide valuable insights that can be used to reduce your return rate
• Exchanges are instantly approved, and exchange credit is instantly applied to the customer's account
• Long list of useful integrations

Cons

• Somewhat pricey
• Customer support issues have been reported
• Many features are only available on upper tiers

Key Features

• Offers customers who choose a refund rather than exchange a bonus credit if they choose to exchange instead
• Allows customers to automatically apply the value of their return to any item in your store

See more about Loop’s integration with Gorgias. 

4) LateShipment.com (no reviews on G2)

LateShipment.com is a post-purchase experience platform designed to improve multiple aspects of a store's post-purchase process, including order tracking and returns management. 

One of the best features of LateShipment.com is that it provides a litany of order fulfillment data points, including real-time tracking updates that can be sent automatically to customers via email or SMS. Regarding returns management, meanwhile, LateShipment.com offers a customizable return portal complete with real-time tracking and a wide range of rules and automations that you can use to customize and automate your returns process. 

Finally, LateShipment.com promises to recover every dollar lost to carrier errors by automatically auditing shipping invoices and requesting refunds when an error occurs, helping your business save on shipping costs.

📚Recommended reading: Learn how to offer your customers free shipping without breaking the bank.

Pros

• Comprehensive post-purchase platform that isn't limited to returns management alone
• Flexible plans and pricing allows you to choose the features that best match your needs and budget
• Plenty of customization options

Cons

• Late packages are sometimes incorrectly labeled as "suspect lost"
• Daily metrics doesn’t support USPS
• Customer support issues have been reported

Key Features

• Automatic real-time tracking updates for both orders and returns
• Automates refund claims for 50+ carrier errors

See more about LateShipment.com’s integration with Gorgias. 

5) yayloh: 4.6 ⭐ (4 reviews)

yayloh is a return management platform that automates and optimises the returns process for fast-growing direct-to-consumer brands, particularly those in the fashion and lifestyle market.

With customisable workflows, yayloh reduces the workload for customer service teams and provides customers with a fully-digital and branded self-service returns experience.

The platform stands out for its focus on return data. yayloh collects and analyses customer feedback in top-tier data dashboards and datasets to help merchants make data-driven product adjustments to reduce returns rates.

With yayloh's all-inclusive solution, brands of all sizes can scale their businesses, boost customer loyalty and reduce returns, all while ensuring a smooth and efficient post-purchase experience for customers.

Pros

1. Top-tier returns data dashboards and datasets (allow CVS export)
2. Auto-refunds based on different triggers
3. Tailored to support fashion and lifestyle brands at any stage of growth
4. In-depth “returns reasons” with newly introduced returns keyword tags

Cons

1. More established in Europe. They're actively working towards expanding our presence in the US/Asia.

Key Features

1. Advanced data and analytics features
2. Open APIs for integration with all e-commerce platforms and Shopify App
3. Supports well for international expansion — paperless trade
4. Fully-digital and branded returns process

See more about yayloh's integration with Gorgias.

6) OrderHive: 3.7 ⭐(26 reviews)

Unlike many solutions on this list, OrderHive is not designed specifically for returns management. However, OrderHive's excellent inventory management and ecommerce automation features can be incredibly valuable for optimizing your returns process. 

For example, OrderHive's real-time tracking features make it easy to provide customers with tracking updates on product exchanges. At the same time, the platform's inventory management tools simplify the process of updating your inventory when returns are processed. 

But the real value of OrderHive comes from its wide range of ecommerce automation features. These features enable you to automate an incredibly long list of routine tasks, including tasks associated with returns management — such as processing returns and updating inventory levels.

Pros

• Affordable pricing with multiple plans to choose from
• Streamlines and automates every aspect of order fulfillment and returns management
• Enables you to set customized return policies

Cons

• Sometimes prone to frustrating bugs and errors
• Information from carriers often takes a while to update
• Analytics and reporting features are somewhat limited

Key Features

• Excellent inventory management solutions for handling returned products
• Real-time tracking and rate comparisons for 200+ shipping carriers

🧰 Tool: Want to update your returns policy? Use our free template generator to get started.

7) Return Rabbit 4.5 ⭐(6 reviews)

The features offered by Return Rabbit might not be anything all that new or revolutionary, but Return Rabbit is very good at what it does nonetheless. With Return Rabbit, ecommerce store owners can: 

• Create branded return portals
• Set up customized automation rules and return policies
• Provide customers the option to return products via a QR code

Similar to other tools on this list, Return Rabbit encourages exchanges via customized product recommendations presented to customers in the return portal. 

Pros

• Wide range of automation rules that go well beyond the generic rules offered by many platforms
• Designed to encourage customer feedback that can turn into valuable insights
• Robust reporting and analytics provide complete visibility into your returns process

Cons

• Only compatible with Shopify stores
• More expensive than many comparable options
• Customer support issues have been reported

Key Features

• Provides customers the option to return their product via a QR code rather than print a shipping label
• Instant exchanges and customizable product recommendations encourage exchanges over refunds

📚 Recommended reading: The best Shopify apps for growing your ecommerce business.

8) 12Return: 4 ⭐(1 review)

12Return is a returns management solution designed for both brick-and-mortar and ecommerce stores. For ecommerce stores, 12Return offers the ability to create both branded return portals and merchant dashboards designed to simplify the returns process for customer support agents. 

12Return also provides customizable automation rules for authorizing returns and automating a wide range of returns management tasks. 

Perhaps the most unique feature of 12Return is local returns processing, which enables customers to ship returned products to a local 12Returns hub for a faster and more efficient returns process.

Pros

• Local shipping can reduce return shipping costs
• Great customer support
• Powerful yet easy-to-use merchant dashboard makes the returns process much more efficient for customer support agents

Cons

• Somewhat tricky to set up and use
• Pricing is only available upon request
• Limited analytics and reporting

Key Features

• Automated tracking event updates for returned products
• Create on-demand digital labels
• Utilize 12Return's local shipping hubs for faster and more affordable returns

9) ReverseLogix: 4.4 ⭐(11 reviews)

ReverseLogix is a platform that offers everything you could want from a returns management solution, along with a few unique features you probably won't find anywhere else. 

ReverseLogix boasts standard returns management features such as:

• Creating branded return portals
• Generating on-demand shipping labels and QR codes for customers
• Rules for automating your returns process

However, they also offer features such as configuring returns workflows based on priorities such as sustainability and cost-effectiveness, and a Repairs Management module for managing part replacements and warranty-based repairs. 

Another nice feature of ReverseLogix is its detailed reporting, designed to provide insights into your returns process and the customer's experience with your products.

Pros

• Excellent analytics and reporting
• Lots of features in a single package
• Great customer support

Cons

• Somewhat prone to glitches and bugs
• Long and complex integration process
• Expensive compared to similar tools

Key Features

• Returns workflows can be configured based on a variety of business priorities
• Repairs Management module for managing part replacements and warranty-based repairs

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10) Ordoro: 4.7 ⭐(9 reviews)

Ordoro is a comprehensive order fulfillment platform that can manage orders and returns. With Ordoro, you can look forward to a long list of order fulfillment features, including: 

• Automation rules and shipping presets for automating your returns and order fulfillment processes
• Automated shipping label generation
• Detailed order fulfillment
• Returns management
• Inventory management reporting
• UPC barcode support
• Automatic PO generation based on inventory levels

If you are looking for an all-in-one solution to order fulfillment, inventory management, and returns management, then Ordoro is a great option to consider.

Pros

• Broad range of features and capabilities under a single platform
• Great customer support
• Free Starter plan that lets you try out the platform's basic features

Cons

• Somewhat difficult to navigate
• Updates are few and far between
• Occasional delays when syncing between shopping carts and Ordoro

Key Features

• Automation rules for order fulfillment, returns management, and inventory management
• UPC barcode support

Want more suggestions? Check out our list of 150+ top ecommerce tools or our list of the best shipping software for ecommerce.

Enhance your ecommerce store with Gorgias

Managing returns is one of the necessary evils of running an online store. With the right returns management software, you can greatly mitigate the expenses and hassles associated with returns management. 

Integrating these solutions with a powerful customer support platform such as Gorgias makes them even more beneficial. The ability to integrate with a wide range of returns management solutions is just one of the features that make Gorgias the premier customer support solution for ecommerce stores. 

With Gorgias, you can create automated customer support workflows to assist with returns management and other customer support tasks. Along with these powerful automation rules, Gorgias also offers live chat support, a centralized customer support dashboard, advanced customer support reporting and analytics, and so much more. 

To see for yourself how our industry-leading customer support software can enhance your returns process and your ecommerce business as a whole, sign up for Gorgias today!

61% of consumers define an excellent customer support interaction as one with a quick resolution, according to a 2021 study. Your overall customer experience depends on how fast you can provide answers that fully solve a customer’s problem and lets them get on with their day—without too much effort.

Average resolution time is the metric businesses use to measure how quickly their customer support teams completely close an open customer issue. It’s not the only customer support metric that matters, and I don’t recommend holding it up as the holy grail of your team’s success. But it’s certainly worth measuring (and, usually, lowering) because it can make or break the customer experience — especially for urgent issues like lost packages, billing issues, or outages and bugs.

Learn all about average resolution time below, including what it is, how to measure and interpret your average resolution time, and how to lower your brand’s resolution time and make customers happy.

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What is resolution time?

Resolution time, also called time to resolution or mean time to resolution (MTTR), is the average amount of time a customer spends interacting with a business’s customer support, helpdesk, or customer service team before their issue is solved. 

The clock starts ticking the moment a customer writes or calls your support team. It includes the amount of time customers wait before getting a first response and any additional wait time between conversations. The clock stops ticking when the question is resolved and the support interaction is complete.

Average resolution time formula

Most brands don’t measure resolution time for individual tickets; they measure resolution time across all tickets — average resolution time. Apply a formula like this one to measure your business’s average resolution time:

Average resolution time = Total resolution time in a defined period / Total number of customer interactions resolved in that period

If you conduct customer support directly on email and social media, you’ll have to calculate the total resolution time for all tickets by hand. This is tedious: You’ll have to subtract the difference between the timestamp of the last message in an interaction from the timestamp of the first message. 

However, if you use a helpdesk for customer service, you’ll likely have access to a dashboard that reports on your resolution times. Here’s what average resolution time looks like in Gorgias, which you can view by agent, channel, time frame, and more:

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Orange represents average resolution time, while red represents the resolution time of the 10% of tickets that took the longest to resolve.

What is a good average resolution time for ecommerce?

Ecommerce businesses work especially hard to reduce their average resolution time because of the high customer expectations: 63% of customers will leave a brand after a single bad customer service experience. The stakes for fast, helpful customer service are high.

But defining a good resolution time is difficult because of a variety of factors:

• Each channel has its own resolution time frame: Customers expect an email conversation to take at least a few hours, but will rarely spend hours on your site’s live chat
• Your product’s complexity: If you sell highly configurable or complex products, your inquiries will probably take more time to resolve — and that’s okay
• Your customer service team’s maturity and tech stack will impact resolution time: A small team managing customer support on Gmail won’t achieve the same resolution time as a large team with a centralized and automated helpdesk 

But perhaps the most important “it depends” for resolution time is the type of ticket in question. At Gorgias, we encourage you to categorize every ticket into one of two categories: simple requests, which you can automate entirely, and complex requests, which will (and should) have higher resolution times.

Rather than trying to drive a variety of tickets to an arbitrary benchmark, you can clear your queue of repetitive, tedious tickets so you actually have time to handle and more efficiently resolve more complex ones.

Here’s what we mean:

Aim to automate empty-calorie customer service requests…

Questions like “Where is my order?” or “What’s your return policy?” or “Where do you ship?” might not take long to resolve individually, but they tend to take up a lot of time because customers ask them at such a high volume. We call them “empty calorie” tickets. You could try and resolve these tickets one by one, but it’s much faster (for both customers and agents) to provide helpful, automated answers.

Here’s how you can provide instant answers to these types of questions:

• Create a list of your most frequently asked questions based on the last few months of tickets
• Create Macros (or templated responses) to those questions, including variables like [customer name] or [tracking number of last order] to personalize the message
• Set up automated Rules to instantly fire the personalized message (based on the ticket’s Intent)

This way, when customers ask these FAQs, they’ll immediately get a resolution-worthy response — assuming the templated response is helpful — without any agent effort.

Even better, you can set up self-service resources like FAQ pages, knowledge bases, or Quick Response Flows like the one pictured below:

Again, the goal is to deflect empty-calorie tickets from your queue so agents don’t have to rush through complex, escalated, or high-impact questions. And don’t worry: Customers always have a clear path to a human agent if they need extra support.

Spend more time resolving complex and high-impact inquiries

Once you automate simple tickets, your helpdesk will have a higher ratio of questions that actually need human attention. This way, your customer service agents won’t have to rush through a mountain-high pile of tickets each day.

It may sound counterintuitive, but slowing down is often the best way to lower resolution time for these types of tickets. They need some extra research, personalization, problem-solving, and empathy to fully resolve. And taking a few extra minutes to resolve these issues won’t be an issue because you don’t have a queue overflowing with easy tickets waiting for an available agent. 

These types of questions include:

• Angry customers threatening to leave a bad review
• VIP customers asking for exceptions to policies
• Pre-sales questions (like “Which color do you recommend to match bright red shoes?”)
• Unique questions (like “I’m looking for the bike you posted on Instagram this morning, can you help me find it?”) 
• Questions that require cross-functional support, like website issues that need engineering support

Now, we’re not saying resolution time doesn’t matter here. It does. But it’s a mistake to expect these tickets to match the resolution time of the first category, and lumping them all together in terms of metrics will paint an unclear picture of the problem.

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Ideal average resolution times by channel

Now that you’ve separated simple and complex tickets, consider each channel your customers use: email, DMs, live chat, and so on. Customers have expectations for each support channel, and I recommend building your service-level agreements (SLAs) for each channel’s resolution time around those expectations. 

Below, I recommend some rough benchmarks for major support channels. That said, the time frames listed below are ambitious, so aim for gradual improvements based on your current average resolution times rather than matching my suggestions exactly.

Email: Same-day resolution

Email isn’t an instant messaging channel, so customers don’t expect instant responses. Ideally, you should respond within the same day — within a few hours is even better. Email works well for complex issues, where customers may need to explain an issue in detail or send a picture of their purchase. 

SMS: 10-minute resolution

As a live messaging channel, SMS resolution time should ideally be less than 10 minutes. SMS texting usually involves shorter messages than email, so it’s best to funnel quick, simple interactions to SMS. That said, one benefit of SMS is that customers can start a conversation and text you throughout the day, so the channel’s resolution time might be a bit longer than other live channels like live chat.

Learn more about offering SMS customer service with Gorgias.

Live chat: <10-minute resolution

Live chat is the most immediate channel because customers are usually sitting by their computers for the entire conversation. With that in mind, aim for an average resolution time of under 10 minutes, too. 

Live chat is great for real-time conversations and can be combined with chatbots or other self-service features for automating the simplest queries. One downside is that impatient users may switch tabs and forget about the conversation, driving up your resolution time metrics. But Gorgias features like our in-message product cards are great at keeping customers engaged until a resolution:

Some brands are worried about high resolution times from live chat if messages come in outside of business hours. Check out our post on how Gorgias helps small teams manage live chat if you have this same concern.

Check out our post on live chat support for more information about this support channel.

Phone: One-call resolution

Phone calls are one of the quickest paths to a resolution since you can collect details, offer multiple tactics to solve the issue, and stay on the line until the customer is completely satisfied — no back and forth necessary. Gorgias customers improve ticket resolution by 34% by adding phone support.) 

Aim for resolution time under 10 minutes for the simple tickets, but also leave the door open for longer phone calls as a great strategy to handle complex issues. You don’t want to rush through a phone call with frustrated or VIP customers for the sake of hitting a resolution metric. 

Read more about the benefits of phone support for your brand.

Social media: Same-day resolution for comments, 10-minute resolution for DMs

Your customers will think of social messaging as nearly the same as live chat, so treat it the same: resolution time within minutes (certainly under 10 minutes). When they get what they want, customers love social because it feels like a shortcut compared to phone or email. But, like SMS and live chat, social media can be a difficult channel in which to solve complex issues.

Check out our guide to social media and customer service.

What is the best channel for solving customer issues efficiently?

Each channel has its strengths and weaknesses in terms of helping the customer solve their issue. Some are better for solving issues quickly, while others excel at solving them thoroughly.

There is no single best channel. The real goal should be solving the customer’s issue efficiently and completely. For that matter, ecommerce businesses can’t directly control which support channel customers will choose, so the best approach is to provide omnichannel communication that focuses on meeting the customer where they’re at and using a customer service platform that reduces platform-switching for customer service agents.

Resolution time vs. first-reply time: Which metric is more important?

One important distinction in this discussion is the difference between resolution time and first reply time (FRT).

First reply time measures how long a customer has to wait before getting a response from your support team. Obviously, a customer who's been on hold for an hour will be in a certain frame of mind when they finally get a hold of a team member — and it isn’t a good one.

Across all live channels (on-site live chat and SMS, for example), a reply time under two minutes is a good target. Email, on the other hand, can usually have a longer first reply time — up to a few hours is acceptable.

While keeping first reply time low is important, relying solely on this customer service metric is a mistake. For example, if your team’s only goal is to keep first reply time below two minutes, they may do a great job at making that initial contact — at the cost of actually solving people’s problems promptly. This scenario will also correlate to lower customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, even when your team hits its KPI for reply time.

In reality, both resolution time and first reply time are important, in nearly equal proportion. Placing more emphasis on one than the other can lead to problematic interactions with customers, so ecommerce companies should take a balanced approach.

Gorgias’ solution: Support performance score

Within Gorgias, users can see their unique support performance score. This powerful metric combines three customer support metrics (first reply time, resolution time, and CSAT score) into a single metric to give you a more well-rounded view of your support team’s performance.

7 key strategies to reduce resolution time

Now that we’ve formed a framework for categorizing and thinking about support tickets, it’s time to work on reducing resolution time — intelligently and carefully, so you don’t run into the pitfalls we’ve mentioned.

Here are seven strategies.

1) Create a knowledge base or FAQ page

First up, the best support ticket is the one that never exists because the customer solved their own problem. The next-best? One that you can close out almost immediately by pointing the customer to an existing resource.

FAQ pages provide value to you and your customers:

• Customers can get answers to questions without any wait time.
• The customer support team can filter out or effortlessly resolve simple queries, leading to fewer “empty calories tickets” (tedious, repetitive, and brainless CS requests).

2) Automate processes wherever possible

Process automation can significantly reduce first response time using automated responses (macros and rules) and self-service automation. Getting through initial triage via automation frees up your customer support agents to do the harder work. Chatbots can even solve simple tickets on their own, and your human team will get to ticket resolution faster when they aren’t swamped with empty-calorie tickets.

3) Direct customers to faster resolution channels

If most of your customers contact you on slower channels (like email), consider reminding them about faster channels like live chat and SMS. Point out that live chat customers get an answer in three minutes on average, and users with simple questions may decide to hop over.

Berkey Filters, a Gorgias customer, did just that after launching an SMS support channel. They implemented several tactics like:

• Putting a banner at the top of the website to announce the new channel
• Announcing the new channel in all customer support emails
• Mentioned the channel’s quick response times in all announcements

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Check out Berkey Filters’ customer playbook to see how they lowered resolution time by funneling customers to SMS.

4) Prioritize customer service tickets and triage tickets

Your business should prioritize certain ticket types — the highest-value tickets might include VIP customers, customers about to make a purchase, and escalated customers. I recommend focusing on decreasing resolution times for these high-value tickets first and foremost, regardless of your overall metric. (Again, automating simple requests makes prioritizing these tickets even easier.)

Gorgias can use Shopify or BigCommerce data to tag customers who have spent over a certain amount as VIPs, pushing them to the front of the queue. Likewise, Gorgias’s sentiment detection can flag escalated customers. 

Learn more about triaging and prioritizing customer service tickets using Shopify data.

5) Tag customer types to route tickets to specialized teams

If your brand sells vastly different products — or sells to vastly different types of customers — one way to prioritize tickets is to create specialized teams. This way, you don’t need to waste any time playing hot potato with the customer query. You simply auto-assign tickets to the appropriate team.

For example, say you sell desks to individuals as well as offices. More than likely, someone buying a single desk for their house will have different needs and questions than someone buying 100 desks for the business’s office. Using Gorgias, you can auto-assign tickets to a specialized team based on channel, language, or a myriad of other qualities with the support of auto-tagging. 

6) Create an effective escalation strategy for technical issues

Technical issues can increase resolution time; sometimes, the answer lies elsewhere, outside your support team. Make sure you create clear escalation workflows so that, when these kinds of issues arrive, your team knows where to send them (and those other resources know the importance of responding promptly).

For example, if a customer had trouble with a missing package, they might need to speak directly to your fulfillment team. Likewise, if a customer has an issue with the functionality of your website, you may need to rope in your software engineers. Don’t wait until an issue arises to try and chase down these other teams — that’s a surefire path to a long resolution time.

7) Use the right tools such as templates and historical data

The more manual your processes and the less connected to what you already know about customers, the longer it takes to close tickets and the more frustration you’ll likely create with customers.

So use the tools you already have (like historical data and perhaps templates) and leverage new, powerful tools like Gorgias’ ticketing system to expand your capabilities.

Improve your company’s revenue by up to 2% by lowering the average resolution time to under 6 hours

In 2022, we studied the data from over 10,000 ecommerce brands and sat down with 25+ ecommerce brands to understand the connection between customer experience and growth. We found that when brands lower their average email response time to under six hours, they lift overall revenue by about 2%.

Ready to learn more? Check out our ultimate CX playbook for 18 tactics to boost revenue through CX.

Want to lower your resolution time? Gorgias can help. Gorgias is customer support and helpdesk software that can help ecommerce support teams become more efficient, improve customer experience, and drive revenue.

Written in partnership with Okendo. 

Repeat customers are a revenue-boosting engine in the world of ecommerce. 

According to data from Gorgias’s merchants, repeat customers generate 300% more revenue than first-time customers. The small act of winning back a customer has a huge impact on your brand.

That’s why it's important for brands to understand repeat customer rate (RCR), or the percentage of customers who shop with your brand beyond a one-time transaction. 

In this article, you’ll learn how to track and measure repeat customer rate for your brand, along with tips to boost purchase frequency and improve RCR among your shoppers. 

What is repeat customer rate?

Repeat customer rate (RCR) is a key metric used by retailers to measure the percentage of shoppers who make multiple transactions over their customer lifetime. 

In ecommerce marketing, you may see this metric go by a few other names, including returning customer rate, customer retention rate, or repeat purchase rate. 

Why winning repeat customers is so critical in ecommerce

If you want a major revenue win for your brand, look no further than your own customer base. 

The benchmarks for a typical RCR vary by market, but data collected from Gorgias's 12,000+ merchants shows that repeat customers account for only 21% of customers but generate 44% of revenue and 46% of orders. 

If that wasn’t compelling enough, retaining an existing customer is five times less expensive for a brand than finding a new customer. 

📚 Recommended reading: 25 customer support metrics to measure your team’s impact & how to calculate

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What drives repeat customer rate?

To entice customers to come back, brands work to provide incredible experiences throughout a customer’s entire journey.

“My biggest piece of advice is to really understand the customer journey for your business,” says Bri Christiano, Director of Customer Support at Gorgias. “Which touchpoints are going to drive the most revenue?”

For online stores, customer support acts as a vital touchpoint. Build an iron-clad retention strategy, and you’ll see customer satisfaction soar, including boosted conversion rates and repeat business. 

How to calculate repeat customer rate

Repeat customer rate is very simple to calculate, but getting started takes a little pre-work. 

To calculate RCR, you first need to track the number of repeat customers you have over a specific time period. 

Of course, this can be done manually by combing through transactional data, but it would mean days of looking through customer information with a fine-tooth comb. Plus, since customer data is always coming in, you might never see the full picture.

A helpdesk like Gorgias can automatically find repeat customer data for you so you can focus your energy on ways to improve your RCR. 

Once you’ve collected your returning customers, divide the number of repeat customers by your total number of customers. Then, multiply that number by 100. 

The formula for RCR looks like:

(Total repeat customers / total paying customers) x 100 = RCR

Here’s what calculating RCR looks like using real numbers:

(80 repeat customers / 230 paying customers) x 100 = 34.78%

What is a “good” repeat customer rate in ecommerce? 

Like many customer support metrics, there’s no specific benchmark for a “good” repeat customer rate. Ultimately, it all comes down to your brand’s goals, along with factors like industry, audience needs, and the size of your ecommerce business.

The key to returning customer rate is to strike a balance between customer acquisition of new shoppers and re-engaging with existing customers. 

Based on Gorgias’s own first-party data with our merchants, we estimate that a 20% increase in customer base can boost your brand’s revenue by 6%. 

RCR works well in tandem with a few other metrics to determine the actual value of your marketing efforts: 

• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): How much money a customer will likely spend on your products over a specific timeframe. 
• Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC): How much it costs your brand to obtain a new customer versus retaining existing ones. 
• Average Order Value (AOV): The amount of money your customers spend per transaction. 
• Churn Rate: The percentage of customers your brand loses over time.  

6 steps to improve your repeat customer rate

In a recent study, HubSpot found that 93% of customers were more likely to become repeat customers with brands they believe have excellent customer service.

What characterizes excellent customer service? These days, it’s personalization that incentivizes customers to keep coming back. 

Let’s look at six tried-and-true steps to create a positive, personalized shopping experience that will encourage your customers to return for more. 

1) Build a strong post-sales experience

A customer’s journey doesn’t end when they click checkout. 

The post-sales, or post-purchase, experience is a prime moment to keep a customer thinking about your brand or products long-term. 

Post-sales can also lead to better brand trust, a critical factor in gaining loyal customers. Bri says, “You're catching that person at a point where they're feeling really energized about the brand.”

The customer service team at TUSHY realized a post-sales strategy was exactly what they needed to close a knowledge gap around their bidets. They found customers who bought a bidet needed help understanding how to install them.

Reps were able to communicate with customers that installing a TUSHY bidet wasn’t a major plumbing project by creating an omnichannel support strategy with email, social media, SMS, live chat, FAQs, and a robust Help Center.  

2) Reduce response times

We noticed an interesting customer service trend: 90% of US customers say an immediate customer service response is “important” or “very important.” 

To give your customers a near-instant response, consider these ideas that not only boost customer satisfaction but can reduce the load on your support team. 

Automate repetitive questions

According to McKinsey, 71% of shoppers want personalized interactions with support teams, and 76% are frustrated when they don’t receive one.  

But a team stuck repeating return policies or tracking down orders doesn’t have much time to personalize a well-thought-out response.  

Gorgias Automate can help deflect up to 60% of your chat ticket volume by automating responses to repetitive questions. It works by sending personalized answers to customers based on their unique Shopify data.

Use a helpdesk to prioritize tickets 

You never want to leave a frustrated customer waiting. A helpdesk like Gorgias can automatically assign priority levels to your incoming tickets so agents know exactly which tickets to respond to first. 

Quickly resolving a frustrated customer’s problem could be just the thing to turn the negative interaction into a positive one that makes the customer want to come back again. 

Drive support traffic to your preferred channels

Customers prefer to have multiple ways to get in touch with your support team. However, some channels have longer response times than others. 

Customers who send a support request via email might fear their problem is lost in the void. Use slower channels as a springboard to push customers to faster channels, like SMS or Live Chat.

📚 Recommended reading: First response time: your guide to understand + lower the metric

3) Collect customer feedback 

Customer feedback is your golden ticket to creating great experiences that encourage repeat shopping. 

Customers have high expectations for brands these days — and without customer feedback, you’re stuck in the dark about how to meet those expectations. 

Here are a few ideas for your team to collect customer feedback and improve your brand experience: 

• Monitor customer reviews to find out what actual customers are saying about you. Gorgias customers can manage reviews by integrating with Yotopo, which allows users to track and respond to reviews in a central space. If the feedback you see is positive, that’s a sign your team is in the right direction. If it’s negative, use the feedback to look for areas of improvement.
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• Send out surveys to shoppers using a customer marketing platform like Okendo. CSAT helps gather general customer satisfaction. Likewise, you can offer an NPS survey to determine how likely customers would recommend your brand to their friends.
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• Build questions into your customer support scripts so agents can talk directly to customers about their experience. Your agents can find out if there are any gaps in the customer journey or reasons why the customer had a negative experience.
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• Implement a customer feedback loop to tie your tactics into a cohesive strategy. 

4) Create loyalty programs

Customer loyalty programs encourage customers to stay engaged with your brand after their initial purchase — which can dramatically boost your repeat customer rate. 

A loyalty program works by rewarding customers for shopping with your brand and incentivizing them to want to come back. It also shows your customers that you value the relationship. 

Consider also offering incentive-based referral programs to reward customers for sharing your brand and products with their friends. 

Software solutions such as Smile.io and LoyaltyLion make it incredibly easy to build a customer loyalty program from the ground up. Best of all, these options both integrate with Gorgias to pull loyalty customer data into your helpdesk. 

5) Offer discounts

So many people hear the word “discount” and get scared for their bottom line. In reality, a sale or deal is just the thing to sweeten the pot and entice a customer to return for more. 

That’s because a discount creates the perception of value in the hearts and minds of your customers. Remember how often you offer a deal since many customers will only buy with a discount.

A helpdesk, like Gorgias, can help you automate the process of giving a discount once you pinpoint great moments to offer them to customers. 

• Add a discount to your confirmation email to send to customers who recently completed a transaction. 
• Leverage SMS messaging to send a small discount to customers who purchased in the last month. 
• Use live chat to message a customer who added an item to their carts but moved it to “saved for later” or outright deleted it. 

Find out what went wrong, offer a new product recommendation, and a small discount to entice the customer to return to their cart and complete a new transaction. 

6) Upsell and cross-sell relevant products

For ecommerce brands, upselling is a tactic to encourage customers to purchase a higher-priced item instead of the one they initially selected. 

At its simplest, it’s a way to convince a customer to spend more money on an item.

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Cross-selling is a similar sales tactic where you can strategically recommend add-ons related to whatever the customer has put in their cart. 

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With upselling and cross-selling, the goal is the same: create higher ticket value, encourage greater sales, and improve customer satisfaction.  

Okendo recently launched a feature called Quizzes to provide personalized shopping experiences. 

With Quizzes, brands can ask their shoppers questions to make product recommendations and help customers make fast purchasing decisions.

Invest in a helpdesk to win more repeat customers

You could spend hours scrolling through transaction lines, physically track repeat customers, and manually build marketing campaigns to follow up with customers. 

Or, invest in a helpdesk to automate these processes for you. That way, you can focus on building a customer experience that incentivizes customers to shop beyond their first purchase. 

Ready to learn how to optimize your returning customer rate and maximize your company’s bottom line? Check out our CX growth playbook, a free resource that dives into:

• 18 tactics to boost profitability by 44%
• 25+ interviews with top ecommerce stores
• Analysis of +12,000 Gorgias customers.

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So, how can you write the perfect answer to social media comments?

An answer that addresses the customer’s issue while upholding your brand?

Ecommerce companies are tasked with maintaining this balance every day. (Particularly companies that spend a lot on social media ads.) These brands are inundated with comments on their promoted content from happy customers, unhappy customers, prospective customers, and social media trolls. 

In this post, we explore the depths of using social media for customer service. 

Read on for tips and plenty of examples. 

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Spending a lot on Facebook ads? (You need great social media customer service)

If you spend a lot of money on Facebook and Instagram ads, you’ll undoubtedly get dozens of comments per day. You can’t afford to ignore them. 

Why your responses to comments matter

Responding to social media comments on your ecommerce posts and ads is critical. 

74% of consumers rely on social media to help them make purchasing decisions. 71% are more likely to make a purchase based on a social media referral. 

While the design and copy of your posts and ads are important, the comment section has equal swaying power. 

Potential customers scope out the comments in an ad from an ecommerce company. They’ll read the positive comments, the negative comments, and how your company replies to both. 

An amazing customer endorsement can fall flat if your brand didn’t comment with a grateful reply and simply ignored your raving fan. 

Meanwhile, a customer complaint can have a less disastrous impact on a shopper’s purchasing decision if you reply and seek resolution with the customer.

How to excel at social commerce

Social commerce is a booming trend. TikTok is building out Shopify shopping capabilities in the app. Meanwhile, Facebook is also adding a Shopify pay button, and the social media platform already allows small ecommerce businesses to run a shop directly from their business page.

These social commerce developments are designed to keep consumers in the social media app, to the benefit of both parties (the social platform and the ecommerce business). 

Consumers can be converted to paying customers without having to leave the app. This reduces the required steps to making a purchase, and increases conversions. 

By responding to social media comments like a pro, your ecommerce company can also capture this social commerce trend. You’ll reduce the need for customers to go and read reviews elsewhere. They can get answers to their questions right in the social media channel. They can read the answers that your team has already written to other commenters. 

By reducing the review-hunting step, you can increase conversions. Customers that have read comment threads can feel comfortable making a purchase immediately. 

Related: Our list of the best social media integrations for Shopify.

Top ways that customers engage with your posts and ads

31% of consumers say that they use social media like Twitter and Instagram primarily to browse products. Consumers are accustomed to being shown products through organic posts and paid media. 

They feel comfortable giving their opinion and speaking directly with a brand. 

The top ways that customers engage with posts and ads are product endorsements, negative reviews, customer support complaints, and product questions.

Here’s an example of a customer commenting on a social media ad with a favorable opinion of the product:

These sorts of comments can have a huge impact on your conversions. While it’s hard to measure the exact impact, you might find that ads with a lot of positive comments perform better than new ads or ads with fewer comments.

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Why customers reach out through social media platforms

Today, social media is one of the most important customer service channels.  

But some ecommerce companies are hesitant to spend too much time providing social media customer service. The management of the company might feel frustrated by the expectation to respond there, rather than through their customer support software. 

If someone at your company is advocating against allocating support time to social media comments, ask them to consider customers’ needs.

Ultimately, the most successful ecommerce businesses get as close to their customers as possible. They listen to feedback and open up lines of communication on customers’ terms.

Customers leave important comments on your social media posts and ads because:

• It fits with their user flow - Consumers don’t want to have to leave their favorite social media app to find where else to communicate with you. 
• They have come to expect a response - Because so many ecommerce brands excel at social media customer service, consumers expect all brands to respond to their comments.
• They want to feel like they have direct access to your brand - This goes beyond just getting a response. Customers want to feel heard and seen by your brand. They want to know that you offer true customer care, not just basic service.
  

If after empathizing with customers, someone at your company still doesn’t see the need to invest in customer service on social media channels, the following statistic might help...

A whopping 83% of global consumers expect a response time of 24 hours or sooner.

That stat alone could be the ammunition you need to get your company on board with allocating time towards social media responses.

Related: Our guide to offering great customer service via Facebook Messenger.

Social media customer service strategy

What’s the strategy behind social media customer service?

It comes down to two key things:

1. Increasing customer satisfaction 
2. Converting new customers
   

Let’s take a look at how to excel at both:

How to increase customer satisfaction

The comments section of your social media posts and ads offers an amazing opportunity to strengthen customer retention. 

You might be able to discover:

• Ways to improve your products
• Ways to bundle your products, update your pricing model, offer subscriptions, etc.
• Potential brand ambassadors
• Potential user generated content creators
• Widespread product issues warranting refunds or recalls
• Copy or design ideas to attract more customers with new ads
• Product testimonials to include in ads or landing pages
• Ways to increase clarity in your website pages regarding what’s included with a product, where to locate information, etc.
  

There are so many incredibly valuable things you can get out of reading and responding to your social media comments, so don’t think of this as just a burden.

For example, in this comment thread, a customer points out the difficulty of finding information for an art subscription box. The social media manager politely accepts the feedback and promises to talk to the team about fixing the issue. 

The company not only assists the customer hunting for the information, but also proactively fixes the issue so that other customers don’t experience the same confusion. 

You can also drive brand loyalty by engaging with your biggest fans. For example, if a customer often posts positive review comments on your ads, you might thank them with a free gift. 

Use social media to drive deeper relationships with your existing customers. Listen to them, heed their guidance, and find ways to thank those who go out of their way to support your business.

How to drive new customers

Use social media comments to convert new customers? Yes, it really is possible.

Here are the key ways to grow your customer base through social media comments:

• Respond to customer issues helpfully - It’s important that you reply politely and helpfully to your current customers. Prospective customers will be paying attention to how you resolve issues. If you don’t respond or respond in a rude or unhelpful way, prospective customers might not purchase from you.
  

• Respond to prospective customers’ questions - You also need to quickly respond to prospective customers questions. They might ask for help with purchasing the right product or they might have questions about what’s included with the product. 
  

• Uplift positive comments - You should also respond to very positive comments about your products or company. This shows potential customers that you care about your current customers and that you appreciate the time and effort they put into saying something kind about your brand. For example, you might write something like “Thanks so much for letting us know. We’re so happy you love it.”

Here’s an example of a smart way to convert commenters into customers. The commenter is asking for help choosing the right foundation color, and the social media manager responds with the link to take their quiz. 

The company has wisely signed up for Bitly’s paid plan to offer easy-to-remember short links in their responses on social networks. 

The comment got 31 likes. So, not only did the original commenter get access to the link, but many others saw the response as well. You can use social media customer support to drive traffic to your important website pages.

The Bitly link redirects to a quiz. After submitting all of the quiz answers, the user needs to offer up their email address to get their results.

IL Makiage is wisely using social media comments as a way to grow their email list and offer exact product recommendations.  

The most common social comments (with example answers from ecommerce companies)

How should your team members respond to social media comments?  Across all of your social profiles, and especially where you run ads, you might run into the following types of comments.

Read on for example comments and effective customer service responses.

Shopper concerns and questions

One of the most common types of social media customer care required is simply answering questions and concerns. Potential customers will ask questions in social media comments about products of yours that they haven’t tried yet.

In this example, a customer asks about whether a foundation will be so heavy that it will cover her characteristic freckles. The social media manager offers an excellent response by sharing that the coverage is buildable. 

In this example, a social media manager assures the potential customer that the product won’t exacerbate acne. 

Note that the response quells concerns by sharing specific product details (oil-free and water-based). 

Similarly, the customer service team member or social media manager handles a question with the opposite concern. One commenter worries about how the product will affect dry skin. The response features specific product details to address the issue (hyaluronic acid and vitamin E).

Details are the best way to address customer concerns. Just take a look at this example with features a very thorough response about the number guards included in a beard trimmer.

Customer questions

Your paying customers might ask questions as well. This is your chance to drum up excitement with current customers, engage with them on an emotional level, and show that you’re here to provide excellent customer service, even on social media.

In this example, a customer asks about whether or not the ad is featuring the next month’s art subscription box. 

By answering with an upbeat tone, the social media manager gets the customer and other people reading the comment excited to receive the subscription box.

Customer endorsements

You’ll also receive customer endorsements and positive reviews in the comments section of your social media ads. 

If you get an enthusiastic comment, don’t let it go unnoticed. You should reply to all of the detailed comment reviews you receive from customers. 

Check out this example. The social media manager makes it clear that they are ready to offer excellent customer service if needed. 

When reading this response, prospective customers can see that the company cares about their results and is available to happy to provide customer service solutions. 

This can increase potential customers’ likelihood of purchasing from you. 

Customer complaints

Of course, you’re likely to receive customer complaints as well. 

You might get negative reviews about the delivery date, the cost of returns, or even the product itself.

Check out this example response, which deftly handles a negative review.

When customer support shouldn’t respond

Social media monitoring is critical. But that doesn’t mean you have to respond to every comment written across your entire social media presence.

If you respond to certain comments, it could come off as creepy. 

For example, social media users will often tag each other in the comments sections of ads they find intriguing or humorous. They might recommend one of your products to a friend.

In this case, they are not expecting the social media manager or customer support team to respond to them. They are expecting a response from their friend.

If someone from your company responds and says something like “You should buy them!” or “You would love them!” it will appear too pushy and salesy. Worse, the social media users might feel like you are infringing on their private conversation. Although these comments are public, to the users they are more like private messages.

If customers tag other users, not you, don’t respond unless there are serious service issues, such as product malfunctions or delivery delays mentioned in the comments. 

You also don’t need to respond to very short positive comments like “love this!” You can simply like the comment if it’s something positive but lacks depth and detail.

Crafting the perfect social media customer service response

Customer service agents and social media managers can’t prepare for everything. Sometimes, comments will catch you off guard. 

To offer amazing social media customer service, follow these steps every time.

1. Take time to fully understand the context

While responding quickly is important, you don’t want to respond too quickly. If you rush your response, you might miss out an important element. 

For example, if someone asks about the nutritional value of a product, you might quickly offer a canned response. But if you consider the context of the ad, which talks about weight loss rather than speed of cooking like your other ads, this might help you highlight more relevant product details.

2. Craft your response, following these guidelines

When you’re sure you’ve got all the contextual information required to respond, you can go ahead and craft your response. 

Make sure you hit these important points:

Product questions:

• Answer the question clearly
• Backup your answer with real, specific product details and information
  

Positive reviews:

• Thank the customer in a way that matches your brand voice
• If it fits your product, ask them to keep you posted of further results
• Let them know you’re here for them if they have any questions
  

Negative reviews:

• Empathize with the customer
• Accept their feedback in a mature way (as opposed to disagreeing with them or attempting to silence them)
• Share the potential resolution 
• Divert the customer towards your helpdesk, knowledge base, or customer service team (as appropriate)
  

In all interactions, the customer service experience should match your brand’s personality. 

3. For contentious issues, get approval before responding

Companies can get themselves in hot water when they’re too quick to respond to controversial comments. You might need to run your answer by your PR or communications team, especially if the topic is about sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion, or the founders’ political beliefs or actions.

Here’s an example response to a question about plastic use reduction:

Sometimes, you might need to get a second opinion from the head of customer support for simple questions. Contentious responses don’t always have to be about political hot-button issues.

Here’s a great example response to a customer being shocked that there isn’t a customer support hotline.

You don’t need to get every response reviewed. But when in doubt, play it safe and get a second opinion from the head of social media management or communications.

4. Respond to the comment, and create a ticket if needed

When you’ve got the right response, go ahead and comment. Don’t forget to tag the person you’re responding to.

If the social media commenter brought up an important customer support issue, you should create a ticket for the comment thread in your customer service software.

This way, you can track the resolution. 

5. Make sure customer support sees the issue through to resolution

With a ticket open in your helpdesk, you won’t have to worry about remembering to check if the person wrote back. Instead, you’ll be able to see that open ticket, and you can then click through to the post or ad with the comment thread. 

If it’s an important issue (the customer wants a return or hasn’t received their product in the mail), you should do one follow up comment and tag them to make sure they saw your response. 

Follow these guidelines to social media customer service, and you’ll gain new fans while deepening your connection with your current customers. 

Gorgias helps ecommerce companies grow through exceptional customer service. Learn more about Gorgias' social media features.

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