Managing Customer Service Across Multiple Marketplaces - MerchantSpring

Customer service is an essential component of any online business, but getting it right requires hard work and dedication especially when you’re selling on multiple marketplaces. From Amazon to eBay, there are many different marketplaces available for online retailers, each offering a diversified audience eagerly searching for products just like yours. 

Providing great eCommerce customer service is often the difference between a sale and a lost opportunity, so it’s worth the effort to optimise this area of your company. 

Why is Customer Service So Vital? 

It’s impossible to expand your eCommerce business without carefully considering your customer service. More than half of companies in a recent survey cited customer service as their primary focus this year.

Many reputable companies have seen first-hand how poor management of customer-focused issues can have a lasting impact on both your reputation and bottom line. The list of customer service-related casualties is long, and the cost of ignoring or mishandling a customer complaint can be far-reaching and all-encompassing. 

Potential problems around customer service grow exponentially, the more marketplaces your business engages with. 

This can be attributed to many different factors including: 

• A confused customer service strategy that doesn’t outline requirements. 
• Failure to respond swiftly to customer queries and complaints. 
• Providing unclear or false contact information. 

But there are ways your company can tackle even the trickiest of customer service problems, helping you to get back on track and start afresh with a renewed dedication to customer satisfaction.  

Mastering Multichannel Customer Service 

Offering your customers multiple methods of contact is an effective way to boost satisfaction levels. At the same time, the act of offering these diversified contact methods, and selling through multiple channels, brings with it both immense rewards and new challenges. 

Monitoring and managing so many platforms can be a struggle, particularly when communicating with customers and keeping track of their order information, transaction history, and all the other details which make a customer feel valued.

In an era of zero wait times for live chat, customer expectations have never been higher. Today’s customers have limited tolerance for waiting around, and digital solutions have provided companies with new, more efficient ways to navigate customer service. 

Customers want convenience

Different demographics have different demands when it comes to customer service. These differences are determined by various factors including age and location, yet the unifying demand is for convenience. 

Shoppers increasingly value their time and expect companies to support their communication preferences. 

Delight your customers

With the right customer service strategy in place, you can optimise the performance of every communication channel, and eliminate the risk of losing messages or vital customer information. This will help reassure staff members working in customer service and keep your customer base contented. 

One route to enhanced multichannel customer service is to use an eCommerce help desk.

How Does an eCommerce Help Desk work? 

An eCommerce help desk such as eDesk integrates all your customer service and order data allowing you to reduce support costs and delight customers with faster responses. 

Using an eCommerce help desk will give your team the tools to provide a more consistent level of customer service. eDesk uses AI-powered technology to deliver speedy, accurate support to your customer base. 

Through the dedicated dashboard, you are equipped with all the tools you need to resolve customer issues swiftly so you can get back to the important business of selling more products.

Using an eCommerce help desk ensures your customer base feels valued, as well as providing them with the best customer service available. 

4 Ways to Improve Your Multichannel Customer Service

Here are four key ways you can improve your customer service offering on multiple marketplaces.

1. Think like a customer

This should be a cornerstone of many of your activities in eCommerce and proves particularly essential for eCommerce retailers without a physical store presence. With no additional outlets for your customers to get to know the brand, your eCommerce storefront, and customer service are the only ways for them to find out more about the company and your values. Make sure they get the right impression, right from the start. 

2. Provide multiple support channels

Opting for maximum flexibility is another way to help support your customer service efforts. One of the benefits of selling on multiple marketplaces is appealing to different audiences. In addition, each of these audiences will have different preferences in how they like to communicate – and through utilising the tools at your disposal, you can ensure you reach these customers. It’s important to ensure your strategy facilitates seamless multichannel support. 

3. Be selective

You should provide more than one method of communication to your customers, but make sure you’re equipped to use each of the channels you select. Using too many methods without clear reasoning (particularly channels you don’t know how to use) will only lead to inconsistent service. 

4. Keep it simple

There’s no need to overcomplicate customer service. Some of the best solutions to customer queries are straightforward and require a combination of human-led communication and digital tools. By consolidating your customer support into one inbox using eDesk, you’ll be able to focus on what really matters: solving customer queries and addressing concerns before they escalate. 

Power Up Your eCommerce Customer Support for Q4 and Beyond

eDesk is the only eCommerce help desk solution with native marketplace integrations with Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy, and many more. You can manage all your customer support queries from one shared inbox and power up your customer support with AI technology. 

If your company is selling on multiple platforms investing in an eCommerce help desk solution like eDesk could be one of the best decisions you’ll make. Delivering excellent customer service improves customer retention and loyalty which helps grow your business and profits.

Ready to get started? You can try eDesk FREE for 14 days, no credit card needed, or book a demo to learn more.

Guest Author

Chris Dunne is a Digital Marketing Manager at eDesk, the #1 eCommerce customer support tool for online retailers. He has over 15 years of marketing experience and has been working in the SaaS eCommerce market for seven years. Chris is a fount of knowledge on all things Amazon, and his writing is regularly published by leading eCommerce publications.