Overnight successes are rare in e-commerce.

But an overnight surge in customer service requests?

Yeah, that happens quite a lot.

Before you’re forced to ramp up on customer support software out of necessity, build a strong foundation with these ten basic e-commerce customer service tools.

You don’t need to invest a lot of money—we curated a list of budget-friendly options that can expand as your business grows. And the ROI will more than prove itself in the long-run.

Get proactive by suiting up with this list of the top ten e-commerce customer service tools, personally I fully suggest working with Infusionsoft as your main tool, which is vital to fulfill the most common customer and worker needs..

Let’s be honest. SEO has got a bad reputation. If your company hasn’t already been burnt by a poor SEO campaign then you can bet that you’ll be receiving several calls a day from overseas companies promising to rank you at the toppermost of the poppermost. On top of these worries businesses have other concerns.

‘SEO takes too long and cost too much for my business’

‘Is SEO still relevant in 2018? Can’t I do Facebook advertising instead to get clients?’

‘We’ll never catch up with our competitors’

‘Shall I have sushi for lunch?’

All very valid concerns and questions — go the sushi. You deserve it.

Maybe you have tried to take on the SEO challenge yourself, or perhaps you hired an SEO agency that outsources their work and doesn’t understand the local competitive space (or good SEO practices — Meowww).

While it might seem daunting, your business’s long term survival will depend on your ability to generate high quality leads consistently and SEO is without doubt one of the most effective ways to ensure your pipeline of leads and prospects are consistently full.

Here are 5 reasons why SEO is important and can help skyrocket your business to the next level:

SEO Delivers A High ROI

Yep, Adwords, sponsored social media and re-marketing campaigns can, sometimes, deliver instant ROI, but nothing beats SEO when it comes to delivering high-quality leads on a consistent basis.

Why is SEO the organic magic your business needs?

It boils down to the intent of your prospects. While it is true that immediate advertising costs on social media might be initially cheaper, the prospects you attract there are more likely browsers than actual shoppers actively looking to buy. When someone is actively looking to make a purchase, they will likely search for the specific product or service on Google. They’re savvy to online advertising so they will generally skip straight past the paid ad’s and go to the results that are listed on merit — organic listings.

These are active leads, ready to part with their hard earned money. They need little convincing because they’re looking for what you’re selling and they trust you because your site is ranking well;

If your website has been structured poorly and has a weak SEO rating it won’t be shown in Googles search results. Conversely a site that has been built with SEO in mind and has an ongoing SEO strategy will have more chance of being on page 1 of Googles search results.

Your starter pack for e-commerce customer service tools

Each of these tools is simple enough to start using today. And yet, flexible enough to grow with your business. You’ll continue to get value from them ten years (and millions of customers) from now.

1. All-in-one helpdesk software

Helpdesk software acts as the foundation for all your support tools. It houses a basic set of tools, like an inbox and reporting dashboard. But it allows for added integrations and more advanced features as you grow.

So instead of purchasing a shared inbox, knowledge base, or reporting tools separately (numbers 2, 3, and 4 on this list), you could just get an all-in-one helpdesk that includes them all.

Some e-commerce store owners prefer to buy one tool at a time, though. For that reason, I’ll list each option separately below (it’s easier to explain each one individually anyway).

But as a customer support expert, I highly recommend getting an all-in-one helpdesk ticketing system rather than one-off solutions. It will increase your ROI and save you the headache of having to switch platforms in the future.

This list was built with growth in mind. Presumably, your e-commerce business was too.

Maybe you only offer email support right now but plan to offer live chat or phone support in the future. A helpdesk will lay the foundation for these multiple channels.

A good helpdesk houses all past, present, and future customer communications in the same place, regardless of how or when they contact you:

• Social media channels
• Live chat support
• Phone support
• Email support
• Reviews and rankings
• Marketing emails
• Self-service interaction

Simple helpdesk software (like Groove) is a great starting point for most online businesses. You can optimize your current workflow using basic tools like a shared inbox. Then simply add more advanced integrations as your business grows.

2. Shared inbox

A shared inbox is the most essential tool for e-commerce customer service.

It provides everything you need to organize customer inquiries and enhance productivity:

• Customer support history
• Team member assignments
• Conversation status
• Internal notes
• Collision detection
• Canned replies
• Rules and automations

Make sure one of the features included is an integration with your e-commerce platform. This enables you to see a complete customer breakdown with information like recent purchases, total spend, total orders, etc.

Here’s a look at the Shopify integration within Groove’s shared inbox:

 

That said, canned and auto replies will probably be the most immediately useful feature for your business. You can add, edit, and send these saved templates to common questions with just a few clicks:

Shared inboxes offer a ton of features like this to exponentially increase your productivity. You’ll be able to respond to every support ticket without cloning yourself or hiring more people.

3. Knowledge base

A knowledge base empowers prospective customers to make informed purchases by providing detailed answers to a wide range of common questions. After they make a purchase, self-service reduces support volume and increases customer satisfaction.

Why? Because online shoppers genuinely want to help themselves…

 

The first step is getting a knowledge base (if you use an all-in-one helpdesk like Groove, we include one with every plan). Then, it’s just a matter of adding content, organizing it, and making it easy to search.

 

Include all relevant information for your e-commerce store like faqs, delivery options, return policy, etc. Building a solid knowledge base saves both your customers and your own time.

It’s also one of the highest ROI e-commerce customer support tools. By putting up a simple FAQ, you can decrease support volume by 33% and even see millions of dollars in savings in the long-run.

4. Reporting dashboard

From a business-wide perspective, there’s plenty to measure in e-commerce.

In fact, I’ve written extensively about e-commerce customer experience metrics—A guide that (to be honest) almost murdered me during the creation process!

The good news is—if I can master e-commerce customer analytics—anyone can.

The even better news here is we can boil all that down to a handful of customer-related key-performance indicators (KPIs) within your helpdesk.

For e-commerce, you’ll want to track metrics like customer happiness, total conversations per day, and knowledge base performance.