In the early days of a business, most ecommerce owners are responsible for everything themselves. Every order, every email, and every question is handled by you and you alone. But as your business grows, you’ll get more customer inquiries, more questions, and more orders. It’s impossible to do everything yourself – especially if you want to step away from the front lines and work behind the scenes to grow your business.
If you’re spending more time answering customer questions than building your brand, it’s time to get help, like: Hiring a customer service representative to help you answer customer questions, identify friction points in the buying process, and provide an all-around better customer experience.
In this post, we’ll explain how to recruit, hire, and onboard your first customer support agents so you can rest assured that your customers are in good hands.
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Know When to Hire Customer Service
If you find yourself juggling multiple tasks at once and not having time to breathe, it may be time to hire someone to handle your customer service. Here are some critical moments to look out for:
- If you feel overwhelmed: If the number ofIf customer inquiries have grown from an easily manageable number per day to a never-ending flood that you can’t keep up with, it’s time to hire help. If you already have a customer support team, poland email list you’ll need to expand it if team members are struggling to keep up or are feeling stressed by the number of tickets being handled.
- When customer feedback gets worse: If you notice that your customer reviews are decreasing and customers are giving lower ratings, resilient supply chains are flexible it may be time to hire support agents. Support agents can not only answer customer questions, but also quickly identify where there are friction points in the buying process and iron them out.
- If your metrics are not right: If thee-commerce metrics that you normally track are getting worse, hiring customer service might be a good idea. Look for declining support metrics like time to resolution and customer satisfaction, b2c phone list as well as general e-commerce metrics likeCustomer lifetime value and the number of sales. Both can indicate dissatisfied customers and the need to increase support.
- If you’ve experienced rapid growth: If your brand has experienced a growth spurt, there’s a good chance you need additional support. Growth means more customers, more orders, and more questions that require more staff.
Hiring Customer Service: Not ready to hire a full-time customer support team member yet? No problem. There are numerous tools, software, and options to help you bridge the gap until you ‘re ready to hire a full-time employee.
Automated tools
Modern technology can be a great asset to a customer support team, but it can also fill in the gaps when you don’t have full-time employees. Chatbots use AI technology to answer customer questions in real time, while customer support apps like Gorgias or Zendesk make it easier to handle a large influx of customer questions with a smaller team.
outsourcing of customer support
There are agencies that offer customer support services for a monthly fee. This may mean working with a specialized agency or hiring freelancers or customer support specialists to fill the gap.
self-service options
Today, customers like to take control of their buying experience. If you can’t justify hiring a full-time customer support team, at least give your customers the opportunity to get their questions answered on their own terms – create blog posts, video tutorials, and an FAQ section to answer the most common questions.
Hiring Customer Service: Define Your Perfect Person
Your first support agent will quickly become the face of your company. Since this person is on the front lines and corresponding with customers, they need to represent your brand authentically. It’s really important that you trust the first person you hire to work for your customer service team, otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time micromanaging – which isn’t fun for you or the person new to working for you.
It’s tempting, especially when you’re very busy, to hire the first person you meet. But finding the best person for your small team will save you money and frustration in the long run. In fact, research shows that making the wrong choice when it comes to staffing can not only cost you a lot of money , but also damage your reputation and potentially lead to the loss of customers. That’s why when hiring for customer service, take your time to hire the right person.
First, make a list of the skills you think the ideal person should have. What makes them successful at helping your clients effectively? Are there other tasks they can help with?
Here are some general skills to look for:
customer service skills
It goes without saying that in customer service, you need someone who is good at speaking to frustrated customers in an empathetic way. A person who enjoys helping people and providing excellent customer service. If that person has worked in retail before but didn’t like dealing with annoying customers, they’re probably not the right person to hire for your customer service role.
Written communication skills
Most ecommerce support is handled via live chat or email, so your customer service representative should have good writing skills. If their resume and cover letter are already riddled with spelling mistakes, their emails to customers will be too.