In 2023, ecommerce stores face a bundle of challenges in the form of rising ad costs, mounting customer expectations, and ever-shifting spending habits. But challenges for the entire industry open a window of opportunity for savvy businesses. 

To navigate this rapidly evolving market and position themselves for success, it is essential for today's online stores to rethink their ecommerce strategy — specifically, to match investments in customer acquisition with investments in customer conversion and retention.

One way to think of this new strategic approach is by rethinking the traditional sales and marketing funnel. Rather than working down the funnel toward one sale, brands have to think about moving customers through an experience — from awareness to conversion and retention — to maximize the lifetime value of each customer (LTV).

Below, we’ll highlight 12 important components of a successful ecommerce strategy. While no blog post could ever tell you how to run your business, you’ll learn some high-level mindsets and actionable tactics to incorporate into your 2023 ecommerce strategy.

What does an ecommerce strategy look like in 2023?

As you put together an ecommerce strategy, consider three fundamental questions:

• How do I bring people to my website?
• How do I get them to place an order once they’re there?
• How do I maximize the lifetime value (LTV) of each customer?

Let’s break those down: First, getting people to your website. Ecommerce businesses still need to focus on growing their online presence and boosting brand awareness with marketing campaigns like paid ads, social media marketing, content marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO).

However, a lot is changing for ecommerce stores in 2023. This is where the second and third questions come in. Due to increased competition and higher marketing and advertising costs, customer conversion and retention are the new battlegrounds for ecommerce. 

This starts by prioritizing the customer experience. Customers have increasingly come to value a smooth, engaging, and personalized customer experience throughout the entire customer journey, just as much as the quality of the product or service they are purchasing. 

42% of customers say they're willing to pay more for a friendly, welcoming experience, and 65% say that a positive experience with a brand is more influential than great advertising.

Finally, the last question: Focusing on customer retention has now become just as important for ecommerce stores as customer acquisition. This is due in no small part to rising customer acquisition costs that have made attracting new customers increasingly expensive. 

Repeat customers are also much, much more valuable than first-time shoppers. 300% more valuable, thanks to behaviors like:

• Placing repeat orders
• Placing orders with higher average values (AOV)
• Referring friends and family to your store
• Posting about your products on social media
• Writing product reviews for your website

With that in mind, let's take a look at 12 key components of a successful ecommerce strategy that are sure to help you form more positive, revenue-generating relationships with your customers.

12 Key components of a successful ecommerce strategy

1. Develop your buyer personas with existing customer data
2. Plot your buyer's journey through the four key stages
3. Be bold with your ecommerce marketing strategy
4. Personalize the customer experience to drive revenue and repeat business
5. Make customer service one of your ecommerce superpowers
6. Run constant tests to optimize your conversion rate
7. Find ways to boost average order value (AOV) like subscriptions and upselling
8. Collect and display social proof like reviews and user-generated content
9. Use high-quality images and superb descriptions for your products
10. Expand your social media strategy for social commerce
11. Support social media login features
12. Continuously collect data and iterate on your ecommerce strategy

1) Develop your buyer personas with existing customer data

One great way to make sure that everyone in your company understands your brand's target audience and how to market to them effectively is to use your existing customer data to develop buyer personas. 

These buyer personas can serve as a helpful resource for guiding other elements of your ecommerce strategy. Whereas buyer personas of yore focused solely on artificial demographic information (like fake names and fake children), great buyer personas should focus more on elements of the target market that influence purchases:

• Motivations
• Pain points
• Ideal outcomes
• Alternatives
• Buying considerations

2) Plot your buyer's journey through the four key stages

Ecommerce stores need to understand the journey customers go through before purchasing a product and carefully design each phase of that journey. This ensures that you can create an optimized sales funnel for your ecommerce site and is one of the most important keys to ecommerce success.

Again, the experience you provide customers is key here. While a traditional buyer’s journey indexes entirely on marketing channels — a customer will see an influencer marketing post, click through to a landing page, sign up for email campaigns to learn about new products and special offers, and eventually make a purchase — the reality is much more complicated.

Customers expect smooth, fast, and informative experiences at each stage of the journey. The good news? By providing great customer experiences, you can do much more than close one sale — you can boost order volume, promote repeat purchases, and drive much more value out of each customer.

The four key stages of an online shopping customer journey that you will need to plot out and optimize include:

Awareness stage

This stage of the customer journey is when customers first discover your brand and its products. Most customers will be looking to learn more about your brand during this phase and will be browsing your blog posts, product descriptions, FAQ pages, and other educational resources.

Consideration stage

During the consideration stage of the customer journey, customers have identified a product they would like to purchase and are mulling over their decision. They may research the specific product they're considering further in this stage or compare it to offerings from other brands. Throughout the consideration stage, it's important to utilize strategies such as email marketing and retargeting to keep your brand and products at the forefront of the customer's mind.

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Decision stage

The decision stage is when customers decide whether to purchase the product they are considering. Given that online shopping cart abandonment rates sit at around 70%, this is also the stage of the customer journey where many would-be customers turn back. 

At this point of the journey, it's all about getting customers to cross the finish line via strategies such as abandoned cart recovery tactics, retargeting campaigns, and proactive customer support.

Retention stage

Once you've attracted a new customer and guided them through the three previous stages, you should shift your focus to retaining them and maximizing their lifetime value. 

This starts by continuing to offer an excellent experience to your existing customers. You can also leverage cross-selling and upselling to extract more value from your existing customer base, soliciting feedback and reviews, and more.

“Consumers are being more picky with their purchases as cash simply isn’t stretching as far, so brands will have to work harder to prove their value. Businesses themselves are also having to navigate smaller budgets, so with customer acquisition prices soaring, it makes sense to switch the focus towards existing customers.”

— Georgie Walsh, Content Marketing Manager at LoyaltyLion

3) Be bold with your ecommerce marketing strategy

If you want your ecommerce store to stand out from its competitors, you need to make a lasting impression. And no one has ever made a lasting impression by repeating the same, tired messaging as everyone else. 

Don't be afraid to be a little bold with your ecommerce marketing strategy, and try to develop campaigns that are creative and unique. To learn more about executing a bold and creative marketing strategy, check out our blog post on 13 unique ecommerce marketing strategies.

Retention has been the talk 2022 but I only see it becoming more important in 2023, with brands seeking out ways to truly differentiate their retention experience. It's not enough to have just a post-purchase flow, what are you really doing to personalize the customer experience from order #1 all the way through the course of their life with your brand.

— Brandon Amoroso, Founder and President of Electriq Marketing

4) Personalize the customer experience to drive revenue and repeat business

In 2023, creating personalized customer experiences is one of the most impactful ways to convert potential customers into paying customers. It's also key to creating experiences that drive customer loyalty and retention. One study finds that 70% of marketers using advanced personalization see an ROI of 200% or more for their efforts.

There are a lot of different ways that you can go about creating personalized customer experiences. Using customer data to create personalized marketing messages, offering customers proactive and personalized customer support via live chat support, and sprinkling specifics in your customer messages are just a few ways that ecommerce stores are able to leverage personalization. 

Check out our article on the ultimate guide to personalized customer service to learn more about how to create an impactful, personalized customer experience.

5) Make customer service one of your ecommerce superpowers

One crucial element of a great customer experience is excellent customer service. Given that 54% of customers will leave a brand after just one bad experience, great customer service is vital for promoting customer retention.

So what is it that defines great customer service? At Gorgias, we have identified the five elements as being the most important characteristics of excellent customer service:

• Speed: You don't want to keep customers waiting, making it essential to offer fast first-response and resolution times
• Convenience: Focus on creating low-effort customer experiences by making it as easy and convenient as possible for customers to find the answers they need
• Helpfulness: Above all else, your customer support agents and resources must be able to address the questions and issues that customers have
• Friendliness: Your customer support agents directly represent your brand, and you need them to be friendly and non-confrontational at all times
• Feedback-focused: Customer feedback is an invaluable resource for further improving the quality of your brand's customer support

By providing a plethora of cutting-edge customer support tools and capabilities, Gorgias' industry-leading customer support platform enables brands to improve all four of these key customer service considerations. 

📚 Recommended reading: For a more in-depth analysis of what defines excellent customer service (and how Gorgias helps brands make customer service one of their ecommerce superpowers), check out this article on 20 customer service best practices.

Along with focusing on these four key elements of great customer service, it's also important to design a customer service process that includes omnichannel support options, self-service options, and personalized customer service:

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Offer omnichannel customer service

Omnichannel customer service entails offering support via multiple channels such as email, SMS, live chat, and social media. 

By providing multiple ways for customers to contact your support team, you can make your support services more convenient and accessible. While omnichannel typically indicates digital channels like email, SMS, and social media, it can also apply in store, too:

“As brick-and-mortar storefronts open up again, a unified customer service across all channels will be important. The unification of systems, operations, experience, and service with composable architectures will set a brand up for success in the next decade to come.”

— Steve Krueger, CEO and Founder at JIBE

Provide customer self-service

Customer self-service options such as FAQ pages, chatbots, automation, and knowledge bases enable customers to find the information they need without contacting your support team.

Self-service cuts the amount of effort customers have to expend way, way down. These solutions also help reduce your support team's workload by eliminating many would-be support tickets, freeing your agents up to focus on more complex and pressing tickets.

Insist on personalized customer service

Personalizing your customer support services at every opportunity by leveraging customer data to create personalized messaging will improve customer satisfaction and boost your retention rates.

6) Run constant tests to optimize your conversion rate

When optimizing your store's conversion rate, nothing is more important than continual A/B testing. A/B testing entails comparing the results of two different marketing approaches or messaging (for example, two different versions of the same ad or marketing email) and using the data you gather to constantly optimize your ecommerce site. 

“Conversion rate is arguably the single most important metric in ecommerce: Without a high conversion rate, all your web traffic, brand awareness, and marketing dollars never turn into revenue.”

— Catherine Lambert, Marketing and Partnerships at Swanky

You can use this strategy to optimize everything from product descriptions to email marketing messages to PPC ads, and it's one of the most impactful keys to ecommerce success.

Read more about how to improve conversion rate with A/B testing. 

7) Find ways to boost average order value (AOV) like subscriptions and upselling

We've already discussed how rising customer acquisition costs have made it increasingly important for brands to extract as much revenue as possible from their existing customer base. Along with promoting customer loyalty, one effective way to generate more revenue from your existing customers is to boost AOV via subscriptions, upselling, and cross-selling strategies.

Consider a "subscribe and save" option

Amazon is one example of an ecommerce company that utilizes the "subscribe and save" model to generate more revenue from its customers. 

By allowing customers to subscribe to your products or services and receive a discount, you can generate a more reliable, recurring cash flow from your company's repeat customers.

Take a look at how OLIPOP offers a 15% discount for customers who opt for a subscription:

Lean on upselling and cross-selling

Upselling is defined as convincing customers to purchase a more expensive, upgraded, or premium version of the product they've chosen. Meanwhile, cross-selling entails recommending customers products related to the product they've already purchased. 

Upselling and cross-selling are both effective ways for ecommerce brands to increase their AOV and can be employed by providing customers with personalized product recommendations based on their past purchases.

Take a look at how ecommerce brand Uqora uses pop-ups to encourage customers to add additional items to their shopping cart:

📚 Recommended reading: Learn how Uqora uses Recharge and Gorgias to delight subscribers, the majority of their customer base.

8) Collect and display social proof like reviews and user-generated content

Social proof (like user reviews) provides customers with peace of mind and can go a long way toward eliminating any hesitations about purchasing from your brand. 

Product reviews and testimonials, social media posts from customers, and customer messages are all examples of user-generated content that you should strive to collect and display across your website, product pages, and marketing materials. 

We love how Loop Earplugs leverages customer testimonials on their website to boost online sales with the power of social proof:

Politely requesting reviews in your post-purchase emails, incentivizing customer reviews with discounts or freebies, and simplifying the review process are a few effective ways to collect more of these valuable social proof resources.

9) Use high-quality images and superb descriptions for your products

Your product pages are the endpoint of the most crucial stage in the customer journey — the decision stage, when customers decide whether to purchase your product. This makes optimizing your product pages with compelling descriptions and high-quality images essential. 

Along with boosting your conversion rate, providing quality images and descriptions of your products also improves customer satisfaction and reduces support tickets by ensuring customers know exactly what it is they are purchasing.

10) Expand your social media strategy for social commerce

Social media marketing is something that every brand should take advantage of. 

Along with leveraging social media platforms for digital marketing tactics like content or influencer marketing, you can also leverage them as platforms for both sales and customer support. 

Selling on social media

Social commerce, which turns your social media accounts into ecommerce sales channels, makes it even more convenient for customers to place a purchase.

Social commerce is all the rage right now, so platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are offering more and more tools for ecommerce brands to set up and manage shops directly on their social media pages. 

These social commerce stores present an excellent opportunity to engage and sell to customers at the places where they are already spending the majority of their time online. And that kind of convenience is always great for user experience and, in turn, conversion.

Providing customer service via social media

The biggest tenet of providing customer support via social media is giving customers the option to contact you via social media messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger. 

Gorgias helps make social media customer service convenient for your support agents by enabling them to respond to customer messages across multiple channels from a single dashboard. 

You can also utilize social listening tools to provide proactive customer support to customers who mention your brand in posts or comments.

11) Support social media login features

Social media login is a feature that enables customers to create an account on an ecommerce website/log in to an existing account using their social media login. If you've ever been prompted to create an account with a website using your Facebook or Google log in, then you've already seen this feature in action. 

Social media login features eliminate the hassle of creating a new account and can thus eliminate a significant barrier that might otherwise prevent customers from converting. As for how to add this feature to your ecommerce website, the exact process will depend on the specific ecommerce platform you're using. Search for “social login [ecommerce platform]” to find apps that will enable this functionality for website visitors.

For example, One Click Social Login is a Shopify app that enables social login. 

12) Continuously collect data and iterate on your ecommerce strategy

The data you collect from your customers is your company's most valuable asset and should serve as the North Star for your ecommerce strategy in 2023 and beyond. 

Throughout your marketing, sales, and customer support processes, you should prioritize collecting customer data and feedback and use it to optimize those same processes. This starts by utilizing tools that provide robust data and analytics. 

For example, Gorgias' data and analytics features enable brands to automatically capture a wide range of data and provide powerful insights like customer support metrics and the support team’s impact on the company's revenue. 

Likewise, Gorgias integrates with a wide range of ecommerce tools to pull customer data — like past orders, order shipment , loyalty data, and more — into the helpdesk. This way, your agents don’t have to switch tabs to get important context and information to personalize the conversation.

Never sacrifice customer experience and loyalty for short-term revenue

The importance of the customer experience is by far the biggest takeaway of our guide to a successful ecommerce strategy, and it's something you should never sacrifice for short-term revenue. 

Going the extra mile to keep your customers happy (such as replacing a lost package) may cost a little in the short term — but might also pay off tenfold in the long run through repeat purchases and referrals.

If you want to start creating an optimized experience for your customers that will drive customer loyalty and grow your store's sales, Gorgias can help. 

To get started leveraging all of the powerful customer support tools and features that our industry-leading customer support platform offers, be sure to sign up for Gorgias today!

Customer churn (or customer attrition) is a vital metric among subscription-as-a-service (SaaS) SaaS companies and other subscription-based businesses (think Netflix). However, your online store — whether or not you have a subscription-based product — can use churn rate as a way to understand and reduce the rate at which you lose business. 

In recent years, ecommerce businesses have realized that rising customer acquisition costs (CAC) have limited the value of new customers. Constantly chasing new customers through expensive ad spend and marketing strategies does not lead to sustainable revenue. 

Instead, ecommerce brands have started investing in their customer experience to make existing customers happy, generate more reviews and referrals, and help their bottom line. Data of Gorgias customers shows that repeat customers account for only 21% of customers, but generate 44% of revenue and 46% of orders. That’s why improving your repeat customer rate, not just your acquisition rate, should be a top priority.

In this article, we discuss what customer churn is, why it’s important for your online business, and how you can calculate and reduce your churn — thus growing a larger, more resilient company. 

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What is ecommerce churn rate?

Ecommerce churn rate is the percentage of lost customers your business sees over a given period of time. 

Customer churn is a more common metric for SaaS businesses and other subscription-based business models than it is for most ecommerce stores. That’s because those business models can easily spot the moment when an active customer cancels their subscription, or churns. 

But online stores without subscription models can approximate customer churn by looking into customer behavior metrics like:

• Negative feedback and customer complaints
• Repeat purchases or lower purchase frequency
• Reduced customer satisfaction (CSAT) or net promoter score (NPS) 

Formula for calculating customer churn rate

To perform your churn rate calculation, you need to gather a few numbers. First, you need the total number of customers who were with your business at the beginning of the specific time frame you’re analyzing — this could be at the beginning of a month to calculate monthly churn rate. Next, you need the number of customers that were with your business at the end of the time period you’re analyzing. 

For example, if you are trying to calculate churn over a one-month period, you need the number of customers at the beginning of that month, and the number of customers at the end of that month. Once you have these two numbers, you can plug them into this customer churn rate formula:

[(customers at the beginning of the time period - customers at the end of the time period) / customers at the beginning of the time period] x 100 = customer churn rate (%)

Here’s an example of how this could look:

[(5,000 customers on 1st of month - 4,800 customers on 31st of month) / 5,000] x 100 = 4% churn rate

What is revenue churn rate? 

Revenue churn rate is a metric that measures changes in your store’s incoming revenue from existing customers. For businesses that sell standalone products rather than subscription-based products, revenue churn may be a more accurate indicator of your ability to retain business.

Revenue churn rate is also easier to conceptualize and measure because you’re measuring changes in revenue from existing customers, which is a clear-cut number for every type of store, not changes in existing customers themselves. 

You can look into your gross revenue churn rate, which just measures the amount of revenue lost from existing customers, or net revenue churn rate, which also factors in the amount of money gained from existing customers.

Formula for calculating revenue churn rate

To determine your net revenue churn rate for a given month, find your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) — or the incoming revenue you got from existing customers — at the beginning of the month and subtract that from your MRR end of the month. Divide that amount by the total MRR at the beginning of the month:

[(revenue from customer at the beginning of the time period - revenue from customers at the end of the time period) / revenue from customers at the beginning of the time period] x 100 = revenue churn rate (%)

If you want to find your gross revenue churn rate, subtract any upsells, upgrades, or other additional revenue from existing customers when calculating your MRR at the end of the month. 

Remember: Do not include any revenue from new customers during this time period. Churn rate calculates the amount of revenue you lost from repeat business, not the total change in revenue. 

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Why ecommerce businesses should make churn a priority KPI

We already explained that customer retention is make-or-break for online stores because, while repeat customers account for only 21% of customers, they generate 44% of revenue and 46% of orders. By conducting churn analysis and lowering your churn rate, you’ll increase the long-term revenue, or customer lifetime value (LTV), of each new customer that makes a purchase.

Repeat purchases are just the tip of the iceberg. If you can deliver a customer experience that produces loyal customers, you can also expect more reviews and referrals, larger cart values at checkout, more opportunities for upgrades and upsells, and higher-quality feedback to continue making your product and customer experience even better. 

For a deeper dive into the connection between customer experience and revenue, check out our playbook for CX-Driven Growth. 

Understanding a healthy churn rate for ecommerce brands

A good churn rate is difficult to benchmark for ecommerce because, as we mentioned, most ecommerce stores are not subscription-based. Beyond that, some ecommerce stores are a better fit for repeat business than others. For example, a company that sells coffee beans will naturally experience more repeat business than a company that sells coffee machines, because most households only need one machine but will regularly need new beans.

However, Omniconvert analyzed data from over 1,000 online stores to give a sense of the average churn rate for ecommerce, or the rate at which customers return to an online store after their initial purchase. The following numbers show the % of customers that were not retained, meaning they purchased at least one item but did not come back to purchase additional items, over a year-long span: 

• Beauty and fitness: 62% churn rate
• People and society: 63% churn rate
• Food and drinks: 64% churn rate
• Health: 65% churn rate
• Books at literature: 69% churn rate
• Pets and animals: 70% churn rate
• Sports: 70% churn rate
• Apparel: 71% churn rate
• Home and garden: 75% churn rate
• Toys and hobbies: 77% churn rate
• Shoes: 78% churn rate
• Apparel clothing accessories: 79% churn rate
• Consumer electronics: 82% churn rate
• Gifts and special events: 82% churn rate

These metrics may help you understand how your churn rate compares to your customers. However, if your churn rate doesn’t stack up, don’t be discouraged: the biggest challenge is to continually improve your own metrics, not necessarily outpace your competitors — at least in the short term. By optimizing your store and focusing on lowering your churn rate month after month, you’ll develop a highly competitive score in due time.

7 ways to reduce ecommerce churn rates

It may be impossible to get your company’s churn rate to zero, but it is important to make sure it stays as low as possible. As mentioned earlier, it can be tricky for ecommerce businesses to address churn, unless you’re a subscription business. Luckily, there are still some strategies you can employ to help reduce your churn rate that lean heavily on understanding your customer base and emphasizing a great customer experience. 

1) Segment customers to target the right people at the right time

A large part of addressing churn is having a deep understanding of your customers and their unique desires. For many businesses, there are major differences within the customer base and segment that customer base helps you personalize your marketing and customer experience. This way, everyone who visits your site, receives a message, or makes a purchase gets a tailored experience.

You can segment customers along many axes including (but nowhere near limited to): 

• Items they purchase
• When they make purchases
• The volume of their purchases
• Demographic factors

These customer segments help you send targeted advertisements, reduce irrelevant or repetitive messages, and provide tailored support. 

If you use Gorgias for ecommerce customer service, the integration with Klayvio can help you create better customer segments based on support interactions. For example, you could exclude anyone with an open support ticket from marketing emails, or send a targeted win-back campaign to customers who rate their support experience poorly. Both of these examples could be great ways to rescue at-risk relationships all along the customer journey, reducing lost customers for your brand.

Learn more about how the Klayvio and Gorgias integration unites your customer experience platform with your segmentation and personalization. 

2) Collect feedback from customers on a regular basis

Another way to address a high churn rate is to regularly collect feedback from your customers. Customer feedback can teach you a lot about what your customers expect.

If you use Gorgias, you can automatically send CSAT surveys after every support interaction to get real-time feedback from customers. On top of CSAT, we recommend collecting net promoter score (NPS) and conducting periodic long-form interviews with your most engaged customers to understand what’s working and what could be improved.

Once you collect customer feedback, there are a number of things you can do next. Here are some to think about:

Ask fans of the company to write reviews, or create a referral program

Once you begin to gather positive feedback from customers, you may think about creating a campaign to field reviews or even create a referral program. It’s not exactly ethical to outwardly ask customers to write good reviews, but if they rate your company highly, there’s nothing wrong with thanking them and asking if they’d be interested in sharing their experience with others. 

If you use Gorgias, integrations with tools like Yotpo and LoyaltyLion can build a simple review and referral program into your customer experience platform. Both integrations help you deliver a special customer experience to your most valuable customers and generate more reviews and loyalty as a result.  

Thank the customer for their feedback (positive or negative)

Once you’ve heard from a large group of customers, be sure to respond to each customer and thank them for their feedback, whether it’s positive or negative. 

Perhaps even consider offering them a promo code as a “thank you” that can be used on their next purchase. For customers that specifically had negative feedback, be sure to follow up to address the issue.

Here, we set up a Macro, or a templated response, for customers who have left negative reviews with the help of the Yotpo integration:

Share feedback with other teams to implement larger improvements to your product and CX

Once you collect feedback, you need to make sure it gets to the team that can actually implement it. We see so many customer support teams sitting on a gold mine of customer feedback without a system to disseminate it across the company. Whenever possible, reiterate to your company’s leadership that your team speaks to customers more than just about anyone, and other teams should be hungry for those insights. 

With Gorgias, you can auto-tag tickets with categories of feedback so that you can quickly and easily sort, quantify, and digest feedback about the product, shipping, website, or anything else. Autotagging involves a combination of Intent Detection, which analyzes the words in each ticket to automatically detect the category of issue, and automated Rules, which give each ticket a tag based on the intent (like “feedback-product”).

And, since Gorgias’ pricing model doesn’t charge for extra seats, you can even invite members from each of those teams into the helpdesk and create a special view that only shows tickets tagged with the relevant type of feedback so they can see exactly what customers have said about their specific function within your business.

3) Use omnichannel and proactive customer service strategies

Great customer support reduces churn by helping customers avoid and solve issues that would have otherwise driven them away from your brand. We write a lot about what makes great customer support, but here we’ll focus on one central idea: reducing customer effort. 

Reducing customer effort means that customers don’t have to search hard for ways to contact support or wait a long time for an answer. Two specific strategies stand out to give customers convenient, fast support:

First is omnichannel customer service, which is all about letting customers get in touch with you in whichever channel they prefer, in the least bumpy and disjointed way possible. Whether customers want to call, text, or message you on Instagram — or a combination of all three — they shouldn’t have to re-explain the problem. This kind of meet-them-where-they-are support is the new baseline for customer service, and anything less may drive customers away.

Second is proactive customer support, which can look like welcoming new customers with a DM on social media, asking if website visitors have any questions via your live chat, or setting up self-service resources like an FAQ page on your website. All three of these options give customers more opportunities to raise questions, get recommendations, and have a satisfying shopping experience without too much effort.

‎Read more: How omnichannel communication can drive revenue & boost customer loyalty

4) Introduce loyalty-building campaigns and strategies

A final way you can help reduce churn is by introducing loyalty-building campaigns and strategies. This further builds upon understanding the various segments of your customer base and what each group wants. Some specific campaigns you can tap into include rewards programs, giveaways, and user-generated content (UGC).

Use rewards programs to incentivize repeat shopping

If you don’t have a customer loyalty program already (otherwise known as a rewards program), you may want to consider it. This type of program rewards customers who repeatedly interact with your brand and is a customer retention strategy. In basic terms, the more a customer interacts with your business, the more rewards they earn. This is most commonly seen through offering points for every dollar a customer spends, then being able to cash those points in for various rewards. 

Nearly 68% of customers said they’d join a loyalty program for brands they like, and 56% of that group said they were willing to spend more with a brand — even if there are cheaper options available — according to Yotpo’s State of Brand Loyalty 2021 Survey.

The more loyalty points a customer has with your brand, the harder it will be for them to churn.

Run giveaways to build customer loyalty

Just like a rewards program, giveaways can improve brand sentiment and help attract and retain customers. 

Here are some helpful tips to consider when creating your brand’s giveaway campaign: 

• Have a clear goal. Do you want more social proof or do you want to build awareness around a new product?
• Clearly state the rules of the giveaway. Being unclear in your explanation of a giveaway can result in negative experiences for potential customers, so be clear and concise in your explanation of the rules. 
• Be strategic with the entrance to the giveaway. If you are looking to boost your business’s Instagram following, have the entrance criteria for the giveaway be to follow your brand on Instagram. If you want to generate a lot of new email subscribers to expand the sales funnel, require a subscription to your brand’s emails. 
• Choose a prize that your audience would love. Just about anyone would like a new iPhone or a $100 Visa gift card, but those types of prizes won’t necessarily bring in quality potential customers. Choose a gift that is either a product from your company, or within the same industry. 

Use user-generated content (UGC) to engage current and new customers

User-generated content is a win-win: It celebrates your current customers while serving as social proof for new ones. Ask paying customers to send a photo or video of them using the product to share on your website or social media. For additional incentive, you can compensate chosen submissions with a gift card or discount code — all of which bring those customers even closer to your brand.

Meanwhile, that content will serve as marketing for new website visitors. Over half (51%) of consumers in a survey by Olapic and Cite Research said they “trust user images because they are more authentic and trustworthy than brand-owned assets.” So, if you haven’t implemented UGC strategies, it may be time to give them a try in order to engage new and current customers while contributing to a lower customer churn rate. 

5) Implement systems to stop involuntary churn

Voluntary churn, when a customer decides to cancel their subscription or stop buying products, isn’t the only type of churn. Involuntary churn, also called passive churn, occurs when customer orders don’t go through and nobody notices or cares to find the reason. Usually, involuntary churn is because a customer got a new credit card and didn’t update your information.‍

If you sell a subscription-based product, avoid these passive cancellations by creating a process to follow-up with customers after their card fails on a renewal date:

1. Run the card multiple times to ensure the error wasn’t a fluke
2. Send an automated email sequence from various members of your support team to remind the customer to update their card to continue the subscription
3. Escalate the outreach to SMS if the customer still doesn’t respond or update the card
4. Export the contact and build a list of involuntarily churned customers to conduct a separate win-back email sequence

According to data from our CX Growth Playbook, reducing involuntary churn is a low-lift initiative that could boost your revenue by .05%. To learn about 17 other improvements to your customer experience that can boost revenue, check out the full playbook.

6) Improve your post-purchase experience

Your post-purchase experience is everything that the customer sees (or doesn’t see) after they complete a purchase, like a page that appears confirming the purchase and the follow-up confirmation. Think of your post-purchase experience as your onboarding from new customers to existing customers.

A poor post-purchase experience leaves first-time customers wary about your brand and confused about what to expect next: When will the product arrive? How long can I get a refund? Did they get my address right? All of these could be factors in a customer's decision not to return to your brand. 

Take a look at our guide to post-purchase experience, which includes tips like:

• Deliver important how-to and use case content
• Provide plenty of opportunities for feedback (and ask directly)
• Invite customers to join your brand communities

7) Encourage exchanges instead of returns

Exchanges are preferable over returns for a couple of reasons. First, an exchange is much less expensive for your brand since the customer still pays for a product, even if you have to cover the extra shipping. Second, exchanges are better for customer relationships because you still give customers an opportunity to fall in love with your product and, hopefully, stick around instead of churning. 

You can steer customers toward an exchange by offering additional trade-in credit for exchanges. Loop Returns makes this simple within their returns and exchanges portal:

This strategy is effective: Shopify stores that use Loop issue 15% fewer refunds than brands that don’t.

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

You can also add live chat support on your returns portal page, which gives your customer support team an opportunity to resolve whatever issues drove them to the page or suggest a replacement product.

Even if a customer requests a return, make the experience as easy and fast as possible. Even if you lose one sale, a great experience may make it more likely for the customer to come back for the next. Whereas a bad experience guarantees they’re gone for good. 

To make returns as fast as possible, use a helpdesk that integrates with your ecommerce platform so you can issue a refund directly in the helpdesk. 

Learn how Gorgias makes refunds quick and easy thanks to a deep integration with Shopify.

Lower your churn rate – and other key KPIs – with Gorgias

Since you landed on this article, you might be in the process of creating a system to measure and improve your brand’s ability to satisfy customers and generate repeat business. If that’s true, check out our guides to evaluating your customer service program, gauging your customer support team’s return on investment (ROI), or our list of ecommerce KPIs your brand should track.

And as your brand continues to grow, keep a close eye on the customer experience you offer your customers. While some brands treat customer experience more like a vibe than an essential growth strategy, we know that CX and revenue are closely linked. 

Want to learn more about how to turn your customer support team into a profit center? Book a demo and see Gorgias, the helpdesk designed for ecommerce growth, in action. 

Your customer service team's performance can have a major impact on the customer experience and the overall success of your brand. Like any employee, though, customer service agents sometimes need motivation and direction to achieve the best results.‍

65% of customers have higher expectations for customer support than they did three to five years ago, so offering incentives designed to improve agent performance is now more important than ever. And as customer experience continues to have a larger impact on overall revenue, ensuring agent performance aligns with company goals is mission-critical.

We put together this guide to help you develop an employee incentive program with incentive ideas to boost employee morale, employee satisfaction, and overall performance. We also chatted with Caela Castillo, Director of Customer Experience at men’s jewelry retailer Jaxxon, and share some best practices from her team’s incentive program.

Why are customer support incentives important for your team?

According to Gorgias data from over 10,000 merchants, launching a customer service employee incentive program can lift overall revenue by 1%.

There are a couple of reasons why incentive plans for customer support teams can offer this degree of value. The first and most obvious benefit of these programs is that they are proven to boost agent performance: Properly structured incentive programs can improve employee performance by as much as 44%.

Customer support incentive programs are especially beneficial when you can align your incentive programs with company goals and channel that performance boost toward the areas that matter most.

Along with improving agent performance, customer support incentive programs can also improve employee retention. The cost of replacing an employee is typically one-half to two times the employee's annual salary, and employee recognition programs can help mitigate turnaround and boost retention.

Here’s what Caela says about the impact of customer support incentives at Jaxxon:

Agents love having these goals because it keeps morale high, allows them to show off their performance, and comes with a prize if they hit their goals! We do switch things up often so that the agents don't feel like they have to hit certain goals only when a prize is attached and we have yet to see those scores decline.

7 great ways to incentivize customer support

The final step in designing an incentive program is choosing the rewards you will provide to your team and individual agents when they reach company goals. The sky's the limit here, and there's a lot of room to create creative goals that will best motivate your agents.

To help you get started choosing the rewards for your incentive program, here are a few great ideas for how to incentivize customer support agents:

1. Issue an extra paid day off to the top performing team member
2. Reward the team with a free lunch after hitting a goal
3. Create an internal team Slack channel to celebrate wins
4. Give out cash bonuses
5. Offer flex time to your customer service teams
6. Create a customer service team member of the month incentive
7. Award top performers with company swag or other gifts

1) Issue an extra paid day off to the top performing team member

Issuing rewards to the top performing team member during a given period encourages healthy competition that inspires agents to do their best work. Extra paid time off is an especially great incentive for companies without budget for monetary compensation.

Why we love this idea

Issuing an extra paid day off to your top performing team member recognizes the individual efforts of the agents that contribute the most to your company. Those kinds of results deserve to be recognized, and everyone loves paid time off! The biggest benefit of this incentive, though, is that it encourages (healthy) competition. In many cases, the friendly competition and desire to be the top performer will be even bigger motivators than the reward itself.

 2) Reward the team with a free lunch after hitting a goal

Along with rewarding individual performance, it's also important to reward team-wide performance in order to encourage teamwork and collaboration. Treating your support team to a free lunch (or a gift card for a local restaurant for remote teams) is a simple and affordable way to reward your entire team for reaching a team-wide goal.

Why we love this idea

Treating your support team to lunch lets you reward your entire team in one easy, relatively affordable event. It also encourages more team bonding and provides your team with an opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments.

3) Create an internal team Slack channel to celebrate wins

Slack is a great platform for project management and team communication, but you can use it to celebrate accomplishments, too. By creating an internal Slack channel to announce and celebrate individual and team-wide accomplishments, you can ensure that all your agents feel recognized for their hard work.

Why we love this idea

Recognition alone is sometimes all it takes to motivate an employee — and recondition is free. Setting up an internal Slack channel to celebrate wins provides a medium for recognizing agent performance and allows agents to celebrate together, further encouraging team bonding.

Here at Gorgias, have a #wins channel for informal praise and use Lattice to give employees official recognition:

4) Give out cash bonuses

It might not be the most original or creative incentive, but that doesn't mean it's not effective. No matter who it is that you are rewarding, you can rest assured that they are going to appreciate a cash bonus. Offering bonuses when agents meet individual goals or even team-wide bonuses for team goals is guaranteed to provide your agents with a strong source of motivation.

Why we love this idea

Cash is king, and few things will incentivize an employee more than cash bonuses. Cash bonuses are also the most straightforward type of reward and don't require extra effort or planning.

5) Offer flex time to your customer service teams

The ability to set their own hours is something that employees have come to value more and more, so offering flex time to your support agents can be a great incentive. You can offer this incentive as a one-time reward (for example, letting an agent set their own hours for one week after reaching a goal), or you can provide agents who continually meet their objectives with the option to set their own hours on an ongoing basis.

Why we love this idea

This is another simple and affordable way to provide support reps with a desirable incentive. Best of all, offering flex time may actually improve your team's performance on its own; according to a 2021 Gartner survey, 43% of employees say that having flexible working hours helps them achieve greater productivity.

6) Create a customer service team member of the month incentive

There's a reason why "employee of the month" programs are so popular. Recognizing the top performer on your support team each month won't cost your company anything, and it'll promote healthy competition within your team.

Why we love this idea

Again, recognition alone is often the best reward and most powerful source of motivation. By making something of a spectacle out of recognizing your top performers (company announcement, plaque, etc.), you can incentivize your support team with minimal effort and expense.

7) Award top performers with company swag or other gifts

Cash is great, but there's still something special about receiving a physical gift. Offering company swag, such as branded t-shirts, pens, and coffee mugs, to top performers is one great option to consider (if your company has swag to offer). Letting employees choose their own gifts from a catalog of available options is another commonly employed method of rewarding employees with physical gifts.

Consider an employee gifting platform like Guusto to recognize employees with a wide variety of gifts. And with Guusto, a dollar of every gift goes toward providing clean drinking water for someone in need:

Why we love this idea

Gifts are often valued more by the receiver than their monetary value. As a bonus, rewarding your top performers with company swag means that they will be promoting your brand everywhere that they take their new gifts.

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How to design a customer service incentive program

If you would like to design an incentive program that will reward your team's hard work and provide them with intrinsic motivation to offer the best customer service possible, here are the six steps that you should follow:

1) Identify a core company goal based on demonstrated problem

One benefit of customer service incentive programs is providing recognition and improving employee engagement and satisfaction. However, the biggest benefit of such programs is that you can use them to steer support teams toward accomplishing key company goals.

Before you can create a program that will incentivize your whole team to work toward important company goals, you first need to define what those goals are. Attracting new customers, generating referrals, and improving customer loyalty or customer retention rates are just a few measurable goals you can build your incentive program around. 

One best practice is to design your goals around a demonstrated problem. For instance, if your resolution times are longer than you'd like them to be, creating an incentive program to reward helpful response times may improve customer satisfaction.

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box here. Most customer service teams will default to metrics like first-response time, which is a great option. But as you develop your program further, remember that customer support has a large impact across the customer journey. Don’t be afraid to think about goals related to on-site conversion rate, proactive conversations with customers, conversations on public social media channels, educational content in your knowledge base, and beyond.

For example, Gorgias incentives employees to refer friends and former colleagues to improve our hiring effort. If you are in the midst of customer service hiring, consider using a program like Trusty for employee referrals:

2) Search for a customer service metric that has room for improvement (and aligns with the company goal)

Goals are only beneficial if they are measurable. You can't hand out performance-based awards unless you can keep score, which requires you to identify and track measurable customer service metrics. So once you have an overall company goal in mind, do some digging to see which metric will have the biggest impact:

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT), response and resolution times, net promoter score (NPS), and retention rates are a few of the measurable customer service metrics that you can use to evaluate the performance of individual agents and the performance of your whole team. By pinpointing metrics that align with the company goals you set for your incentive program, you can create a data-based system for measuring and rewarding agent performance that will encourage progress toward essential company objectives.

Here are a couple of examples of the kinds of customer support metrics Caela’s team lowered with incentives: 

We used to have Live Chat FRT around 45 seconds. With this program, we have brought it down to under 30s even hitting 15s. With phone answer times our goal used to be 80% answered within 30s and now it's 90% answered within 15s.

3) Consider individual and team-wide rewards programs

Individual and team-wide incentives both have their place in a customer service incentive program. Team-wide incentives encourage teamwork and collaboration and can focus your entire team's efforts toward a common goal. Meanwhile, individual incentives encourage personal responsibility and individual agent performance and ensure that each agent is recognized for their contributions.

As you create your incentive program, developing a rewards system that encourages individual and team-wide performance will deliver the best results.

Here’s how Caela thinks about individual vs. team goals:

We have both individual and team goals. We switch these up month to month or depending on what we want to focus on. I have seen more success with team goals because it keeps everyone motivated and encourages them to hold each other accountable. Team goals are hit almost consistently every month. When we do individual goals, we typically have an 80% success rate.

4) Set up a system to track your metrics in real time

We've already mentioned the importance of choosing measurable metrics that are aligned with company goals. In many cases, actually measuring those metrics on an ongoing basis is easier said than done.

Helpdesk software such as Gorgias makes tracking key customer service metrics in real time easier than ever before. With Gorgias, you can access detailed metrics and analytics about individual agent performance and team-wide performance — metrics that you can use to form the scoring system for your incentive program. 

With a unified dashboard that clearly showcases key metrics regarding revenue generation, customer satisfaction, response times, and much more, Gorgias makes it easy for ecommerce stores to track the performance of their support teams in real-time.

We mostly use Support Performance: Overview, Agents, and Revenue to track those goals. But, we also use Self-Service and occasionally tags. (I’m interested to learn how to use these more efficiently and explore the Macros and Intents stats as well).

Here’s a glance at the Overview of Support Performance Statistics in Gorgias, which you can filter by agent, period of time, channel, and much more:

Gorgias also has other analytics views, including a Revenue Statistics view (which we’ll cover below) and a Customer Satisfaction view to track improvements in CSAT over time:

5) Create a policy and announce your new incentive program

Like any new program, your customer service policy will only succeed once employees understand how to participate. To get started, keep the program as simple as possible. Simple perks — Jaxxon offers Amazon gift cards, for example — for simple improvements. 

If you have a human resources department, consider consulting them to make the policy airtight. Otherwise, here’s a template to get you started:

Purpose: [Company name] is launching a customer service incentive program to make strides toward two company goals: improving employee engagement and customer experience. The program provides monetary bonuses to team members who meet team goals set at the beginning of each quarter. We understand that our customer service team is a large contributor to loyal customers and company revenue, and are thrilled to have a formal employee recognition program to reward these important efforts. 

Incentive structure:

• The Director of Customer Support sets individual and team goals at the beginning of each quarter
• Each agent’s level (L1, L2, L3) determines their individual goal for the quarter
• The team
• Individuals who meet their goal qualify for an individual reward (e.g. $100 Amazon gift card)
• If the team meets the goal, all agents will receive a team reward (e.g. $25 Amazon gift card)

Eligibility:

• Only full-time employees of [Company name] are eligible for incentives
• Part-time and outsourced call-center agents do not qualify for the program
• Employees eligible for other company incentive programs do not qualify for the program
• Employees on performance improvement plans (PiPs) do not qualify for the program

Procedure to claim rewards:

• Agents do not need to reach out to redeem rewards: the Director of Customer Support will distribute rewards by the 15th of the following month
• If you do not receive your reward by the 15th, reach out to the Director of Customer Support to resolve the issue

6) Revisit your chosen metrics often and tweak them as needed

Incentive programs are at their best when they are dynamic, continually adapting to meet new goals and address new challenges. By tracking customer support metrics in real time using Gorgias' helpdesk software, you can easily revisit the metrics you chose for your incentive program and adjust the program's goals as needed.

Ideally, your customer support incentive program will enable you to improve key customer support metrics and move on to new goals as previous goals are met. However, there may also be cases where you determine that a metric might not be the best one to base your program around, and you need to change it. In either case, continually tracking customer support metrics and tweaking your incentive program enables you to keep the program aligned with company goals as your company scales and new challenges and opportunities arise.

Why customer support incentives are a great way to drive revenue

One of the best metrics to base your customer support incentive program on is revenue generation. While customer support teams are often viewed as problem-solvers, the reality is that your customer support team can greatly impact your ecommerce store's bottom line in a lot of ways. Generating referrals, promoting customer loyalty, reducing cart abandonment, and driving conversions via upsells and personalized product recommendations are just a few ways that excellent customer support can create revenue for ecommerce stores.

Most brands have trouble understanding the amount of revenue customer support brings in, which is why we developed the Revenue Statistics dashboard in Gorgias. You can see real-time metrics like the conversion rate of customer support conversation and the total sales driven by support:

To learn more about how great customer support can drive revenue for ecommerce stores, check out Gorgias' CX-Driven Growth Playbook.

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Track and reward customer support performance with Gorgias

Creating an incentive program for your customer support team is one of the best ways to motivate team members and focus their efforts toward company goals. But to create an incentive program around measurable, impactful metrics, you need the right tools by your side. 

With Gorgias' industry-leading helpdesk, you can track key support metrics like revenue generation, referrals, customer satisfaction, response time, and much more. Find out how we helped our customers transform their customer support teams into revenue-generating machines, and book a demo to see what we can do for your team.

Your social media presence serves many purposes, from creating a brand image to testing out new product ideas. And whatever type of social media posts your brand creates, one thing is certain: people are going to reach out to you there.   

Using social media as a support channel can be unwieldy and time consuming for ill-equipped teams. Customer inquiries pop up in many different places, like in the comments on your paid ads, in direct messages, or as comments on your posts. The tricky part is keeping up with the customer service issues that arise while still maintaining a positive, engaging presence. 

However, the benefits of social media customer service outweigh the negatives, especially with the right tools and approach. 

Below, learn how to leverage your social media channels for customer support in ways that stand out to your customers and support your team. 

What is social media customer service and how can it benefit your shop?

Social media customer service is when brands answer support queries through one or more social media platform. Support tickets often come in through direct messages (DMs) or as comments on paid ads or organic posts. This differs from social media marketing, as it’s a largely reactive type of engagement.   

How social media is used in customer service

Service interactions on social media usually happen:

1. As part of an omnichannel approach to meet customers where they are
2. To manage brand reputation and resolve public comments privately
3. To offer support in the format and on the channels people like to use 

1) As part of an omnichannel approach to meet customers where they are

Social media can be used as a way to further connect with your customers and potential customers in the spaces they’re already active in. When teams answer support across different channels that seamlessly connect, that’s part of an omnichannel customer service approach. And, according to research from Shopify, 58% of people claimed that their purchase decision was influenced by getting support on their preferred channel.  

2) To manage brand reputation and resolve public comments privately 

Beyond answering direct messages from customers on social media platforms, maintaining a brand presence on social media helps you keep tabs on mentions of your brand, as well as engage and provide customer support via comments or threads. 

Showing customers that your brand is available whenever they have an inquiry builds trust. In fact, 69% of Facebook users in the U.S. who message businesses report that it makes them feel more confident about the brand, according to Meta for Business.  

In addition, social media is a public form where anyone can view comments, whether they’re positive or negative. Everyone who looks at your brand’s social page will be able to take a look at what people are saying. Because of this, it can define what people think of you and change your brand’s perception. 

These customer queries get the most eyes on them by far as compared to a one-on-one channel like email, direct messages, interacting with a chatbot, or making a phone call.  

3) To offer support in the format and on the channels people like to use 

Not everyone wants to make a phone call when they need help. 

Shoppers are more likely to actually reach out to you if they can do it on a channel they like, as opposed to not reaching out and just being upset and posting about that publicly, telling their friends, or simply never purchasing from you again.  

📚Recommended reading: Should you delegate social media to your customer support team?

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Differences between social media customer service and traditional methods

It’s (sometimes) public

Customer support via social media differs from traditional email or phone support because it’s public, so your customer support team members’ responses are on display for others to see. 

While emails, phone calls, or direct messages are handled privately, Instagram comments, public tweets, or Facebook comments are public to your entire audience. The way your support team handles these customer interactions could influence your future sales and brand perception.  

High-volume requests across many channels can get lost

Customer service requests on social media can get out of hand quickly because they can come in through many different channels in many different ways. If your team isn’t using some level of automation or a tool to capture each query, it’s easy to lose comments and ignore upset customers who really need support. 

Each social media platform is different 

To provide excellent customer service on social media, your social media customer support reps have to consider the nuances of each social media platform as well. Depending on your brand, you may use LinkedIn, TikTok, or even Snapchat for customer service. Below, we focus on three of the most common social media channels.

Facebook (and Facebook Messenger)

According to research by the Pew Research Center, Facebook is the second most popular social media channel with 69% of US adults saying that they use it. The research center also found that Facebook is popular with all different demographics, so chances are you’ll find some of your target audience there. Because Facebook is such a large platform, it’s important that you have some sort of presence there. 

📚Recommended reading: Best practices for using Facebook Messenger for customer service

Twitter 

When answering customer questions on Twitter, opt for speed. Twitter is built on the idea of immediacy and short-form in-the-moment takes. According to a study conducted by Twitter, one in four people Tweet at a brand because they want a faster response. 

Note: Gorgias no longer supports Twitter interactions. But you can manage Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, SMS, and WhatsApp posts from within Gorgias.

Instagram 

Instagram has pivoted into a shopping platform. People are scrolling through family photos just as much as they’re shopping for items and discovering new ecommerce stores. According to Shopify’s Future of Commerce report, 30% of US internet users now make purchases without leaving the social platform they’re on. Now, Instagram claims that half of users use Instagram Shopping to make a purchase weekly. 

These shoppers need to be able to get support in-app because they want to make purchases without exiting the app as well. If your business doesn’t offer support on Instagram, you could lose sales. 

📚Recommended reading: 9 Tips to Improve Customer Service on Instagram

5 strategies to improve your social media customer care

There are four major strategies you can implement in order to use your social media customer service channels in the most successful ways possible. 

1) Have genuine conversations with your customers 

As mentioned above, social media is casual and customers will reach out on social media instead of a traditional method because they want a genuine answer without the formalness of an email. Use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, or even WhatsApp to build relationships with your customers by having engaging conversations.

When a customer feels that your brand is being genuine they are more likely to trust you, become a loyal customer, and write a review or recommend your brand to their family and friends. This can lead to more new customers because 60% of consumers believe customer reviews are trustworthy, according to HubSpot Research. Even more, SuperOffice finds that 86% of customers are ready to pay more if it means they get a better customer experience. What all of this means is that building relationships with each and every customer will lead to the further success of your brand. 

📚Recommended reading: The Ultimate Guide to Personalized Customer Service

2) Move conversations into direct messages  

When you’re replying quickly to a lot of questions, it's sometimes easy to forget that you’re essentially in a public forum. Make sure you have systems in place to prevent customers’ personal information like phone numbers, shipping addresses, or order numbers from being viewed by the whole internet. Additionally, in the event of more complicated issues, you can comment publicly and ask the customer to private message (DM) you to help them resolve their issue. This shows that your brand is responsive to customer comments, but also that you value your customers’ privacy.

If you’re using a helpdesk like Gorgias, you can send and receive DMs on Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger from right within your helpdesk. You can create a template, called a Macro in Gorgias, for moving public social media conversations to DMs.

📚Recommended reading: Your Live Chat Support Guide: Benefits, Best Practices, and Helpful Tools

3) Share self-service style content

Another great use for your brand’s social media account is sharing self-service content. Oftentimes, customers ask the same questions over and over again. To help them get their questions answered quickly and efficiently, it can be beneficial to track which questions are very common and put together a document or self-service page to direct them to. 

Information that can be common to include in this type of document is contact information, return policy information, shipping information, and location information if your brand has brick-and-mortar locations. This proactive information also helps keep customer support freed up for the more complicated, in-depth customer inquiries coming through social media. 

Consider sharing your most popular FAQ page on social media

Though it can be extremely beneficial to direct customers on social media to a separate webpage that allows for self-service options, consider sharing your most popular FAQs on social channels. This will create more ease of use for customers and potentially get their questions answered even quicker. 

4) Create a handle specifically for customer service support

Depending on the size of your business, it may be a good idea to consider creating separate social media handles dedicated to customer support. This can be especially helpful for customers who have specific support needs. You can cross-promote your two different social pages on both accounts for ease of use. This way customers will be able to identify where to go for the quickest answer. In the event that a customer contacts the wrong social media account, it is important that a customer service rep responds to them from the correct account. This way, they’ll know where to reach out in the future. 

This practice can also be beneficial for your internal teams, if you have two different teams within your organization managing social media. For example, your marketing team may be running ads and posting content, while your customer success team is sifting through comments and messages to tend to customers’ needs. Having two separate accounts can make it way easier on your internal teams, as well as keep everything more organized.  

5) Reply quickly to exceed customer expectations

As mentioned previously, quick responses are vital to a great customer service experience. This is especially true in the context of social customer service. Social media moves extremely fast, and customers expect speedy replies. 

The longer a customer service agent waits to reply, the less likely the customer will be satisfied with the support you provide. However, it can be a tricky balance to respond quickly (which you can measure with metrics like average response time and resolution time) while also maintaining quality (which you can measure with metrics like customer satisfaction or net promoter score). 

If you’re first starting out with customer service on social media, it may be helpful to understand what your customer base expects. To do this, you can consider asking them to fill out surveys. Surveys can also be used to continuously track customer satisfaction. 

📚 Recommeded reading: Our list of the most important customer support metrics to track.

Pro tip: Aim to respond within 15 minutes (if possible)

This can be difficult outside of business hours, but if you have customer care team members who already work at night or on the weekends, this could help immensely. You can also dedicate space in your social profile’s bio to business hours and typical response times. This is a great way to manage expectations if you have a smaller team or are in an extremely busy time period. 

How Gorgias helps ecommerce stores offer helpful, efficient customer service on social media

When it comes to support, social media management gets challenging quickly. Even though your marketing team could attempt to keep up with comments or messages that require support, as your brand grows, it’ll only get harder. 

A helpdesk like Gorgias has functionality that helps you to keep track of all social support mentions in one place, lets you create pre-written templates for common questions, and can even automate responses or like and hide posts on your behalf. It helps create workflow automations for your team to deal with high amounts of volume. 

What can you respond to from within Gorgias?

Before you implement a helpdesk like Gorgias, you’ll likely want to let your social team research what kind of responses do and don’t work for your target audience, and then start getting good results. Then, that’s where Gorgias comes in: Take those learnings, manufacture efficiency with Gorgias, and pass the support side of the channel onto your support team to set channels more on autopilot. 

Here’s what you can respond to on each channel from Gorgias’s central platform. 

• Facebook and messenger: Respond to comments, ad comments, mentions where you’re tagged, and direct messages.  
• Instagram: Respond to Instagram messages, comments, ad comments, and mentions from posts and Stories. 
• WhatsApp: Respond to WhatsApp messages and calls.

Leverage autoresponses 

Especially on paid ads, sometimes there are just too many comments for a small team to manage without letting support quality falter.

Gorgias lets you autorespond to posts based on sentiment, so you can like promoter posts or auto hide angry or inappropriate comments. Auto-liking shows engagement without spending tons of time on going through each post on every channel daily.  

This has helped themed party apparel brand Shinesty increase revenue. “The Facebook ad commenting has been very interesting,” says CX Manager Cody Szymanski. “People have been converting right there thanks to a simple social interaction.”

See all customer interactions in one central place 

“Having quick access to the side bar is super convenient and helps us turn our support agents into sales people. For instance, if a potential customer asks a question about sizing, the agent can quickly have a look at their previous order info,” the team at MNML shared. 

This way, you can also see the customer’s entire history, including order info, past support interactions, and comments on social channels. 

Create Macros for common social interactions

Most likely, you’ll start to see the same questions or comments come in across social channels. Gorgias lets you create Macros, or templates, for the most common customer service messages you get on social media. This saves time for your support team and gets resolutions to your customers faster. 

Like a Facebook comment, send a shipping status in a private Instagram message, or answer questions on Instagram – all from Gorgias’s centralized helpdesk.

Essential tools for social media customer service

Now that you have some solid social media customer service strategies, the next step is to understand how to streamline the process through social media customer service tools. Below we’ll cover how Gorgias, Chatdesk, Gatsby, ShopMessage, and Octane AI could help your brand. 

Use Gorgias for efficient customer support

Gorgias is an all-in-one customer service platform built specifically for ecommerce brands that seamlessly integrates with your entire stack (Shopify and Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, and Magento). 

Through the platform, you can manage all of your organization’s customer service channels in real time, from live chat to email to social media. When it comes to social media specifically, there are many integrations Gorgias has that can allow your team to transition to social media customer service while keeping sales flowing and without slowing down support. 

Learn more about how ‎Gorgias can help you manage social media customer service with ease.

Chatdesk

Chatdesk is a social media monitoring app that allows your customer support team members to manage social moderation across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. It also integrates with email and chat.

Gorgias’ Chatdesk integration could be perfect for your brand if you strive to respond quickly — and around the clock — to all your Facebook comments, Instagram comments, DMs, and more. The app even allows for in-depth response personalization for your U.S.-based super fans.

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

Gatsby

The next tool within Gorgias that will help your brand with social media customer care is Gatsby. Gatsby is a type of social listening app that allows your customer success team to view and track insights specifically on Instagram when responding to tickets, as well as track mentions and engagement for your brand. This tool can also be used to automate ecommerce influencer workflows

Here’s how it could work for you: With Gorgias and Gatsby integration, the tools can help you identify influential fans among your customer base. So, if someone is reaching out to support, you’ll be able to see if they are of “influencer status” thus, taking into account how they should be prioritized. This information can also be extremely valuable if you’re running customer engagement or customer satisfaction surveys.

ShopMessage

If your organization is heavy on Facebook Messenger — or if you’re hoping to expand in that area — ShopMessage could be a worthwhile tool you can integrate within your already-existing Gorgias platform. This tool sends messages to customers that can drive sales. It can contact customers via Facebook Messenger about things like abandoned carts, browser abandonment, welcome communications, upsells, shipping notifications, and custom Messenger menus. 

ShopMessage also has the capabilities to help your customer success team with Facebook Messenger Marketing by making it simple to set up automatic, personalized messages to your customers. 

Octane AI

Octane AI works as a messenger bot platform to help you and your team automate your brand’s conversations on social media channels. It works like this: When a customer sends a message to your brand via social media, Octane AI will automatically create an open ticket in Gorgias.

This means it’s simpler than ever to respond to your customers as quickly as possible. Having all your messages from various social networks in one place will also help prevent any from slipping through the cracks, thus creating an amazing customer experience.

Learn more about how Gorgias and Octane AI integrate.

Real-life examples of social media customer service

Finally, to complete your understanding of social media customer service, we’ve rounded up some real-life examples of companies using social media for customer service. We hope these leaders of industry can inspire your future strategies. 

Graza 

Trendy squeezable olive oil shop Graza has become the choice for influencers filming content in their kitchens. The fun bottles are filled with liquid gold: high quality olive oil for sizzling and drizzling. With 24k followers on Instagram, the brand is growing, and its audience is highly engaged. 

Recently, the brand ran a big promotion — but a loyal customer missed out because they had made a big order before the sale started. Graza responded to their comment, asked them to send in a DM, and implied that they would honor the promotion on that order. 

Graza uses Gorgias to help manage their social media interactions at scale. 

Nike

Nike currently has 9 million followers on its main Twitter page, @Nike, and about 202,000 followers on its customer service Twitter page, @NikeService. Nike is a perfect example of a brand utilizing both types of social media accounts to its advantage. For example, the brand often receives complaints from upset customers on its main Twitter account, but responds to the customer with its @NikeService account. 

Here’s an example of a recent Twitter exchange where Nike handled a negative comment from an unhappy customer with ease and professionalism. 

GoPro

Technology company known for its action cameras, GoPro is another great example of solid social media customer service. The brand doesn’t have dedicated customer service accounts on social media, but is highly active and quick to respond to customers posing questions in the comments on their Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages. 

For technology companies especially, it’s highly beneficial to have customer success reps who can answer customer questions with precision and accuracy. However, regardless of the industry your company is in, quality should always be a priority when responding to customers on social media. This also helps signal to other customers that you take your social media seriously, thus making others feel more comfortable to reach out there if they have a question or concern. 

Here’s one recent example of an in-depth response to a vague GoPro customer inquiry. 

Starbucks

Beyond staying on top of customer inquiries and troubleshooting on social media, the opportunity social media presents when it comes to building customer loyalty and brand identity can’t be overstated. Starbucks is a great example of a brand that is doing just this. The company has a distinct voice on all of its social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok) as it interacts with customers on a daily basis. Even something as simple as a heart emoji on Instagram comments, or a quick, sweet encouragement when a customer comments about how much they love a signature Starbucks creation can do a lot to create a brand that customers want to interact with. This also helps customers feel more connected to the brand. 

Starbucks also takes this approach further when it comes to responding to customer suggestions. For example, the Facebook post below shows a concerned customer sharing their ideas about creating more accessible Starbucks stores after the brand shared a post about its commitment to inclusivity and accessibility. Starbucks responds promptly and thanks the customer along with more information about how the company is sticking to its inclusivity and accessibility goals. 

Wayfair

Online home decor and furniture retailer Wayfair is another brand with standout social media customer service chops. Though the brand doesn’t have separate customer service social media channels, it is constantly keeping up with customer comments. Wayfair currently has 78,000 followers on Twitter, over 7 million likes on Facebook, and 1.7 million followers on Instagram. 

Through its social channels, the company displays another great way to interact with customers on social media about its products. Because the brand sells home goods, many social posts are interior design photos featuring their furniture, which elicits a lot of customer questions about which pieces are which, and where they can purchase them. Wayfair does a great job of responding to customers’ product questions with clear and concise information. Take a look at one example below:

Xbox

Lastly, we want to highlight the video game console company Xbox. The worldwide success of the company means there are also a lot of customers who have questions and want their voices heard. Xbox does a great job responding to customer complaints and questions via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, however, the brand also makes it a point to have some fun with their responses, too — further connecting with customers on a personal level. 

It can be really challenging for massive brands to show personality and remind customers that there are people behind the scenes who actually care and like to have fun, but social media is the perfect channel to make this fact known. The brand recently launched a marketing campaign featuring actor Andre Braugher where he is promoting Xbox’s new All Access monthly subscription service. The video was posted to all of Xbox’s social channels, and the brand took the opportunity to connect with customers in the comments.

Here are a few snapshots of how they are doing it:

Enhance your social media customer service with Gorgias 

From troubleshooting customer issues and answering their questions to simply showing off your brand's personality, social media customer service can be an extremely effective avenue to explore to boost your company’s customer experience quality.

Jumping into social media customer service for the first time can be exciting but also a lot of work, so to help make the process a bit easier, we recommend checking out Gorgias for an all-in-one solution for your customer service team that also has standout live chat tools and amazing integrations.

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Learn more about Gorgias and how you can get started.arn more about Gorgias and how you can get started.

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As an ecommerce store owner, the prospect of losing 70% of your sales probably makes your heart drop. But according to the Baymard Institute, that’s exactly what’s happening: 69.82% of online carts are abandoned.

Even with the ecommerce shopping cart best practices in place, brands of all sizes struggle to get customers to place an order. The good news is that a handful of tweaks to your site’s user experience can greatly reduce cart abandonment. 

Below, we’ll dive into some actionable solutions — ranging from offering free shipping to simplifying your checkout process — to lower your abandonment rates and boost your sales. 

What is Shopify cart abandonment?

Shopify cart abandonment occurs when a customer who’s online shopping on a Shopify store adds items to their cart but leaves the website before making the purchase. Ecommerce businesses that track cart abandonment do so by determining the rate of customers who add items to their cart against the rate of purchases.

How to calculate your cart abandonment rate

The formula to calculate your cart abandonment rate is:

[Completed purchases / Carts created] x 100 = Cart abandonment rate

Online shopping is a bit like browsing a shopping mall because you can browse a wide variety of stores without much buying intent. You may carry a few items around the store while you consider buying them, but you may put them down on a shelf and leave for another store — especially if the store associate doesn’t catch you in time to close the sale.

Shopify cart abandonment represents the online version of that lack of commitment — with even less commitment because online shoppers can get distracted by a text message or leave your store without moving an inch. Fortunately, you can tweak your Shopify store to reduce cart abandonment, just like the in-store associate. 

But before we share the steps you can take, let's explore the frequency and impact of the overall Shopify cart abandonment problem.

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9 strategies for decreasing Shopify cart abandonment

1. Use your data to prioritize changes
2. Offer free shipping (or low-cost) shippin
3. Create a rewards program and offer discount codes
4. Use proactive live chat to guide customers through checkout
5. Offer as many payment options as possible
6. Simplify your checkout process 
7. Ditch the mandatory account registration form
8. Use exit-intent pop-ups to catch shoppers before they leave
9. Use push notifications, SMS, and abandoned cart emails to recover abandoned carts

Reducing shopping cart abandonment is one of the most effective ecommerce growth tactics. Rather than spending tons on ads to get new audiences to your site, you’re instead maximizing the value of the visitors you already get. (And what’s the point of more visitors if they don’t end up placing orders?) 

Here are nine of our best tips for reducing cart abandonment to grow your ecommerce business. 

1) Use your data to prioritize changes

You could pick one of the tactics below and cross your fingers that it improves your cart abandonment rates. But you’ll see much better results by using your store’s data to come up with a strategy based on the highest potential impact for your unique store. 

Dig into your cart abandonment data to strategize where you can make the most impactful changes. Specifically, you’ll want to pull data like:

• Date and time of cart abandonment
• Total abandoned order amount
• Items abandoned
• Shopper information (e.g. new vs. repeat)

With information like this, you can better identify trends that can affect other areas of your ecommerce strategy. For example, if you notice that the majority of your carts are abandoned before the winter holidays, you may want to consider running a Black Friday promotion. Alternatively, you may also learn that your abandoned carts:

• Usually contain the same item, indicating you might want to revisit that item’s pricing or the product page 
• Don’t meet your threshold for free shipping, indicating you might want to lower that threshold
• Are from first-time shoppers, indicating you may need more social proof like testimonials and positive reviews to boost new shopper confidence

2) Offer free shipping (or low-cost) shipping

As we mentioned above, unexpected taxes, fees, and shipping costs are the most common reasons shoppers abandon carts. For context, 82% of shoppers say they’d rather have free shipping than expedited shipping. And shoppers are used to free and fast shipping because of services like Amazon Prime, so it’s becoming an even bigger disadvantage to require paid shipping.

For some ecommerce stores, especially new or small ones, free shipping for the entire site catalog isn’t always a sustainable option. So instead, offer free shipping for carts that meet a free shipping threshold. 

Check out our article on how to offer free shipping for more information.

Once you have a compelling shipping offer, use it as a marketing tool. Mention your free shipping in website banners, on checkout pages, and even on product pages. Look how Jaxxon, a luxury men’s chain retailer, clearly lets the shopper know how much they’ll have to spend to unlock free shipping right from the product page:

3) Create a rewards program and offer discount codes

Rewards, timely discount codes, and other incentives can push customers over the edge to make a purchase. 

Parade, a DTC underwear brand known for its referral programs, uses a refer-a-friend program to get discount codes into the hands of people who haven’t yet shopped at your store. This is particularly smart because first-time shoppers tend to be the most hesitant (and therefore abandon the most carts). But the discount code and social proof from the referring friend work together to push shoppers toward a purchase:

Discount codes and referral programs available to everyone will likely reduce cart abandonment but you should target customers with items in their cart (or customers who recently abandoned a cart) for the greatest impact. Live chat can help you target customers still shopping while exit-intent pop-ups and follow-up SMS or email can help with customers who already left your site. We’ll cover both strategies below.

4) Use proactive live chat to guide customers through checkout

Incorporate live chat, including proactive chat campaigns, as a way to help your customers during the checkout process and boost sales. A whopping 79% of stores that have live chat enabled report its positive impact on their sales and customer experience.

Every store should enable live chat for support because it’s such a fast, appealing option for customers, especially when they’re actively considering a purchase. Say that a customer isn’t placing an order because they’re not sure whether a small or medium size would fit. If you have a visible (but not intrusive) live chat option in your ecommerce store, the customer can quickly type in their question and ideally have a resolution from your support team or chatbot in minutes:​

With certain live chat apps, you can also take a more proactive approach to drive sales through your live chat widget. You can automatically reach out to certain customers (like shoppers hovering on the checkout page for more than a minute, or shoppers with a certain amount of merchandise in their cart) to ask if they have questions, offer discount codes, or remind them that you offer free shipping if they reach a certain amount (to drive upsells).

With Gorgias’ live chat campaigns feature, you can customize your greetings — the below example gives a friendly welcome to people who visit a specific product page:

5) Offer as many payment options as possible

One simple way to reduce cart abandonment is to offer as many payment options as possible. If customers make it to your checkout page only to find they have limited options to pay — especially if those options require them to divulge personal information — they are more likely to abandon the purchase. 

If you have a Shopify store, you can use Shopify Payments to easily accept a wide variety of payment options like credit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay without any third-party fees. If you don’t have Shopify Payments enabled, you’ll still be able to use major payment providers (like Paypal) to accept payments, but you may be stuck with limited payment options and fees.

6) Simplify your checkout process 

Reducing friction throughout your checkout process is another way to reduce abandoned checkouts. Get rid of unnecessary forms, fields, and questions that may turn your customers away from your store. Likewise, create large checkout buttons that make it obvious how to complete a purchase with the fewer clicks possible. If you’re still creating your store, you may want to try finding a Shopify theme with a streamlined checkout page. 

One tip to optimize your checkout process is to include a Buy Now button on the product page itself. This streamlines the buying process and gives shoppers fewer off-ramps away from your website. Check out CROSSNET’s clear button guiding users to make a purchase — not just add items to a cart that will later get abandoned: 

7) Ditch the mandatory account registration form

This is technically an additional tip to simplify your checkout process, but it’s impactful enough to warrant its own section. While you want customers to create an account for future marketing opportunities, forcing shoppers to create an account in order to place an order halts momentum during the checkout process and turns people off from your store. 

Instead, offer a guest checkout option with the choice to make an account for easier purchases next time they come to your store. Or, to make checkout even easier, consider adding one of Shopify’s dynamic checkout buttons. With an express checkout option like Amazon Pay, customers can complete a purchase without even typing out their billing and shipping information by retrieving that information from another service.

Check out CROSSNET’s store, which offers multiple express checkout options:

8) Use exit-intent pop-ups to catch shoppers before they leave

Making your checkout experience simple is a great start, but some customers may need one final push to place an order. Exit-intent pop-ups, or pop-ups that appear when a customer attempts to leave your store, can be the last-minute nudge (or discount code) that convinces customers to place an order.

You can add a pop-up to your Shopify store through a Shopify app like Privy or Pop-Up Window. However, practice caution with any sort of pop-up. Some customers will get frustrated if pop-ups interrupt their browsing experience, so make sure you provide value with each pop-up and keep a close eye on your purchase data to ensure they don’t hurt your store’s performance.

Check out our guide to Shopify pop-ups for more information. 

9) Use push notifications, SMS, and abandoned cart emails to recover abandoned carts

Personalized push notifications can also be a helpful follow-up tool to help customers return to their carts. Push notifications give the customer a visual of the products still in the cart with clear calls to action. This helps remind customers that they still have unpurchased items waiting to be checked out. 

SMS and email are other great options to reach customers even if they don’t return to your store. You can even create a full SMS or email campaign with an automated workflow that triggers emails to customers after a certain amount of time has passed, or after they revisit your website.

Check out this example of a cart recovery email from Braxley Bands, which is a great example of how you can recover carts with humor and attitude — or whatever your brand voice may be.

10) Consider retargeted ads to remind customers about what they left behind

Another technique you can consider to help bring customers back to their carts in your online store is retargeted ads. Retargeting allows you to get ads in front of customers who visited your website and gave you their information — but didn’t purchase an item. 

Most retargeted ads appear in the shopper’s social media feeds in the days after the abandoned checkout. They typically feature an image of the abandoned product, a new-and-improved discount, and a clear call to action (CTA) to purchase the item. 

Take a look at this example of a retargeted Facebook ad from Pact Apparel:

While retargeted ads work better than most ads, they still have a clickthrough rate of only .7%, so they may cost more than they provide in terms of recovered purchases.

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8 tools that help decrease Shopify cart abandonment

To limit shopping cart abandonment and encourage customers to make their purchases, you might need the help of some additional apps and tools.

1) Gorgias

A better overall customer experience can significantly lower your business’s cart abandonment rate. Why? Customers depend on things like an FAQ page, clear returns policies, and customer support to gain the information and trust they need to make a purchase.

Gorgias is a customer service platform specifically designed to help ecommerce merchants boost revenue through customer experience. Some of the features that help Shopify stores reduce cart abandonment include:

• Live chat: For proactive chat campaigns and targeted discounts, when customers are hovering on a checkout page or have items in their cart for a certain number of minutes 

• Shipping and returns integrations: Lets you offer free/easy shipping, and promise returns if the customer isn’t happy
• SMS and email: On top of being great support channels, you can use SMS and email marketing campaigns to remind and incentivize shoppers to complete an abandoned purchase

Sign up for a demo of Gorgias to see how we can help you reduce cart abandonment rates, improve customer experience, and drive revenue.

2) Recart

Recart is an app specifically designed to help you recover sales from cart abandonment. It uses Facebook Messenger to send out push notifications on social media to your customers. It can send out reminders for abandoned carts and order-related messages like shipping notifications and receipts, and has pre-written templates for messages to help you save time and optimize your ecommerce cart recovery processes.

See how Gorgias integrates with Recart.

3) LoyaltyLion

LoyaltyLion is a loyalty-building tool that helps you stand out from your competitors and offer great benefits and rewards to your customers. When a customer is happy with your brand and knows that checking out leads to great rewards down the line, they are much less likely to abandon their carts and instead will return due to the positive experience and relationship you have established with them.

See how Gorgias integrates with LoyaltyLion. 

4) Smile

Smile is an app and platform that helps with customer retention. It gives points and rewards to customers that invite others to join them and sign up for your ecommerce rewards program. This helps to increase your customer retention rates and expand your ecommerce business’s customer lifetime value. You can also use Smile to nurture your customers and encourage them to engage with your rewards program.

See how Gorgias integrates with Smile.

5) Bulk Discount Code Generator

Bulk Discount Code Generator allows you to save time and effort while reducing coupon abuse. You can generate reliable discount codes and coupon codes to use with orders on your ecommerce site without difficulty. You can then use those codes in pop-ups, email sequences, win-back strategies, loyalty programs, and more.

6) PushOwl

PushOwl is a push notification app that directly sends push notifications to mobile devices or desktops. You can quickly get out short, punchy messages that readers can easily consume and respond to. PushOwl is also a great tool with functionality for gathering important data and information from users and is especially effective for mobile shoppers, which are responsible for the highest rate of abandonment per platform.

7) Omnisend

Omnisend is a complete marketing app for Shopify. It offers advanced segmentation, pre-built automated emails and workflows, email templates, drag-and-drop editors, email list-building capabilities, and powerful analytics. In addition to all of this, Omnisend also has SMS marketing and push notification tools that you can use to create a sense of urgency for your abandoned carts with limited-time deals and time-sensitive rewards. You can also use A/B testing on your email subject lines and track open rates for your cart abandonment emails. Omnisend takes a lot of the work out of using Shopify and increases checkout purchases.

See how Gorgias integrates with Omnisend. 

8) Privy

Privy is an ecommerce marketing platform that helps ecommerce store owners increase their store’s conversion rates. The platform offers SMS, email marketing, and pop-ups to stop customers before they leave without making a purchase (or draw them back if they’ve already left).

Must-know cart abandonment statistics

Cart abandonment is a major issue that affects most ecommerce businesses. As we mentioned above, nearly 70% of all carts are abandoned. 

The type of device your customers are shopping on can play into your company’s cart abandonment rate. According to the study linked above, the average cart abandonment rate per device is:

• Desktop: 69.75% 
• Smartphone: 85.65% 
• Tablet: 80.74%

The time of year impacts cart abandonment as well. For example, the surge in people shopping online during Black Friday and Cyber Monday typically results in a higher cart abandonment rate due to the higher number of shoppers. 

Some people who abandon their carts do eventually come back to buy the items. Statista’s 2021 study of U.K. shoppers uncovers the following interesting information about consumers’ post-abandonment behavior:

• 31% return at a later date to purchase on the same website
• 26% purchase the item online from a different retailer or ecommerce business
• 23% weren’t looking to purchase and didn't return to buy
• 8% go to a physical store for an item

In order to know where the majority of your customers fit into these numbers, it’s important for you to first understand why your customers are abandoning their carts and leaving your ecommerce site before they can checkout.

Top reasons shoppers leave items in their cart

Understanding why customers leave your checkout page in the first place is key to reducing your number of abandoned shopping carts. According to Baymard Institute, there are five top reasons why online shoppers abandon their carts without making a purchase:

1. Extra costs too high (48%): Shipping costs can be a major turnoff to customers, along with other fees like taxes and handling charges. These types of extra fees can sometimes be almost as expensive as the item or items themselves. This can turn away customers and cause them to abandon their carts.
2. An account is required (24%): Customers simply want to buy their items and avoid friction or irritation at checkout. Forcing people to create an account and give out their personal information can seem like too high a price to pay for the items in the cart.
3. Delivery too slow (22%): Today’s customers expect expediency when it comes to deliveries. With so many huge ecommerce stores offering next-day or same-day delivery, you can expect to lose potential customers if your shipping takes longer than a few days. 
4. Don’t trust the site (18%): Customers today are rightly concerned about problems like digital theft and identity fraud. If a site appears untrustworthy, many customers will get cold feet and abandon their carts when credit card information or other personal information is required at checkout.
5. The checkout process is too long or complicated (17%): Long forms with many different fields and requests for information are another turnoff for customers at checkout. 

Gorgias helps you put a stop to cart abandonment by providing world-class customer support

Despite how frustrating cart abandonment is, there are solutions to help guide your customers to complete your checkout process and boost your bottom line. Take a look at how Gorgias customer, Lillie’s Q, was able to increase total sales by 166% with cart-saving support:

“Gorgias' chat allows us to respond to our customers in real time. We can answer customers' questions about a product and how to place an order without them leaving the site or abandoning their cart. We have seen a 75% increase in direct sales as a result of this quick communication.” - Nicole Mann, Marketing Director

Gorgias is an ecommerce helpdesk platform that turns your customer service team into a revenue-generating machine. With Gorgias, you can create an exceptional customer experience that not only encourages your customers to check out, but to come back to your ecommerce business for future purchases. To learn more, check out our case study of three businesses that increased sales with live chat or sign up for Gorgias today.

TL;DR:

• Live chat software helps ecommerce brands convert browsers into buyers, reduce support load, and increase customer satisfaction
• The best live chat tools for ecommerce integrate with Shopify or BigCommerce, offer AI automation, and provide revenue attribution
• Key features include omnichannel support, proactive messaging, and self-service workflows
• Gorgias leads for Shopify stores with deep platform integration, AI Agent, and revenue tracking built in

Live chat software gives ecommerce brands a direct line to shoppers. It helps you connect when they're browsing products, stuck at checkout, or waiting for order updates. The right tool converts more visitors and reduces repetitive support tickets. It also helps your team deliver personalized experiences at scale.

But these benefits only happen when you choose the right tool and use it strategically. This guide breaks down the top live chat software for ecommerce, the features that drive results, and how to choose the right fit for your team.

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Why live chat matters for ecommerce

Based on 2025 Gorgias data, brands receive nearly twice as many chat interactions as email. This indicates that shoppers value real-time conversations. For brands, failing to provide instant channels such as chat means missing the opportunity to build trust with shoppers, new and old.

Here’s why live chat is a must-have for any ecommerce brand. 

Convert browsers into buyers

Live chat reduces friction at high-intent moments, whether shoppers are viewing product pages, sitting at checkout, or comparing options. Real-time support answers questions that would otherwise lead to abandoned carts. 

Proactive messaging takes this further by triggering conversations before customers even ask. A simple "Is there anything I can help you with today?" on a product page can increase conversions by offering personalized recommendations or addressing concerns about sizing, shipping, or returns.

Customers who engage with live chat before purchasing see higher average order values. They're more confident in their decisions, more likely to add complementary products, and less likely to abandon their carts.

Reduce support workload with self-service

Repetitive questions like "Where is my order?" drain agent time and slow response times for complex issues. Self-service flows automate these interactions by letting customers track orders, initiate returns, or check product availability without waiting for an agent. 

Self-service can deflect up to 50% of tickets, freeing your team to focus on conversations that drive revenue and loyalty. Chatbot handoff ensures customers can still escalate to a live agent when automation can't resolve their issue.

Increase customer satisfaction (CSAT) and retention

Faster response times directly impact customer satisfaction. Live chat reduces first response time from hours to seconds, and omnichannel support — chat, email, phone, and social — lets customers reach you on their preferred channel. Personalized support builds trust and encourages repeat purchases.

Arc’teryx saw a 75% lift in conversions from support conversations after implementing AI chat with self-service capabilities. When customers feel heard and supported, they come back.

Top three picks by use case

Not all live chat software is built the same. Your best choice depends on your platform, team size, and goals. Here are our top picks for common ecommerce scenarios.

Best for Shopify stores

Gorgias is the only Shopify Premium Partner for customer service, with deep integration, two-way sync, and order management built in.

Best for automation and AI

Gorgias AI Agent automates up to 60% of repetitive tickets, from 'where is my order?' (WISMO) inquiries to returns. 

Tidio’s Lyro offers similar capabilities at a lower price point.

Best free option

Tawk.to offers free live chat with basic features, ideal for small teams testing the channel. 

Note: No revenue attribution or advanced AI.

Best live chat software for ecommerce in 2025

We've narrowed the field to five live chat platforms that excel for ecommerce stores. Each offers deep integrations, automation capabilities, and the flexibility to scale with your business.

Gorgias: 4.6 ⭐ (488 reviews)

Gorgias is a conversational AI platform built for ecommerce, with deep Shopify integration, AI Agent, and revenue tracking. It's the only Shopify Premium Partner for customer service, meaning it's designed from the ground up for online stores.

Best for

Gorgias is best for Shopify stores that want to automate support, increase sales, and track revenue from chat conversations. Works seamlessly with BigCommerce and Magento as well.

Key features

• Shopify Premium Partner with two-way sync — view and edit orders directly from chat
• Display extensive customer data next to each ticket including order history and preferences
• Revenue attribution dashboard shows which conversations lead to purchases
• Omnichannel inbox consolidates email, chat, SMS, and social into one view
• Responsive mobile app for support on the go

AI features

• AI Agent automates up to 60% of tickets by resolving WISMO, returns, and FAQs, allowing support teams to evolve toward more strategic, high-value work
• Shopping Assistant increases AOV and conversion rate with proactive messaging that upsells and guides customers to products they’re looking for
• Create custom auto-responses, templates, and Macros for swift responses to frequently asked questions

Pricing

Pricing for Gorgias includes multiple tiers. Starter plans start at $10 USD/month. Gorgias also offers a customizable Enterprise plan for clients handling more than 5,000 tickets per month.

TL;DR:

With a wide range of plans to choose from and affordable pricing, Gorgias is an excellent solution for both small to medium-sized ecommerce businesses and larger brands. Its built-in chat works seamlessly with Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento.

Gorgias's live chat solution is part of a large customer experience ecosystem. This makes it an excellent option for anyone who wants a fully featured customer service solution.

Tidio: 4.7 ⭐ (1,314 reviews)

Tidio combines live chat with Lyro, an AI chatbot that handles common questions and qualifies leads. It's an affordable option for small to midsize teams looking to add AI automation without enterprise pricing.

Best for

Small to midsize teams looking for affordable AI automation. 

Limitation: Less robust reporting and revenue attribution than Gorgias.

Key features

• Set automated messages targeting website visitors based on their activity
• Multichannel support including email, chat, and Facebook Messenger
• Visual chatbot builder for creating custom flows
• Store visitor info such as tags, locations, and preferences

AI features

Tidio's AI features are centered on its Lyro chatbot. It handles FAQs, qualifies leads, and learns from past conversations to improve over time.

Pricing

Tidio is free to download and use for basic features. Paid plans start at $25/month and include premium features such as chatbot templates and visitor monitoring.

TL;DR:

As one of the more capable free-to-use live chat solutions, Tidio is one of the better options for anyone who wants to offer live chat support without having to pay a subscription fee initially.

LiveChat: 4.5 ⭐ (745 reviews)

LiveChat is a mature live chat platform with 200+ integrations and strong automation features. It's more general-purpose than Gorgias, but less ecommerce-specific.

Best for

Teams that need deep integrations with CRM, email, and marketing tools beyond ecommerce platforms.

Key features

• Add tags to chat conversations for improved sorting and analytics
• Push longer conversations and more complex issues to a customer support ticket
• Request feedback from customers in the form of a survey response at the conclusion of their live chat
• Share files such as screenshots and documents between customers and support agents
• Add integrations, add-ons, and APIs into your chat window from LiveChat's integrations store

AI features

• Basic chatbot builder for automating simple workflows

Pricing

LiveChat starts at $16 per month per agent billed annually for the Starter plan and moves up to $50 per month per agent billed annually for the Business plan. LiveChat also offers a customizable Enterprise plan.

TL;DR:

The per-agent fee structure may not be cost effective for businesses with medium or large customer support teams. LiveChat is a good option if you can justify the cost. The per-agent fee starts at a minimum of $16 per month.

Zendesk Chat: 4.3 ⭐ (5,388 reviews)

Zendesk Chat is part of Zendesk Suite, designed for enterprise teams with complex support needs. It's a solid choice if you're already using Zendesk for ticketing.

Best for

Large teams already using Zendesk for ticketing and help desk management.

Note: Typically more expensive and complex than Gorgias or Tidio.

Key features

• Respond to customer support tickets via web, phone, email, SMS, and social media messaging from a single dashboard
• Automatically route customers to helpful resources or the appropriate agent via AI-powered triggers
• Quickly and easily integrate Zendesk with common ecommerce platforms such as Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce
• Enterprise-grade security and compliance features

AI features

• Answer Bot for resolving FAQs automatically

Pricing

Zendesk offers several different plans that range from free to $59 per agent per month. Custom pricing is available for enterprise needs.

Who it's best for

If you only have one agent handling live chat customer support tickets then Zendesk is a great solution to consider since you will be able to access all of its features free of charge. Zendesk is also a great live chat option for Shopify store owners since its Shopify extension is well-polished, according to user reviews.

Re:amaze 4.5 ⭐ (176 reviews)

Re:amaze offers multichannel support including chat, email, SMS, and social in one inbox. It's a solid choice for teams that want omnichannel support without a high price tag.

Best for

Teams that want omnichannel support at an affordable price point.

Key features

• Omnichannel inbox consolidates all customer conversations
• Shopify and BigCommerce integrations for order management
• Automated workflows for routing and responding to common issues

AI features

• Basic chatbot for simple automation tasks

Pricing

Re:amaze starts at $29/month with multiple tiers available based on features and team size.

TL;DR:

Small to midsize ecommerce teams looking for multichannel support without enterprise-level complexity or cost.

Tawk.to: 3.0 ⭐ (88 reviews)

Tawk.to is a free live chat platform that offers unlimited agents, unlimited chats, and basic CRM features. It's designed for small ecommerce stores testing live chat without upfront costs, though user reviews on Shopify are mixed.

Best for

Small teams or solo entrepreneurs who need basic live chat functionality without monthly fees.

Limitation: Users report inconsistent support and functionality issues. No revenue attribution or advanced ecommerce analytics.

Key features

• Free forever plan with unlimited agents and chats
• View and manage Shopify orders directly from chats and tickets
• Personalize greetings with triggers based on visitor location, past visits, and browsing behavior
• Canned "shortcut" message templates for fast, consistent responses
• Built-in CRM for managing unlimited customers and organizations
• iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac apps keep you connected on the go
• 24/7 support team for live assistance

AI features

Tawk.to offers Smart Reply, an AI feature that generates response suggestions based on your knowledge base and conversation context. Agents click a button to see what the AI suggests, then can send it as-is or edit before replying.

However, Smart Reply is not fully autonomous — agents must be online and actively monitor conversations to use it. 

Pricing

Free for all core features including unlimited messaging, ticketing, and agent seats. Optional paid add-ons include:

• Removing Tawk.to branding ($19/month)
• Hiring Tawk.to agents to staff your chat ($1/hour per agent)
• AI assistant (custom pricing)

TL;DR:

Tawk.to offers truly free live chat with Shopify order management and unlimited seats—ideal for budget-conscious stores. However, the 3.0-star rating on Shopify reflects concerns about reliability and support. It's worth testing for basic chat needs, but stores serious about conversational commerce may want to invest in more robust platforms like Gorgias or Tidio.

Core features to look for

Not every live chat platform offers the same capabilities. When evaluating options for your ecommerce store, prioritize tools that include these essential features:

Ecommerce platform integrations

Your live chat software should integrate directly with your ecommerce platform — Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or Magento. These integrations let you see order data, edit orders, and view customer history without switching tabs.

Example: A customer asks to change their shipping address. With Gorgias, you can update it directly from the chat window without logging into Shopify separately.

Deep platform integration also means your support team has context for every conversation. They can see what products a customer viewed, their order history, and whether they've contacted support before, without asking the customer to repeat themselves.

AI and automation (chatbots, AI agents)

AI automation handles repetitive inquiries so your agents can focus on complex issues and revenue-generating conversations. The most common use cases for chatbots in ecommerce include order tracking (WISMO), returns and exchanges, and frequently asked questions about shipping policies or product details.

AI agent features take automation further by automatically replying, detecting sentiment, auto-tagging conversations, and escalating conversations to team members based on content. This speeds up response times and ensures consistent answers across your team.

AI Agent can automate up to 60% of tickets by pulling order status from Shopify, processing return requests, and answering policy questions — all without human intervention.

Related: Our list of 150+ high-value ecommerce apps.

Reporting and revenue attribution

Revenue attribution links chat conversations to purchases, letting you prove the ROI of your live chat channel. Without this capability, your support metrics lack context. You might see fast response times, but you won't know if those conversations actually drive sales.

How to add live chat to your ecommerce site

Install the widget

For JavaScript snippet installation, copy the code from your live chat provider and paste it into your site footer before the closing </body> tag. This loads the chat widget on every page of your site.

For Shopify or WooCommerce stores, the easier route is installing the app from your platform's app store. No coding required. Gorgias, for example, installs in one click from the Shopify App Store and automatically syncs customer and order data.

Configure workflows and triggers

Once your widget is live, set up proactive triggers and self-service flows to maximize its impact. Proactive triggers start conversations based on visitor behavior — for example, triggering a chat after 30 seconds on a product page or when a shopper adds an item to cart.

Example trigger rule: If a customer is on the checkout page for 60 seconds, send: "Need help completing your order?"

Self-service workflows automate common requests like order tracking and returns. When a customer types "Where is my order?" the chatbot pulls tracking information from your ecommerce platform and displays it instantly. This deflects tickets and reduces wait times.

Reporting and revenue attribution

Live chat analytics fall into two categories: support KPIs that measure team performance and sales metrics that show business impact. Track both to understand how well your live chat channel performs and where to invest resources.

Support KPIs (CSAT, FRT, AHT, resolution)

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) measures how happy customers are with your support. Live chat typically achieves higher CSAT scores than email or phone because responses are faster and more convenient. Aim for CSAT above 90%.

First response time (FRT) tracks how long customers wait for an initial reply. Live chat reduces FRT from hours (email) to seconds (chat). Target FRT under two minutes for live chat conversations.

Average handle time (AHT) shows how long it takes to resolve a conversation. Lower AHT means agents can handle more chats efficiently. Use Macros and AI-suggested replies to reduce AHT without sacrificing quality.

Resolution rate measures the percentage of tickets resolved on first contact. Aim for a resolution rate above 70%. Higher resolution rates reduce follow-up volume and improve customer satisfaction.

Sales impact from chat (AOV, attributable revenue)

Revenue attribution shows which conversations lead to purchases. If 100 customers chat before purchasing, and their average order value is 10% higher than non-chat customers, you can quantify the revenue lift from your live chat channel.

Prove ROI with revenue attribution by connecting your live chat platform to your ecommerce platform. Gorgias shows which conversations led to purchases and calculates attributable revenue automatically. This helps you make data-driven decisions about staffing, automation, and channel investment.

How to choose the right live chat software

Choosing the right live chat software depends on your ecommerce platform, team size, support volume, and budget. Use this checklist to evaluate options:

• Does it integrate with your ecommerce platform (Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce)?
• Does it offer AI automation for repetitive tickets?
• Does it track revenue from chat conversations?
• Does it support omnichannel (chat, email, SMS, social)?
• What's the total cost of ownership (seat pricing, usage-based, etc.)?
• Does it meet your data privacy requirements, like SOC 2 compliance or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?

Team size, service level agreements (SLAs), and concurrency

Team size affects your pricing model. Per-seat pricing works for small teams; usage-based pricing scales better for high-volume stores.

If you promise two-minute response times, choose a tool with proactive triggers and AI automation to help your team meet that service level agreement (SLA).

How many concurrent chats can each agent handle? A five-person team handling 100 chats per day needs a tool that supports multiple concurrent chats per agent and intelligent routing to prevent overload.

Data, privacy, and ecommerce stack fit

If you serve EU customers, choose a tool with GDPR-compliant data handling. Look for SOC 2 certification and understand where your customer data is stored.

Does it integrate with your existing tech stack? Check for integrations with your email platform (Klaviyo, Mailchimp), shipping provider (ShipStation), and returns app (Loop). The more connected your tools, the more context your support team has for every conversation.

The best live chat app is part of a comprehensive customer service platform that includes features such as phone support and a helpdesk with a ticketing system. If you'd like to provide your customers with plenty of support options and optimize your CS team's internal workflows, look for all-in-one platforms.

Still looking for the right live chat app? Check out our list of the best live chat apps in general, not just for ecommerce.

Turn every conversation into a sale with Gorgias

Gorgias is the only live chat platform built for ecommerce, with deep Shopify integration, AI Agent, and revenue tracking built in. While all of these solutions offer great chat boxes, only Gorgias makes design decisions based on conversations with ecommerce brands and integrates with all the ecommerce tools you already use.

• Shopify Premium Partner with two-way sync for editing orders directly from chat
• AI Agent automates up to 60% of tickets including WISMO, returns, and FAQs
• Revenue attribution dashboard shows ROI by tracking which conversations lead to purchases
• Omnichannel inbox consolidates email, chat, SMS, and social into one view

See how Gorgias can help you convert more browsers into buyers. Book a demo today.

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TL;DR:

• Customers expect real-time order tracking. Allow customers to track their orders from anywhere—from their email to your website—at any time to increase their sense of security, reduce returns, and build trust.
• Helpdesk + order tracking = efficient. Choose a solution like Aftership, ShipBob, or ShipStation that integrates with your CX platform. This lets you link shipping data with your customer data, resulting in faster support.
• Offer self-service tracking options. Ensure your shipping information is easily accessible to customers through email, live chat, SMS notifications, and on your website.

Today, order visibility is table stakes. Around 50% of consumers actively track their order status to confirm it's progressing smoothly and staying on schedule.

Whether it’s order anxiety or excitement, shoppers want to see their order's status and location at any given time. Even better when they can get real-time alerts via SMS or at each point in an order’s journey.

So if you haven’t set up order tracking yet, now’s the time, because your customers already expect it. Here’s everything you need to know about the benefits of tracking customer orders and how to implement an order tracking tool for your Shopify store. 

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Why is order tracking so important for ecommerce?

Ecommerce vendors like Amazon have normalized order tracking. Today, most, if not all, customers expect to know where their order is.

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

• Peace of mind: Real-time tracking reassures shoppers and helps businesses monitor fulfillment.
• Fewer support tickets: Cuts down WISMO inquiries (18% of tickets) with automated updates.
• Lower returns: Accurate timelines reduce late-delivery returns and protect revenue.
• Stronger loyalty: Reliable tracking builds trust. Late or incorrect deliveries push shoppers away.
• Easy planning: Consumers need to know that an order is on its way to plan their day.

Recommended reading: Ecommerce returns: 10 best practices for taking your online store to the next level

How to set up order tracking for your Shopify store

Here’s how to set up order tracking for Shopify stores: 

1. Choose an order tracking tool
2. Integrate your order tracking tool with Shopify
3. Configure your order tracking app’s settings
4. Integrate your order tracking app with your CX platform

As an example, we’ll show you how to set up order tracking on a Shopify store with AfterShip Tracking.

1) Choose an order tracking tool 

First, choose an order tracking tool like ShipBob, ShipStation, or AfterShip. These tools pull order information, tracking numbers, and shipment status to generate shipping updates for your customers.

Pro Tip: It’s best if your order tracking app integrates with your helpdesk, so that you can offer faster, context-rich customer support.

Read more: 12 best shipping software tools for ecommerce stores

2) Integrate your order tracking tool with your ecommerce platform 

Install your order tracking app of choice via the Shopify App Store. For us, it will be AfterShip Tracking.

To complete the integration, go to the AfterShip Tracking dashboard. Click Apps > View more apps > Shopify > Install app. You’ll be redirected to your Shopify settings. Read through the privacy and permission details and click Install app.

Pro Tip: Not sure if you did it correctly? Your store URL will be labelled as “Connected” on the Shopify connection page.

3) Configure your order tracking app’s settings

Time to load your order tracking app with your Shopify data. This is a crucial step to ensure your app uses your courier and order details. 

On Aftership Tracking, go to Apps > Store connections > Actions to set up these two actions:

• Courier Mapping: This matches shipping company names between Shopify and AfterShip so tracking data flows correctly even when the same carrier has different names in each system.
• Auto-import settings: This controls which orders automatically sync from Shopify to AfterShip based on criteria like date range, payment status, and fulfillment status, so you only track the orders you want.

4) Integrate your order tracking app with your CX platform

Finally, connect your order tracking app to your helpdesk. 

When customer messages, shipping data, and tracking information are connected, your team can:

• Get the full context with instant access to tracking numbers, shipping addresses, and estimated delivery dates
• Eliminate the need to switch tabs or copy/paste information between tools
• Resolve customer inquiries faster

Read more: How to connect AfterShip Tracking to Gorgias

The 6 key spots to add ‘Track My Order’

It’s important to make order tracking accessible to customers, wherever they are. And since more than 68% of orders are done through smartphones, it’s critical to design every tracking touchpoint with a mobile-first experience in mind.

Order tracking should be available in:

• Emails (order confirmation and automated replies): Include the receipt, tracking number, and a link to the tracking portal. Automated replies should also provide updates when customers ask about order status.
• SMS: Send the tracking number and portal link. Use for delivery updates, delays, or exceptions.
• Conversational AI in chat: Provide the order status, tracking number, and delivery estimate directly in the response.
• Self-service order management: Add a “track my order” button in the chat widget with order status, tracking number, and delivery date.
• Help Center (FAQ page): Embed a tracking tool where customers can enter their order number or email to see status and carrier tracking.
• Account portal: Show fulfillment status, tracking number, and carrier link in the “My Account” section for each order.

What are the best order tracking apps for ecommerce stores?

Depending on your needs and the ecommerce platform you use, choose from options that are both scalable and flexible.

ShipBob

ShipBob is a global logistics platform that helps ecommerce brands provide fast, affordable shipping and best-in-class order fulfillment. Its connected technology and fulfillment network improve delivery times, reduce costs, and elevate the customer experience.

Standout features:

• Distributed global fulfillment centers shortens delivery times
• Real-time inventory management and order tracking
• Affordable shipping rates through carrier partnerships
• Analytics tools to optimize fulfillment and logistics performance

Check out ShipBob in the Shopify App Store or the BigCommerce App Store. 

AfterShip

AfterShip is a shipment tracking and notification platform that helps ecommerce brands keep customers informed and improve delivery transparency. It streamlines post-purchase communication and makes it easier to spot delivery issues before they affect customer experience.

Standout features:

• Seven customizable notification triggers (e.g., in transit, out for delivery, delivered)
• Easy-to-use email editor for branded tracking updates
• Filter and monitor tracking data to detect delivery issues early
• Branded tracking pages that keep customers on your site
• Detailed analytics to measure delivery performance and customer engagement

Check out AfterShip in the Shopify App Store and the BigCommerce App Store. 

ShipStation

ShipStation is a shipping software solution that helps ecommerce businesses save time and money by comparing carrier rates and delivery times in one place. It automates shipping workflows to ensure customers get fast, cost-effective delivery.

Standout features:

• Compare rates and delivery speeds across multiple carriers
• Automate shipping processes, from label creation to returns
• Intuitive dashboards and user-friendly interfaces for efficient workflows
• Batch processing for high-volume order fulfillment
• Branded shipping labels, packing slips, and tracking pages

Check out ShipStation in the Shopify App Store and the BigCommerce App Store.

ShipMonk

ShipMonk is a third-party logistics (3PL) provider that helps ecommerce businesses scale with fast, affordable fulfillment services. Its technology-driven platform streamlines order, inventory, and warehouse management to deliver a seamless post-purchase experience.

Standout features:

• Distributed fulfillment centers for faster, lower-cost shipping
• Real-time inventory and order management
• Automated picking, packing, and shipping workflows
• Scalable solutions tailored for ecommerce, subscription boxes, crowdfunding, and more
• Detailed reporting and analytics to optimize logistics

Check out ShipMonk in the Shopify App Store. 

Easyship

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

Read more about Easyship in the Magento Marketplace.

Recommended reading: 12 best shipping software for ecommerce

Mageworx

The Mageworx Order Editor extension lets you edit customer errors. Quickly fix any mistakes customers make during checkout like incorrect street numbers, phone numbers, names, shipping, or billing details. 

You can also add or remove products, change pricing, and add coupons after an order has been placed. This saves your customer support team from having to cancel the order and start it again from the beginning.

Learn more about Mageworx Order Editor in the Magento Marketplace.

Simplify order tracking with Gorgias

Use Gorgias to centralize order tracking, automate status updates, and deliver real-time delivery info, all in one place. By deflecting repetitive WISMO tickets, your team saves time, boosts CSAT, and focuses on higher-value conversations that drive retention and revenue.

Book a demo to see how Gorgias integrates with your order tracking system.

Keeping your customer support response time as low as possible is a key part of meeting customer expectations and providing a great customer experience. But as your brand grows, it's just not realistic to respond to every ticket the second it rolls in. This makes developing a system to quickly assign priority levels to support tickets an essential strategy for every customer service team to implement.

To help you develop a support ticket prioritization process that will support your business goals, let's take a look at why it's important to prioritize customer requests. Then we'll dive into nine best practices that your support team can use to strategically categorize the support tickets that it receives.

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What is customer service ticket prioritization?

Rather than responding to customer requests on a first-come-first-serve basis, ticket prioritization is the process of evaluating all incoming tickets to identify the most urgent. Once you prioritize tickets, you can triage — or assign — priority tickets so your team can respond to tickets that have the biggest impact on your company's revenue before moving on to low-priority tickets.

When prioritizing customer service requests, you should keep a few things in mind:

• Is the request time-sensitive? If so, consider making those tickets a higher priority. Non-urgent tickets, like a general question about your business, shouldn’t be the first in your queue to answer. 
• Is the request on a live channel? If so, answer those tickets first. Customers naturally expect more time between emails than they do if they’re using a conversational channel like SMS or live chat to talk to your brand.
• Is the request a pre-sales question? If so, that should be a high-priority ticket because your customer service team could make the difference between making or losing that sale.
• Is the request automatable? If so, it should be low priority — at least for your human agents. Invest in self-service resources, like a help center or automated responses, so you can deflect these tickets that don’t need to take up your team’s time.
• Is the customer VIP? If so, consider bumping up that ticket’s priority. Return customers generate 300% more revenue than first-time customers, according to our data, so don't delay when a regular customer reaches out.

Let’s take a closer look at the types of tickets that make for low, medium, and high-priority tickets.

Low-priority ticket requests

Low-priority tickets are issues that are not time-sensitive, escalated, or in the way of a potential sale. They are frequently asked questions that you could automate with your helpdesk software  — more on that later — or general feedback that you can pass to the rest of the team for long-term improvements to the product or customer experience. If you can’t deflect these tickets with automation, they can live in your support backlog for a few hours (or even a day or two) while you handle more urgent tickets. 

 Low-priority tickets include:

• Non-urgent customer needs like a request for a return label
• Frequently-asked questions like questions about your refund policy
• Automatable questions like customers asking about their order status
• Tickets with customer feedback should be answered and shared with the larger team, but are not time-sensitive

Medium-priority ticket requests

Medium-priority tickets require some type of product support from a human agent, not a chatbot or auto-response. However, they may not need your immediate attention, either because the ticket isn’t time-sensitive or the customer isn’t VIP.

• Tickets about the customer’s account, such as a customer having issues updating a shipping address
• Questions about recent orders like helping resolve a lost shipment or investigating why a discount didn’t go through
• Tickets on slower channels like email, where customers expect a bit of latency between responses

High-priority ticket requests

High-priority ticket requests include conversations with VIP customers, conversations on live channels, and questions that might enable a sale. Your team has a small window of time to answer these questions, so bump them to the top of the queue. 

• Tickets from VIP customers because repeat customers contribute 300% more revenue than first-time customers and you can’t risk losing customer loyalty
• Escalated customers, especially if it’s a customer threatening to leave a bad review
• Conversations on messaging channels, such as SMS or live chat, for which customers expect immediate responses
• Pre-sale questions like someone asking for a recommendation for a gift or clarification about sizing
• Tickets in which a customer is threatening to leave a negative review are high-priority because negative customer review can deter other potential customers from your brand
• Questions placed shortly after an order, like a customer asking to change the product or update their shipping address before the order’s fulfilled

By breaking down tickets into these four categories for your reps, you can ensure that the tickets that will have the biggest impact on your company receive the swiftest attention.

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Best practices for prioritizing customer service requests

Prioritizing support requests is a key part of creating a customer journey optimized for maximum revenue. If you want to start using a ticket prioritization process that will boost both customer satisfaction and your bottom line, we've got nine proven best practices below:

1. Respond to your most loyal customers first
2. Tag repeat customers as high-priority tickets
3. Automate simple requests wherever possible
4. Mark tickets with urgent pre-sale activity as high priority
5. Prioritize messaging channels
6. Deprioritize (or auto-close) no-reply tickets
7. Bump up customer service requests where customers are threatening to leave a negative review
8. Mark any incoming tickets about recent orders as first-priority
9. Respond as quickly as possible (regardless of ticket prioritization)

1) Respond to your most loyal customers first

As we mentioned earlier, repeat customers generate 300% more revenue than first-time shoppers. VIP customers are even more valuable than your average repeat customer because they recommend your brand to their friends and leave positive reviews, both of which are highly valuable growth tactics for your brand.

Make sure these VIP customers are your highest priority to prevent customer churn, which is costly for your bottom line. 

How Gorgias can help you respond to VIP customers

With Gorgias’ Rules, you can automatically tag tickets coming from customers who spend a certain amount or make a certain number of purchases within a certain time frame. Here’s a Rule that automatically tags tickets from customers who spend $100 or more within your store: 

Then, you can create a high-priority view that automatically gathers all tickets with the tag “VIP customer” that your team can prioritize.

2) Tag repeat customers as high-priority tickets

Building on the previous section, it's a good idea to prioritize any tickets from repeat customers. Although repeat customers only make up 21% of the customer base for most brands, they contribute 42% of overall revenue. Based on our data, your repeat customers will, on average, contribute 300% more revenue than first-time customers over their entire lifespan. 

So, even if a customer has only purchased one item before, jump on any future requests because you might have the chance to improve customer retention.

How Gorgias can help identify repeat customers

3) Automate simple requests wherever possible

Low-priority tickets might not be as important as others, but they still demand a timely response. If your customer service team has to spend a lot of time responding to common, repetitive requests, they might not have time to give high-priority tickets the attention they deserve.

Thankfully, tools such as Gorgias can enable you to respond to common support requests automatically so that your reps can spend their time focusing on higher priority tickets. With Gorgias, you can create canned responses, called Macros, and automatically send them with automation Rules to a wide range of common customer requests, including "Where is my order?" requests, questions about product variants, pricing, and sizing, questions about returns, etc. Gorgias also provides self-service tools such as a comprehensive knowledge base and chatbots to help reduce your team's workload.

Responding to these common customer requests via automation and self-service options offers numerous benefits. For one, it provides an immediate response and resolution to what is likely a large percentage of your tickets. It also eliminates a huge burden from your support team's workflow, giving them more time to focus on complex requests and high-priority tickets.

How Gorgias can help you automate answers to simple requests

With Gorgias, you can fire (still helpful) pre-written responses to customers who ask simple questions, such as questions about the status of their order. 

When we mention this to some customer support professionals, they get nervous because they don’t want to offer low-quality automated support. And we agree, that’s not the goal. Gorgias’ automated responses are especially helpful because our templated Macros are dynamic – more on that below. Plus, we only recommend automating repetitive tickets that don’t actually need a human touch. Plus, automating these tickets frees up your agents to provide human support on tickets that need it most.

First, you’ll create a Macro, or a templated response, with dynamic fields that pull customer data directly from your Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce store. You can pull order numbers, order statuses, and more.

Then, you’ll create Rules that automatically fire the appropriate Macro when customers ask an automatable question. Here’s a rule that gives customers their order number when they ask:

4) Mark tickets with urgent pre-sale activity as high priority

Seventy percent of all ecommerce shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes their purchase. Of all the metrics that keep online store owners up at night, this one is near the top.

Good customer support, however, can go a long way toward reducing your cart abandonment rate. While there are several reasons why customers abandon their cart, questions or issues arising during checkout are a couple of the most common. Therefore, quickly addressing these questions and concerns can substantially boost your store's conversion rate.

Best of all, you don't even have to wait for the customer to contact you first. With Gorgias live chat, you can flag customers with best-selling items on their cart or customers lingering on the checkout page and contact them proactively to see if they need any assistance. But regardless of who contacts who first, pre-sale tickets should be marked as first-priority tickets.

How Gorgias can help tag pre-sales tickets

Depending on your brand, you may already start to recognize which tickets indicate a customer is close to making a purchase. If you sell footwear apparel, for example, this could look like customers asking whether they should buy a size 11 or 12 if they usually wear 11.5. With Gorgias, you can create Rules that automatically detect such questions and add tags to help you prioritize.

Here’s a rule that automatically tags any tickets asking about product sizing with “pre-sale” and sends a macro response that links the customer to your size chart:

5) Prioritize messaging channels (like live chat, SMS, and Instagram or Facebook messages)

One of the biggest reasons why live chat and other messaging support channels such as SMS and social media messaging applications have become so popular with consumers is because they offer swift support.

A customer who contacts your support team via one of these channels will expect a much faster response than a customer who sends you an email. This is why it's important to treat these messages more like phone calls you've put on hold than emails you haven't responded to yet.

While the exact categorization that these tickets fall under will depend on other factors (such as the customer they come from and the nature of their requests), customer service professionals should inherently give tickets from instant messaging channels a higher priority than email requests.

How Gorgias helps you automatically tag tickets from specific channels

As your team grows, you may dedicate agents to specific channels based on preference, competence, or the level of complexity you tend to see coming through one channel or another. For instance, you may assign a more general agent to SMS while an agent with more advanced product knowledge can handle in-depth questions over email. 

Here’s a Rule in Gorgias that will automatically tag all incoming tickets in your SMS channel. You can then send all tickets with this tag to one agent’s dedicated view so they never have to go searching for tickets and can just focus on providing fast, high-quality answers.

6) Deprioritize (or auto-close) no-reply tickets

Customer support is a two-way street and requires back-and-forth communication in order to reach a resolution. If a customer isn't responding to your rep's messages, it's okay to go ahead and deprioritize that ticket or close it out completely. Likewise, your helpdesk might be turning spam messages or social media comments that don’t need a response into tickets.

How Gorgias can auto-close no-reply tickets

Using Gorgias to set up a rule that will auto-close no reply tickets is one great way to prevent these tickets from wasting your support team's time.

Here’s a rule that automatically detects comments on your Instagram ads and posts. Your customer service team shouldn’t ignore social media comments as a practice, of course. However, you might activate this rule after an Instagram giveaway if you’re experiencing an influx of unwanted tickets. 

7) Bump up customer service requests where customers are threatening to leave a negative review

Few things damage your brand image and online presence more than negative customer reviews. If a customer mentions that they are considering leaving a bad review of your company, you should automatically bump their ticket to a higher priority.

In fact, you may want to bump up tickets from any upset or angry customer. With Gorgias' intent and sentiment detection features, you can automatically detect when a customer is upset and bump their ticket up to a higher priority level. Gorgias can also detect keywords that allow you to prioritize tickets from customers threatening a negative review.

How Gorgias helps you stop angry customers from leaving reviews

With Gorgias’ intent detection, you can automatically detect tickets with threatening, negative, or offensive sentiments in their tickets. You can also scan all tickets for words similar to “review” or “warn” (as in, “I’m going to warn my friends to stay away). The rule below scans all tickets from Facebook and Instagram comments for those words and tones, automatically tags them as negative comments, and escalates them by tagging “level 2”:

8) Mark any incoming tickets about recent orders as first-priority

If a customer submits an order and immediately sends a support request, they likely input the wrong address or purchased the incorrect item(s). If you can catch that request before you package and ship the item, you’ll save yourself the cost of shipping the product and handling the return or the exchange. Plus, you’ll save the customer from the negative experience of having to wait for an item they didn’t want in the first place, or having their item sent to the wrong address.

So, develop a system to flag any support requests coming from customers who placed an order within the last two hours. 

How Gorgias helps you find tickets about recent orders

This is one example where Gorgias’ deep integration with Shopify is a huge asset. Gorgias’ Rules can analyze customer data and identify when a ticket is from a customer who placed an order within the last couple of days. The rule below does just that, and adds the tag “Urger Order Edit” to let your customer support team know they need to act before the order fulfillment team sends an incorrect order.

9) Respond as quickly as possible (regardless of ticket prioritization)

Forty-six percent of customers expect companies to respond to support requests in less than four hours, while 12% expect a response time of 12 minutes or less. To meet these ever-increasing customer expectations, you will need to keep your response time as low as possible for all types of tickets.

Using automation to instantly respond to common customer questions is the best way to speed up your response times. Along with providing an instant resolution and response to a significant chunk of the support requests your team gets, leveraging automation can also reduce your support team's workload so that higher priority, more hands-on tickets receive a faster response as well.

Once you develop a system for prioritizing tickets, you can create or refine your service-level agreements (SLAs) to reflect how fast your team strives to answer tickets based on question type, customer type, and channel. You may need to think about your staffing schedule to make sure you have agents ready during peak hours, especially for live channels like SMS and live chat.

How Gorgias helps with prioritizing service tickets

As your brand grows, prioritization without support from a helpdesk becomes nearly impossible. You could staff someone to field all incoming messages in your email inbox and social media accounts and manually triage, or label tickets with priority and send them to the right agent. But it’s much more time- and cost-efficient to use a tool that can streamline the process with the help of automation. 

With advanced intent and sentiment detection features, Gorgias can analyze each incoming ticket based on natural language processing (NLP). Gorgias then allows you to create Rules that determine the ticket's priority level (among so many other things) and assign it to a specific agent by sorting it into agent-specific Views. This way, your team can focus on resolving important tickets rather than figuring out what that order is first.

Here’s how Gorgias processes the language on an incoming ticket and applies a rule to automatically take action – in this case, add a tag to cancel that person’s order:

From there, you can create a View that puts tickets with priority tags in a specific queue. Or, depending on your team’s setup, you can assign certain agents to handle different views, so every agent can focus on a certain channel, priority level, product line, or type of customer.

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Gorgias also enables you to automatically respond to common customer questions and repetitive issues that make up a bulk of your support team's workload (like WISMO, or “Where is my order?” tickets), freeing team members up to spend more time focusing on higher-priority tickets. Never miss a ticket, never take too long on an urgent ticket, and never waste time clicking and dragging tickets to different agent views or manually labeling tickets. 

Love Your Melon, an apparel brand that uses Gorgias, used to have an average first-response time of around 10 minutes before using Gorgias because they were swamped with tickets. With Gorgias’ automatic responses, they are now able to instantly answer 25% of their tickets with helpful automated responses, freeing agents up to handle more complex questions in the queue. Check out our full customer story on Love Your Melon:

“The level of automation provided by Gorgias, like the Rules that can auto-close tickets, has been proven successful. Love Your Melon team has increased their productivity and efficiency thanks to Gorgias.”
- BerniDe Kolar, Customer Service Director at Love Your Melon

How Gorgias helps your team respond to all tickets quickly

Gorgias is full of features to help your tickets provide fast, helpful answers to customers across all customer service channels. Intent detection, Macros, and Rules — all described in detail above — help deflect low-impact tickets, get tickets in front of the right agent, and provide templated responses so agents don’t have to write messages from scratch. 

On top of that, Gorgias can help you create self-service resources (like FAQ pages and help centers, chatbots, and self-service flows) to help customers help themselves, eliminating any wait time associated with reaching out to agents and reducing the volume of tickets your team receives. 

Last, Gorgias’s integrations with ecommerce platforms (Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce) and other top-rated ecommerce tools mean your customer service team won’t lose time throughout the day shuffling through tabs to copy/paste information between disconnected tools. You can see a customer’s entire order and conversation history in the sidebar, modify orders from within the helpdesk, and share data with 85+ tools you already use like Klaviyo, Attentive, and ShipBob.

Automate ticket prioritization with Gorgias

Prioritizing support tickets enables you to deliver the swiftest and highest quality service to tickets that will have the biggest impact on your business. And, with Gorgias, this otherwise tedious process can be completely automated.

Find out how our customer, Comme Avant, uses Gorgias Tags to save time and easily manage 7,500 tickets a month with a very small team.

“Using Gorgias helps us save some precious time, the time we can use to manage our business. It is beneficial, especially when you receive a lot of messages every day.”
- Sophie Lauret, Co-Founder of Comme Avant

Ready to learn how Gorgias can help empower your ecommerce success? Take a look at our tools and resources to help grow your store to new heights.