Creating a unique and satisfying customer experience is a crucial objective for brands across all industries. You’re probably already aware that most customers (95%, according to a Microsoft study) rank customer experience as important when it comes to brand choice and brand loyalty.

Most brands rely on customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) as the go-to metric for evaluating the customer experience. However, the problem with CSAT is that it's a lagging indicator of customer sentiment. Customers give you a CSAT score after an interaction. So, if your CSAT is low, you've likely already frustrated a new or loyal customer by the time you realize there is a problem.

Thankfully, tracking additional customer satisfaction metrics can go a long way toward filling the gap and ensuring that you can keep a finger on the pulse of your customer base. Below, we'll explore the best customer satisfaction metrics to track so that you can optimize your customer support services and overall customer journey — before your customer loyalty takes a hit.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

12 customer satisfaction metrics to better understand sentiment

Along with CSAT and NPS, you can use numerous other metrics to gauge customer satisfaction. If you want to create a holistic picture of how happy customers are with your brand to inform your customer service management efforts, here are the 12 metrics that you should track and analyze.

1) Customer effort score (CES)

CES tells you how much effort your customers have to put in to get answers to their questions or resolve their support issues. 

By tracking this metric, you can identify high-effort customer experiences like long wait times when customers contact your call center or confusing responses from your support team. This gives you a great starting point so that you can address these obstacles that are inevitably harming customer satisfaction.

Customer effort is an extremely important indicator for the quality brand’s customer experience. Plus, it’s directly connected to your bottom line. 96% of high-effort experience drive customer disloyalty, according to The Effortless Experience. 

Formula for calculating CES

To measure CES, you will need to send customers CES surveys. These surveys ask customers to rate on a scale of one to ten how much effort they had to exert to get an answer to their question. To calculate your overall CES score, you will need to divide the total sum of all responses by the total number of all responses. 

CES = Total sum of responses / Total number of responses

2) Customer health score (CHS)

CHS is a metric largely employed by customer success teams to determine whether a customer is "healthy" or "at risk." 

This enables customer success teams to identify customers who are at risk of leaving the company so that you can make efforts to retain them. 

Unlike other customer satisfaction metrics, this metric is measured on a customer-by-customer basis rather than the average score of your entire customer base. This enables brands to utilize CHS to boost customer retention one customer at a time.

Formula for calculating CHS

There is no set formula for calculating CHS, and brands utilize a broad range of criteria to evaluate the health of individual customers. These criteria can also vary dramatically from industry to industry and even company to company. 

But for ecommerce stores, here are a few important factors to consider when determining whether a customer is healthy or at risk: 

• Customer survey results
• Contact rate with your support team
• Number of closed and open support tickets
• Social media involvement
• Email engagement rate

Especially for larger brands, we recommend creating a standard formula to measure customer health, and periodically measuring each customer (especially VIP customers) to proactively prevent customer churn. 

3) Customer lifetime value (CLTV)

The primary point of reducing churn and improving customer loyalty is to increase your average customer lifetime value. 

Attracting new customers is difficult and expensive, and when you succeed at bringing a new customer into the fold, you want them to spend as much money with your brand as possible. 

Lifetime value can indicate customer satisfaction because satisfied customers tend to spend more with companies they’re satisfied with. Continued spending and repeat purchases are a surer sign on satisfaction than any star rating could provide. 

Formula for calculating CLTV

CLTV =  Average purchase value x Average purchase frequency x Average customer lifespan

4) Customer churn rate (CCR)

Customer churn rate is the rate at which customers leave your company. For subscription-based online businesses, ecommerce churn rate is the rate at which people cancel subscriptions. For non-subscription-based companies, you can define churn as shoppers who fail to place a repeat order within some time frame (likely between one and six months, depending on your products and industry).

If your churn rate exceeds industry benchmarks, it almost certainly spells issues with your customer experience. 

Reducing churn goes hand in hand with improving customer loyalty (and thus boosting revenue via higher customer lifetime values). If you can keep a handle on churn rate, you’ll have concrete evidence about how customer satisfaction is impacting your repeat business.

Formula for calculating CCR

CCR is calculated over a specific period. To calculate your churn rate for a given period of time, you can use this formula: 

CCR  = (Number of customers at the beginning of the time period - Number of customers at the end of the time period) / Number of customers at the beginning of the time period

5) Internal quality score (IQS)

IQS measures the quality of each of your support team's tickets, according to your own internal standards. For instance, you may define a good ticket as a ticket that resolves the customer's issues, reflects your brand voice and values, and is responded to promptly. A bad ticket might be any ticket that falls short of these standards.

If you’re like most brand, your IQS will revolve around four main elements:

• Speed: Did the agent respond within the terms of your service-level agreement (SLA)?
• Correctness: Did the agent’s response adhere to your company’s relevant policies?
• Helpfulness: Did the agent full address the customer’s question (and practice forward resolution)?
• Friendliness: Did the agent maintain a positive tone and use the powerful phrases that adhere to your company’s style guide?

With an IQS, you can proactively identify where your customer support agents are currently improving satisfaction (or degrading it). 

Formula for calculating IQS

We don’t have a clear calculation for IQS because each brand’s is different. However, we recommend using a simple rubric, where a ticket gets a point for meeting each item on the rubric. 

This way, you can simply compare the quality of each ticket (or the average quality of each agent’s tickets). You’ll also get valuable information about the missing elements of each ticket, which can inform your customer service training.

6) First response time (FRT)

One thing that is sure to generate a lot of unhappy customers is making them wait a long time for answers to their questions. 90% of customers rate an immediate response as "important" or "very important" when they have a customer service question. 

Therefore, attempting to reduce your FRT is one of the first steps to take on the road to optimizing customer satisfaction. This starts with tracking your average FRT and comparing it against industry benchmarks.

Formula for calculating FRT

Depending on your helpdesk, you may never need to manually calculate first-reply time. For example, with Gorgias, you get first-response time broken down by agent, time period, ticket type, and more:

‍

To calculate your support team's average FRT, you can use this formula: 

FRT = Total first response times during the time period / Total number of resolved tickets during the time period 

📚Recommended reading: 7 tips to improve your customer service response times. 

7) Resolution time

It's important to respond to customer support tickets as fast as possible, but not all tickets can be resolved in a single response. 

While customers who have received an initial response to their ticket tend to have a little more patience when waiting for a resolution, that patience will only stretch so far. This makes it important to calculate and improve your average resolution time and FRT.

Formula for calculating resolution time

Just like first-response time, average resolution time isn’t normally something brands should spend time calculating. That’s why Gorgias users can see resolution time broken down by agent, time period, ticket type, and more:

Average resolution time = Total resolution times during the time period / Total number of resolved tickets during the time period 

8) First-contact resolution

While it's true that you can't resolve every ticket with a single response, it's still a great objective for support teams to strive for. Resolving a customer's issue in a single response typically means that the customer received swift and satisfactory assistance that required minimal effort on their part. Therefore, working to boost your first-contact resolution rate is sure to improve customer satisfaction.

Formula for calculating first-contact resolution

To get an accurate evaluation of your first-contact resolution rate, you should only consider tickets that are possible to resolve in a single response. Once you've identified the criteria for tickets that are FCR-eligible, you can use this formula to calculate your FCR rate: 

FCR = Number of support issues resolved on first contact / Total number of FCR-eligible support tickets

9) Self-service resolution rate

Enabling customers to resolve issues on their own without needing to contact your support team offers numerous benefits — like reducing agent workload and freeing them up to focus on more complex tickets. 

Additionally, it provides customers with helpful self-service options, which improves customer satisfaction by ensuring that customers can quickly find the answers they need. 

But to evaluate how effective your self-service options actually are, you'll need to track your self-service resolution rate. This metric tells you the rate at which customers can resolve issues on their own and can be used to gauge and improve the quality of your self-service resources, like your FAQ pages and Help Center.

Formula for calculating self-service resolution rate

Depending on your helpdesk, you may never need to manually calculate self-service resolution rate. With Gorgias, for example, you get detailed information about the usage of self-service resources on your site:

That said, you can calculate your self-service resolution rate using this formula: 

Self-service resolution rate = Number of sessions that customers initiate with your brand's knowledge base or other self-help resources / Number of support tickets your support team handles over the same period of time

📚Interested in helping your customers help themselves for a low-effort experience? Check out our VP of Success's guide to customer self-service.

10) Support performance score

Support performance score (created by Gorgias) is a metric that encapsulates the three most important elements of great customer service: speed, helpfulness, and customer satisfaction. 

To achieve this, the support performance score combines average first response time, average resolution time, and CSAT into a score that is on a scale of 1-5. 

Tracking this metric provides support teams with a comprehensive overview of their performance quality.

Formula for calculating support performance score

Support performance score is calculated using a series of FRT, CSAT, and resolution time thresholds. To reach the next rating level, you must meet each category's threshold. Here is an example of what these thresholds look like for FRT:

• Level 1 (poor): 13+ hours
• Level 2 (lagging): 12 hours
• Level 3 (fair): 6 hours
• Level 4 (strong): 1 hour
• Level 5 (exceptional) 10 minutes

11) Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) is the go-to customer support metric to understand customer sentiment around your brand and customer experience. Don’t get us wrong: We believe CSAT is one of the most important metrics. However, CSAT only gets measured after customers have a good or bad experience, making it a lagging indicator of customer sentiment.  

You can determine your CSAT score using customer satisfaction surveys. The survey questions should ask customers to rate their satisfaction with your company by choosing from one of four responses: very unsatisfied, unsatisfied, neutral, satisfied, and very satisfied. 

The ratio of customers who were either satisfied or very satisfied compared to the total number of customers who were unsatisfied or very unsatisfied is your brand's CSAT score.

While CSAT is certainly an important metric for ecommerce brands to measure and utilize, it isn't the end-all, be-all of tracking customer satisfaction. Brands that only track CSAT can encounter several limitations that can make it difficult to turn customer satisfaction results into business growth.

12) Net promoter score (NPS)

Net promoter score (NPS) is a metric that tells you how likely customers are to recommend your brand to friends, family members, and colleagues. If you want to improve your word-of-mouth advertising and start generating more referrals, NPS is the metric you will need to optimize.

Your NPS score can also provide insight into the overall satisfaction of your customer base. 

For one, NPS isn't quite as subjective and one-dimensional as CSAT, since it asks customers to rate their willingness to recommend your company on a scale of 0-10 rather than asking them a single question about their satisfaction. 

NPS is also more a measure of a customer's long-term satisfaction with your company, while CSAT surveys typically gauge a customer's short-term satisfaction with your product or service.

How to calculate NPS

NPS surveys gather feedback on how likely customers are to recommend your brand on a scale of 0-10. Customers who rate you at 0-6 are considered detractors; customers who rate 7-8 are passives, and customers who rate 9-10 are your promoters. 

To calculate NPS, you will need to calculate your promoters and detractors as percentages of your total number of survey responses. Then, subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. 

So, if you got 100 responses with 40 promoters and 30 detractors (the rest being passives), here's what your calculation would look like:

NPS = 40% promoters - 30% detractors

NPS = 10

Why CSAT isn't the only metric you need to measure customer satisfaction

‍CSAT is a vital benchmark for analyzing your brand's number of satisfied customers. However, here are the three most important reasons why CSAT alone is not enough:

CSAT is a lagging indicator

We've already mentioned that the CSAT score doesn't indicate an issue with the overall experience at your company until it's already too late, when you've already provided a poor experience to customers. 

This is an especially pressing issue when you consider that nearly a quarter of customers will switch to a competitor after a bad experience. Their CSAT results can help you improve the experience for future customers — but ideally, you don’t have to lose customers to get this information. 

Ideally, your set of metrics to understand customer satisfaction include ones that don't require angry customers to tell you that your customer experience could be improved.

CSAT is one-dimensional

CSAT tells you the ratio of customers who are satisfied with your brand compared to the number of unhappy customers, but it doesn't tell you anything about why your customer satisfaction levels are what they are.

Most CSAT surveys have a comment box, but customers rarely take the time to fill these out — especially with any meaningful level of detail. 

A more well-rounded collection of metrics will help you better pinpoint the reason for high or low satisfaction, without solely depending on an optional comment box. 

CSAT is subjective

Asking customers a single question about whether they are satisfied with their experience will yield highly subjective responses. 

For instance, a specific issue might cause one customer to state they are "very unsatisfied," while the same issue might prompt another customer to respond with "neutral." 

Plus, customers may complete the survey while annoyed, emotional, or tired — all of which could inflate (or minimze) the importance of an issue, skewing the insights. 

For these reasons, CSAT offers the most value when used in tandem with other important customer satisfaction metrics — and the first of these important metrics is net promoter score (NPS).

How to improve customer satisfaction by collecting (and using) customer feedback

Metrics such as CSAT, NPS, and CES are all forms of customer feedback that ecommerce merchants can use to improve customer satisfaction. But along with tracking these metrics, gathering more in-depth customer feedback can be highly helpful for informing your customer satisfaction efforts.

A few of the ways that ecommerce brands can go about collecting and utilizing valuable customer feedback include:

• Audit low-scoring tickets to look for themes.
• Reach out to low-scoring customers for in-depth feedback.
• Reduce ticket volume with automation and self-service to free agents to solve complex tickets.
• Activate instant messaging channels like SMS and live chat.

📚Recommended reading: Our Director of Support’s guide to implementing customer feedback into your product and customer experience. 

{{lead-magnet-2}}

Analyze customer satisfaction from all angles with Gorgias' dashboards

There are numerous metrics that support teams need to track to evaluate and improve customer satisfaction. Thankfully, Gorgias' best-in-class customer support platform makes tracking these metrics easier than ever before. With Gorgias' dashboards, you can:

• Automatically track key support performance metrics such as FTR and resolution rate
• Access revenue statistics to see how customer support is impacting your company's bottom line
• Live statistics that allow you to monitor agent performance in real-time
• Send customers automated customer satisfaction surveys

To get started utilizing these powerful tools to track and improve customer satisfaction, sign up for Gorgias today!

We reviewed 300 Shopify store owners and discovered that 50% used website pop-ups as their preferred customer engagement tool. This isn’t surprising since pop-ups can yield a conversion rate of between 3% and 11%, compared to the standard rate of around 2%.

But using pop-ups to get more conversions for your website requires more than just slapping a newsletter email signup pop-up window on your website. In fact, poor use of pop-ups can drive customers away.

High-converting pop-ups are built on some of the best apps and tick all the boxes on our pop-up checklist. Below, we’ll dive deeper into this checklist and provide you with our top picks for pop-up app software.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

11 ecommerce pop-up types and examples

If you spend any time on the internet, you’ve likely encountered a pop-up campaign at some point. You may have even seen one on your journey to this page! 

Pop-ups have come a long way over the last decade. Whereas they used to be aggressive annoyances, they are now significantly subtler and operate as invaluable sales and marketing tools. 

Here are some of the most popular types of pop-ups to consider using for your store with ecommerce pop-up examples for each.

📚 Read more: 13 Ecommerce Growth Tactics to Boost Revenue

1) Sign-up form pop-ups

Depending on your current digital marketing strategy, sign-ups can be useful for a number of goals. You can invite visitors to sign up for a newsletter, register for an event, or receive an exclusive discount. 

This lets you collect valuable customer information like email addresses and phone numbers that can be used for marketing efforts.

Offering something like a discount in exchange for an email subscription sign up is known as a “lead magnet.”

Example of a sign-up form pop-up

When customers visit swimwear brand Kulani Kinis ecommerce store, the first pop-up they see is a sign-up form. It also includes an enticing offer of a discount on a customer’s first order. And it’s all done with cute graphics that match Kulani Kinis’ branding.

Also note that the pop-up includes a line that says “By signing up you agree to receive email marketing.” This is required to comply with email marketing laws.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

2) Special offers and discounts

Those glossy pop-ups that appear and, for example, offer free shipping for orders over $xx or highlight a sale. 

These can be tailored to just about any offering your ecommerce brand wants to promote, and can even be turned into a game to attract more interest. 

Spin-the-wheel pop-ups that allow customers to “spin” to unlock their discount percentage is a fun way to interact with customers, and many enjoy the gamified experience.

You could also offer a post-purchase discount by offering one in exchange for a customer review on social media.

Example of an offer or discount pop-up

When shoppers visit Bagallery, they’re greeted by a large pop-up promoting an up to 60% discount and a link to “shop now.”

3) Exit pop-ups

If you’ve ever visited an ecommerce store and moved your mouse to navigate to another tab, you may have seen one of these pop-ups. 

Exit pop-ups trigger when customers try to leave your website or have left the tab idling and are a great way to grab a customer’s attention and convince them to go to checkout.

It’s smart to offer an incentive to stay, like a discount code if they follow through on the purchase. The goal here is to reduce cart abandonment.

Example of an exit pop-up

This is the pop-up that appears on Princess Polly, a women’s apparel ecommerce store.

It’s triggered when a potential customer has added items to their shopping cart but left them sitting. The pop-up entices those customers with 10% off if they follow through with the purchase.

4) Seasonal pop-ups

Around seasonal shopping holidays, you may have targeted products or categories you’re looking to highlight to customers.

A pop-up can be a great way to draw attention to those products. A great example would be gift sets or stocking stuffer ideas during the Christmas season, or spooky items around Halloween. This pop-up type helps customers find what they need faster.

These can also create a sense of urgency by promoting a limited-time deal that coincides with a holiday.

Example of a seasonal pop-up

Here’s an example from skincare brand Absolute Collagen. It appears once the customer has scrolled down the main landing page a bit and reminds them that the “countdown to Christmas is on.”

Clicking through brings customers to Absolute Collagen’s curated gift sets, which is exactly what a customer might be looking for just before Christmas.

5) Upsell pop-ups

Upsell pop-ups suggest additional products a customer may want to add to their cart based on what they’ve already added. It typically pop ups right after an item has been added to the cart.

It’s important that these pop-ups are related to what customers have already been shopping for. It just doesn’t make sense, for example, to suggest purchasing a piece of cookware to someone who just bought a beauty product.

Product value also plays a role. If someone has just added a $25 product to their cart, it’s unlikely you can upsell them on a $100 product. The upsell product should be a cheaper product related to their original product choice.

Example of an upsell pop-up

Uqora is an ecommerce store that sells over-the-counter products for urinary health, targeted at women.

After adding their “Flush” product, shoppers get a pop-up suggesting their pH-balanced vulva cleanser for $10. This is a great example because the upsell product is inexpensive and targets site visitors already showing interest in health products.

📚 Read more: 11 Best Practices for Ecommerce Upselling

6) Chat campaigns

An unobtrusive chat pop-up tells shoppers that customer service is ready and waiting for their questions or concerns.

We’ll dig more into chat pop-ups later on, but they can be used for more than just offering help. They can be a spot to offer discounts, promote sales or products, or act as a personal stylist.

Example of a chat pop-up

Jewelry brand Jaxxon uses a chat pop-up to offer customer service as well as styling advice.

Powered by Gorgias, Jaxxon’s chat pop-up appears subtly in the bottom right corner of premium product pages, offering unique styling services. This is just one example of how you can use chat campaigns to spark conversation and increase conversions:

7) New arrivals pop-ups

When you launch a new product, a pop-up is a great way to get some eyeballs on it. 

These pop-ups are especially important for your loyal, returning visitors to show them something new and exciting.

Example of a new product pop-up

This is a pop-up that appears on the homepage of Lillie Q, a BBQ sauce brand. It highlights their new tender sauces and also includes a button to see other new releases.

8) Local currency redirect pop-ups

Customers will always prefer to shop in their local currency, if available. According to Shopify, 17% of shoppers will abandon a cart if they can’t determine the total cost up front. Having to convert currencies makes it more difficult to determine that cost.

If your ecommerce store is equipped to offer local currency prices, or has multiple sites to offer a localized experience, a pop-up can redirect international customers. 

Example of a local currency redirect pop-up

Crossnet is a sports equipment ecommerce store based in the US. However, when a customer visits from Canada they get a pop-up directing them to shop from the Canadian store in Canadian dollars.

This pop-up appears as soon as a Canadian customer visits, so their entire shopping experience can be in local currency.

📚 Read more: Reduce and Recover Shopify Cart Abandonment: 17 Tips & Tools

9) Loyalty program pop-ups

If you have an active loyalty program for your ecommerce store that earns customers points or other perks, a pop-up can prompt them to sign up.

Having a loyalty pop-up come up early tells customers before they even make a purchase that they’ll earn something when they do convert. This is another opportunity to capture email subscribers for email marketing campaigns.

Example of a loyalty program pop-up

Campus Protein is a supplement ecommerce store targeted at college students. When first visiting the site, a pop-up appears in the bottom left corner prompting new visitors to join their loyalty program and “unlock rewards.”

Clicking through takes customers to a page to create an account on the site and start earning Campus Protein points.

10) Giveaway pop-ups

A giveaway or other offer can pull double duty. First, they entice customers to stay on the site, similar to an exit pop-up. They’re also another way to collect information such as emails.

These are best employed after a potential customer has already been on the site for some time, as a way to keep them browsing.

Example of a giveaway pop-up

This is an example from Darn Good Yarn, an ecommerce store that specializes in ethically-sourced fiber.

It triggers when the site senses a potential customer is going to leave and offers a chance to win a $250 gift card. Not only is the offer enticing, but it’s an opportunity to collect emails for marketing.

11) Bundle pop-ups

This is a type of upsell that recommends bundling an item added to a customer’s cart with other products to create a discounted bundle. This is useful if you have products that can be worn or used together.

It’s an opportunity to add another product to a customer’s cart but also give a styling or utilization recommendation. It’s also a more customized type of pop-up because the product recommendation is directly related to something the customer already wants to purchase.

Example of a bundle pop-up

On the Jaxxon website, there are products in similar styles that look great when worn together.

In this case, when a customer adds the Cuban Link Bracelet to their cart, the pop-up recommends upgrading to the Cuban Essentials Set, which includes a matching necklace, at a discounted price.

Risks of pop-ups in ecommerce

Pop-ups have a ton of uses and are a proven conversion tool, so the temptation is there to use them as much as possible. However, that would be a huge mistake.

Pop-ups are only useful if they’re used smartly, sparingly, and with purpose.

The short-term conversion win will be harmed if they’re overused, hurting:

• Brand image
• Repeat business and loyalty
• Site performance

It’s vital that your pop-up choices do more harm than good so here are some of the risks of employing a pop-up strategy.

Pop-ups annoy customers

This might seem obvious but it can’t be understated: Customers simply aren’t fans of pop-ups. There’s a reason ad and pop-up blockers are popular browser add-ons.

Even with your best intentions, pop-ups interrupt the shopping experience. If a customer came to your ecommerce website looking for a particular product or just to browse, their first choice is not to have that experience intruded upon by a pop-up.

G2 conducted a poll and found that an overwhelming 82% of customers said they “hate” pop-ups asking with an email capture. In particular, 45.6% said they dislike how pop-ups seem to be “everywhere” and 28.6% disliked how they appear right away.

While 72% said there was nothing that makes pop-ups better, 11.9% said a discount offer helps reduce their displeasure.

Pop-ups can harm load speed

Adding pop-ups to your ecommerce site usually means adding additional apps or other tech, which can impact how quickly your site loads. Each additional pop-up can mean a slower load speed and higher bounce rate.

Load speed is a vital part of your ecommerce website. Data from Portent shows that conversion rates are highest at a 1-second load time and drop from there. Ecommerce retailers should aim for a load time of between 1 and 4 seconds, more than that seriously hurts conversion. 

Plus, according to Unbounce, 45.4% of shoppers are less likely to make a purchase if the site loads slowly, and 36.8% are less likely to return to that ecommerce store. 

Pop-ups can hurt your SEO strategy

Customers aren’t too fond of pop-ups, and neither is Google.

Since at least 2016, Google has been penalizing the most intrusive types of pop-ups, especially for users on mobile. In particular, Google doesn’t like pop-ups that appear right away and fill the whole screen and need to be closed before the website can be accessed.

That doesn’t mean pop-ups are a complete no-go. You can appease Google by:

• Disabling pop-ups on mobile
• Having a delay before pop-ups appear
• Keep pop-ups small an unobtrusive
• Disable pop-ups for customers coming in through Google search results

📚 Recommended reading: Our guide to Shopify search engine optimization (SEO).

Pop-ups can overlap

If a single pop-up can turn off a potential customer, several overlapping pop-ups is much worse.

In addition to the load time issues, competing pop-ups is just a bad user experience. There are more pop-ups than ever now when you consider prompts to accept cookies or other privacy provisions and browser pop-ups like requests to allow notifications.

This is compounded when a customer is on mobile, because there’s even less space and a higher likelihood of overlap.

Be mindful of what pop-ups are showing up by default and time pop-ups so only one is appearing at any one time.

Ecommerce pop-up best practices checklist

At the most basic level, a pop-up provides a call-to-action that entices potential customers. The right type of pop-up can increase your ecommerce store’s conversion rate, but this is only possible if you check off all six items on the checklist below.

1) Entice buyers with a value add

The offer you present in your pop-up should be useful to your target buyers. But the only way for you to create the right offer is to truly get to know who your buyers are and what interests them.

Say you create a pop-up to collect email addresses from web visitors. If the pop-up doesn’t have an incentive, there’s no “what’s in it for me?” for the target buyer.

We’d recommend modifying pop-up to present the buyer with a chance to win something. Providing a clearer incentive for customers is a much better way to improve the conversion rate of your pop-up.

📚 Read more: Ecommerce CRO: Increase Conversion Rate with A/B Testing and Optimization

2) Keep pop-ups short and sweet (like these pop-up examples)

The wording of your pop-up copy depends on both your offer and the type of pop-up you‘re using (exit pop-up, sales pop-up, discount pop-up, etc.). Regardless of the type of pop-up you use, it should follow what we call the SIP rule: short, impactful, and precise.

Here’s a fun example from United By Blue, a Shopify store that sells clothing and accessories. The pop-up is a wheel you can spin to get a special offer.

We received a 15% off offer after spinning the wheel, but take a closer look at the wording on this pop-up.

The headline makes the offer clear:

• The website visitor can then choose men’s clothing, women’s clothing, or both. Giving website visitors this choice helps with audience segmentation so that future offers are relevant to the user.

• There’s a prompt to input an email address which is followed by a clear CTA that once again reminds the website visitor of the precise offer.

Here’s another example from BLK & Bold, a Shopify store that sells specialty coffee.

• The headline clearly states the value of the offer — a 15% discount on the buyer’s first order.
• The short text that follows further explains the value of signing up for their email list — the buyer will receive exclusive offers via email.

Short. Impactful. Precise.

Note: Your pop-ups should always provide a clear option for people to opt in to receive newsletters and promotional emails from your brand. Otherwise, you run the risk of breaching data protection laws such as the GDPR.

3) Create a compelling image

The team at Drip analyzed over 1 billion pop-ups and discovered that pop-ups with images convert better than pop-ups without images by 83.57%. Images used for online store pop-ups should either showcase the brand’s products in an interesting way or paint a picture of what the website visitor wants to achieve after using the product.

Let’s look at an example from Fresh Heritage, a Shopify store that sells grooming products and supplements.

The image used here features a man with a well-groomed beard — something Fresh Heritage's customers would want to achieve for themselves.

Here’s another example of creative use of imagery:

Here, Mavi uses a pop-up bar with a visual that stands out and provides depth.

The bottom line is that relevant images make your pop-ups stand out more and entice potential buyers to sign up for your offer.

4) Time your pop-up so that it isn’t intrusive

The same Drip study referenced above finds that pop-ups that display after eight seconds convert better than those that display before or after. However, remember that the timing of the pop-up itself won’t necessarily boost conversions for your ecommerce store — that largely depends on how well you can check off the boxes on this list.

There are also pop-ups that appear based on scroll triggers. The Drip study reveals that using 35% of a page as a scroll trigger works best for increasing conversion rates.

You can use the suggestions that the Drip study provides as your baseline, but conversion rates depend heavily on the nuances of your brand and the customers you serve. It’s best to do A/B testing so that you can optimize your pop-ups based on what works for your business.

5) Make sure your pop-up works well on mobile

Pop-ups convert better on mobile devices than they do on desktop devices. In a study conducted by OptiMonk, the average conversion rate for desktop pop-ups was 9.69% while the average conversion rate for mobile pop-ups was 11.07%. But there’s a catch: Mobile pop-ups only convert well when they’re optimized for use on those devices.

Here are some tips to optimize your pop-ups for mobile devices:

• Ensure the pop-up doesn’t cover more than 30% of the page.
• Use only one or two pop-up form fields.
• Use the best types of pop-ups for mobile devices. Three of the best options are the floating pop-up, slidebox pop-up, and featured pop-up.
• Make it easy for the website visitor to close the pop-up.
• Ensure the CTA button and exit button are easy to click.
• Limit image sizes to less than 100KB (or don’t use images at all).

Here’s an example of a mobile-friendly pop-up from Romwe that incorporates these principles:

6) Create different pop-ups for different actions and events

Don’t limit yourself to one type of pop-up. It’s best to strategically use pop-ups throughout your website so that you can better capture your website visitors’ data. A typical shopping experience includes multiple opportunities to display pop-ups. Here are a few examples:

• Display a simple email bar on the homepage.
• Create a specific exit-intent pop-up for visitors exiting a product page that offers a discount.
• Create a pop-up that appears only on out-of-stock items to encourage your visitors to subscribe to your restock alerts.
• Create a cart abandonment pop-up on the cart page.

Here’s an example of this strategy in action on the Christy Dawn website. Notice that the website displays an email bar on the first page a visitor views.

original And if this visitor doesn’t subscribe, the store displays this complementary pop-up (you’ll notice the different wording) on out-of-stock product pages.

Note: Be sure not to display pop-ups on every page of your website. This creates an intrusive experience for website visitors — and that‘s something that search engines will penalize you for.

Related: Learn how to climb search results with our Shopify SEO guide

The 7 best Shopify pop-up apps

The pop-up checklist described above is only as good as the app used to create the pop-ups. Here are our picks for some of the best pop-up builder apps on the market to add to your ecommerce tech stack — all available in the Shopify app store.

1) SmartPopup: Promotion Popup

SmartPopup is a user-friendly pop-up builder designed to help ecommerce store owners connect with website visitors, contribute to lead generation, and increase sales. The tool has a great collection of prebuilt pop-up templates that make the setup process easy: newsletters, videos, coupon codes, product-specific, countdown timers, and automatic discounts.

Pros

• Offers a truly free plan with basic features
• Fast setup
• Customizable for those familiar with code

Cons

• Some reports of problems with the tool’s mobile version
• Free plan features are limited
• Reported issues with late or unhelpful responses from support

2) Pixelpop Popups & Banners

Pixelpop is a tool built by Orbit. Like other email pop-up tools, Pixelpop helps brands collect email addresses from leads so they can be nurtured through your brand’s email marketing campaigns.

Pros

• Pixel Union offers premium customer support
• Easy-to-use promotional bar
• Intuitive and customizable

Cons

• Some reports of slow responses from customer support
• Overly complicated for some users; support needed to use custom themes
• Klaviyo integration doesn’t work for some users

Related: Our list of 150+ of the best tools for ecommerce.

3) Quick Announcement Bar

Quick Announcement Bar is a message bar app that Shopify store owners can use to quickly post announcements on their websites — no coding required. Broadcast a free shipping bar, or a bar that displays important information and special offers.

Pros

• Bars can be set to display only on certain pages, or only to users from specific countries
• Multiple bar rotation allows multiple bars to display every few seconds
• Animated CTA button to grab visitor’s attention
• Multiple language translations available

Cons

• Only one pop-up option (the announcement bar)
• Placement limitations

4) Pop! Sales & Live Activity Pop

Pop! Sales & Live Activity Pop creates automatic sales notification pop-up windows that make your store look busy without obstructing the customer experience. It’s great for building trust with prospects who are on the fence about purchasing a product — seeing that someone else recently purchased something triggers a fear of missing out (FOMO).

Pros

• Shows real-time purchases to help boost conversion rates and social proof
• Customizable designs and advanced CSS in paid plans for easy, consistent branding
• Quick, smooth setup process

Cons

• Not great for new sellers with low traffic (you will be charged if you go over 100 web visitors a month, whether it’s real people or bots)
• Multiple reports of unauthorized charges
• Slow responses from customer support

5) Promolayer

Promolayer doesn’t only offer basic pop-up templates — there’s a full suite of exciting options that will help your website stand out such as banners, spin-to-wins, full screen welcome mats, exit offers, and slide-ins.

Pros

• Easy to customize
• Ability to run A/B tests without affecting Google Optimize data
• Built-in spellchecker to ensure your pop-ups are well represented

Cons

• Reports of some minor glitches, but the main pop-ups work well

6) Email Pop Ups & Exit Popups

Email Pop Ups & Exit Popups by OptiMonk is a pop-up app that focuses on helping Shopify store owners grow and meet their goals. With this app, you can build intuitive and attractive pop-ups for web and mobile that help you convert more visitors and collect quality feedback along the way.

Pros

• Quick and professional customer service
• Over 30 intelligent targeting and triggering options
• A/B testing
• Free version available

Cons

• Hard to customize without a developer, support, or coding experience
• No customization options on spin-the-wheel function
• Somewhat confusing setup process

Pricing

• Free: Free
• Essential: $29/month
• Growth: $79/month
• Premium: $199/month

7) Privy

Privy is an ecommerce marketing platform that helps ecommerce store owners manage their marketing with ease. One of the best features of this platform is that it incorporates both SMS and email marketing.

Pros

• Simple to setup and track SMS marketing
• Easily build automation triggers based on website visitor behavior
• Great for sending messages to customers for abandoned cart recovery

Cons

• Complaints of limited reporting capabilities
• Have to export data to assess how email campaigns are performing
• More complicated than some alternatives; users report a bit of a learning curve
• Not many options for post-purchase emailing

📚 Read more: Our list of the best apps for Shopify merchants.

Chat campaigns: A less intrusive conversion tool

If a pop-up is a perfume counter employee suddenly spraying you with the latest scent, a chat campaign is a clerk tactfully approaching to see if you need any assistance. 

Gorgias’ pop-up chat campaigns are a softer way to interact with customers that don’t feel intrusive the way a full-screen pop-up does. With Gorgias’ chat campaigns , you can reach out to customers to proactively ask for support: “What can I help you with?”

Chat campaigns are a non-intrusive pop-up that appear at the bottom corner of the screen and offer help, rather than a hard sell. Gorgias customers report they can lift revenue by 13% and conversion rates by 25 to 30%.

You can set up chat campaigns that reach out to customers at key moments. For example, if a customer lingers on a product page, you can send them a discount code. If they linger with items in their cart, your chat could remind them that you have free shipping.

How ecommerce chat campaigns work

Chat campaigns can be set to active when a customer visits a particular product page, or when a certain amount of time has lapsed, or both.

When activated, the chat pops up with a message of your choosing, whether that’s an announcement, a discount, or an offer of support. When a customer replies, that’s sent directly to your customer support team in Gorgias’ helpdesk.

Chat campaigns are easy to set up in Gorgias by navigating to Settings, then Integrations, and clicking Chat. Adding a new campaign allows you to customize when the chat is fired and what message customers will see.

If a customer does respond and creates a ticket, Gorgias helps you set up Rules to determine priority level for your customer service agents.

In addition, the chat button can be programmed so when a customer clicks, they get automated self-serve options such as tracking their order, canceling an order, or filing a ticket.

Examples of chat campaigns

There are several ways to implement chat campaigns so we’ll go over some examples of chat pop-ups in action.

Spark conversion around specific products

The chat campaign can be used to give specific products a boost or offer help. For example, if your core product is shoes, the chat campaign could pop up with advice on sizing.

Think of it as another space for frequently asked questions. Using the pop-up, you can satisfy those questions without the customer having to go looking for answers themselves, or file a ticket.

Here’s an example from Franklin, a French pet food brand. They programmed chat campaigns to appear on product pages for specialized foods, so shoppers can ask questions and make sure they’re buying the right product.

Share limited-time offers and product-specific discounts

Traditional pop-ups are one way to announce an offer or sale, but a chat campaign can do this as well, in a more friendly way.

A chat campaign message with a special offer feels more exclusive than a flashy pop-up and can be customized for individual products, for example offering a percentage off your best-selling item.

Capture high-value customers

Let’s go back to Jaxxon for an example of how to get the attention of customers browsing your best-selling products.

When a customer clicks to view Jaxxon’s Cuban Link Chain, their top gold chain under $100, the chat campaign pops up to help. The campaign offers a list of styles under $100 and a style quiz.

Neither of these are hard sells but ways to engage the customer and help them find just the right product. From here, customers can click the links to type to reply and speak to customer support.

Why chat campaigns are better

Pop-ups are risky business. Although they can lead to conversions, pop-ups that are intrusive can turn customers away. A chat campaign is a solution that combines all the useful parts of pop-ups with excellent customer service and a gentler approach.

Chat campaigns:

• Are small, unobtrusive, and take up less screen space
• Less invasive with a time delay
• Employ a less aggressive sales approach
• Are fully customizable to target particular products
• Provide a direct path to human interaction
• Have a wide variety of use cases
• Are SEO-friendly

Boost your conversions with Gorgias chat campaigns

There’s a lot of ways to improve your ecommerce store’s conversion rate and chat campaigns are a proven method to do just that.

Chat campaigns are fully integrated into the Gorgias helpdesk, with your live chat and campaign options all available in one place. Plus, with the ability to bring in a customer’s unique information and order history, you can provide a truly custom customer experience.

Learn more about how Gorgias can help you provide amazing customer experiences.

You can — and should — prepare for these mishaps with a library of apology email templates. A timely apology email builds trust, prevents churn, improves your retention rate, protects your bottom line, and keeps your company name in good standing.

According to KPMG, 46% of customers who are truly loyal to a brand will remain so even after a negative experience. They’re also far more likely to recommend a brand to friends and family or write a positive review online. 

An effective apology email is your best bet to regain and reinforce customer loyalty after an error or delay. And loyal customers are closely linked to revenue. According to data from more than 10,000 Gorgias merchants, repeat customers generate 300% more revenue than first-time customers.

Continue reading to learn the key components that every effective and sincere apology email should have, as well as some dos and don’ts, to keep customers on your side.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

How to write customer service apology emails (the dos and don’ts)

Apologies can repair the situation or make it worse. If you bungle the apology, you risk losing a customer forever. But a well-executed apology can strengthen your relationship with a customer, as Brianna Christiano, Gorgias's Director of Support, explains.

 “In my experience, proactively sending an apology email and admitting that maybe you made a mistake as a company, or you didn't provide the best experience, really builds trust with customers,” says Christiano. “You'd be surprised how many customers will forgive you for that mistake.”

This list will prepare you for creating your own customer service apology emails to make sure you correct the situation without making it worse.

Do: Create a library of brand-appropriate apology email templates

When a mistake happens, you don’t want to be left scrambling. Being prepared ahead of time with email templates will allow you to send out on-brand apology emails and correct the mistake as quickly as possible. 

It’s also critical that everyone on your customer support team has access to those templates. Make this part of your customer service training and onboarding to ensure that every customer is receiving the same level of care when an apology needs to happen.

With Macros, Gorgias customers can build a library of customer service responses, including apologies, to send as emails to customers. You can respond directly to tickets in your helpdesk using these Macros and ensure consistent messaging (and the right customer service words), no matter who responds. 

Macros are templates that you build for common ticket responses, such as shipping inquiries or apologies, that can be further customized with individual customer information.

Macros integrate with ecommerce platforms (like Shopify or BigCommerce) so you can insert personalized information for each customer. Here’s an example of how Macros use variables to pull customer data directly from BigCommerce (in this case) and automatically personalize the message:  

Don’t: Wait to apologize

Speed is of the essence when it’s time to send a customer apology email. You should send an apology as soon as you see something has gone wrong, rather than waiting for a customer complaint to come in.

Frustrating or negative customer experiences decrease loyalty. According to The Effortless Experience, 96% of high-effort experiences — such as having to contact the company — make the customer feel disloyal afterward. Frustrated customers can easily turn into angry customers. 

“Instead, you're reducing the escalation upfront by being proactive,” says Christiano. “When the company sends an email about an issue the customer didn’t notice, customers appreciate that the company has gone above and beyond.”

Gorgias analyzes incoming tickets for sentiment to detect angry and escalated customers so you can address them before they take their anger out on social media and cause further damage.

You can then apply rules (or automation) to filter tickets based on sentiment and prioritize your customer responses.

Do: Personalize the apology to each customer based on past interactions

A personal apology is always a more sincere apology. When you create your templates for customer apology emails, leave spots to insert personalized information about the affected customer, from the customer’s name to more detailed order information.

You can get even more detailed than that, though. Using Gorgias’ Customer Sidebar feature, your customer success or support team can see information in the sidebar such as:

• Past orders
• Reviews
• Loyalty status and points
• Previous conversations

For example, you could thank a customer for a past review (“Thanks so much for your kind words about our matcha powder!”), or reference a past order (“How did you like the matcha powder you ordered last month?”).

Or, go above and beyond ("Again, so sorry for this issue. I noticed you're a frequent shopper here and I want to thank you for your business and patience as we sort this out — here's a discount code for 15% off your next order: SORRY15!").

If you see a customer has left a negative comment in the past, mention it and tell them how that feedback has helped your brand to correct the issue and provide better service.

Taking the time to personalize customer interactions, including apology emails, directly impacts your revenue. According to a study by Twilio, 98% of companies say personalization increases customer loyalty. Additionally, customers around the world spend an average of 46% more when engagement is personalized. 

Don’t: Send your email to unaffected customers

Being proactive with your apology letters is important, but you can also go too far. Sending these emails to customers who haven’t actually been affected by the issue will just create more headaches for your customer support reps.

“Before you send a mass email to 50,000 customers, make sure that most of those people were impacted. Because if you don't, you're going to create more confusion,” says Christiano. 

If, for example, you’re having supply issues, don’t send a mass email to every single customer. Those whose orders are actually unaffected will now think there’s a problem with their orders even if there’s not. That’s going to mean more incoming and unnecessary tickets for you to deal with. 

Do: Maintain a tone that reflects your brand but also the severity of the mistake

Every company has a different brand identity and style of communication. For some, it may be on-brand to send communications with emojis and playful wording. Others may prefer something more simple and elegant. In any case, you may need to adjust that voice for customer apology letters.

This starts right from the subject line. If a customer’s order is delayed, whether due to shipping issues or stock shortages, that’s a serious issue. Sending a subject line with cutesy wording like “oops” and frowning emojis may communicate that you’re not taking the delay seriously.

“If it's a small inconvenience, I think you can keep it lighter. It really just depends on the severity of the problem,” says Christiano. 

Here’s an example of a small mistake that justifies a light-hearted tone:

And here’s an example of a graver issue, handled with more detail and a serious tone:

In the body of the email, use straightforward language that clearly acknowledges the problem rather than dancing around the issue and directly communicate how you’ve corrected the mistake. 

Again, this is where creating personalized email apologies comes in. Christiano says you should look at factors like:

• The price point of an order
• The customer’s order history
• The customer’s VIP or loyalty status
• The tone of past reviews and conversations

Adjust the templates below to fit with your brand’s unique voice, but don’t forget that the wrong tone can make an apology email less effective.

Don’t: Leave the customer empty handed

A sincere apology to your customers should directly acknowledge the issue, take full responsibility, tell them what steps are being done to correct it, and give them a reason to come back and shop again.

Consider ending apology letters with some sort of offer — a voucher code for free shipping, a discount coupon code, store credit, or other perks. This demonstrates that you understand the customer has dealt with an inconvenience and you want to make it up to them beyond sending your “sincerest apologies.”

Christiano says it’s a good rule of thumb that if an issue is serious enough that you need to send an apology email, it’s worth considering including some sort of offer. For the most serious issues, you may even want to offer a full refund to retain that customer.

Here’s a great example of a mass email apology that extends the discount for goodwill (and more sales):

Don’t think of offering a coupon code as a further loss. It’s better to take a small hit on the next purchase than to not get the next order at all. Plus, an angry customer may leave negative reviews on your site or social media, driving away other potential customers and impacting your customer satisfaction (CSAT) score. 

10 apology email templates for every type of mishap

Below you’ll find useful email templates for every type of apology you may have to send as a brand. These apology email examples have spaces for you to insert personalized information for each customer, such as the customer’s name and shopping history. Use these as a starting point to craft your own letter templates.

1) Service or website outage or downtime (mass email)

This template is for when you’ve had site-wide technical issues or glitch that has impacted your entire customer base. Mass emails are less customized than individual emails, but should still contain all the key parts of a good apology.

Hi {{Customer first name}},

We’re currently experiencing a service outage for {{Website / Product / Service}}. We’re actively working on resolving the issue, which we believe is due to {{Reason for outage}}. We apologize for the inconvenience and assure you we’ll have everything up and running as quickly as possible.

Stay tuned at {{Website / Social media page}} for the latest updates.

Thanks, 

{{Current agent first name}}

2) Late shipment or delivery (individual)

This is for when a customer’s order will be sent out late. This is when you should consider how to tailor your apology letter to the unique customer and their history with your brand.

Hi {{Customer First Name}},

We regret to inform you that your order {{order number}} has been delayed.

We apologize for any inconvenience, and we appreciate your understanding. The reason for the delay is {{reason for the delay}}.

You can track the status of your order using this tracking link {{Link to tracking portal}}.

If you’d like to return or exchange your order, you can do so here {{Link to return/exchange portal}}.

Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience. Please let us know if you have any questions or can provide further assistance. 

Best,

{{Current agent first name}}

3) Late shipment or delivery (mass email)

This is for when you have a company-wide issue with delivery times, such as stock shortages or even shipping issues beyond your control, and need to send a mass apology email.

Hi {{Customer First Name}},

We’re reaching out to let you know that we’re currently experiencing shipment delays, largely due to {{Cause (e.g. supply chain issues, holiday rush, broken workflows, etc.}}. There will most likely be delays of {{range of business days}} on recent orders.

We understand this is a serious issue and are doing everything in our power to fulfill your orders as quickly as possible. For more information on shipping delays, you can check out {{link to FAQ page}}. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to our team by responding to this email.

Best,

{{Current agent first name}}

4) Package never arrived

This is a customer whose order has been lost This will likely be sent in response to an incoming ticket from an upset customer.

Hi {{Customer First Name}},

Thank you for reaching out! I’m so sorry to hear that you were unable to locate the missing package. Rest assured we will remedy this situation for you. 

I have two options to offer: we can ship a replacement to you or issue a full refund for the order instead. If you prefer a replacement order, we kindly ask that you confirm the shipping address of where you would like the replacement order sent. We look forward to receiving your reply.

{{Current agent first name}}

5) Item arrived damaged

This is for when a customer receives a defective product. You’ll need to provide instructions on what the customer should do next, in addition to an apology. 

Hi {{Customer First Name}}, 

Thanks for reaching out about your recent order {{Number of last order}}. I’m sorry to hear about your experience. As we try our best to provide exceptional service, some factors like shipping and handling are out of our control and issues like this can happen.  

Please send us a photo of the broken/damaged item(s) you received and we’ll do our best to resolve this as soon as possible. 

{{Current agent first name}} 

6) Incorrect item delivered

If the incorrect item, or incorrect quantity of an item, is delivered you’ll need to apologize but also tell the customer what they should do with any incorrect items.

Hi {{Customer First Name}},
‍
Thank you for letting us know we sent you the wrong product. We apologize for the inconvenience. We are sending you the correct product, the {{correct product name}} and it will be shipped by {{estimated shipping date}}. 

We sent it using expedited shipping, so you should receive it {{estimated delivery date}}. Please return {{old product}} in the original shipping box and packaging using the attached shipping label and instructions. Please contact us with any additional questions. 

{{Current agent first name}}

7) Previous communication mistake

If you sent a piece of email marketing with an incorrect or missing discount code, for example, you should follow up with an apology and correction. And, if it’s not too complicated, explain what caused the miscommunication in the first place, and the steps you’ve taken to prevent it from happening again. 

Hi {{Customer First Name}},

On {{day of the communication mistake}}, we experienced a hiccup with {{cause of the error}}. This resulted in you receiving a confusing email — sorry about that!

We addressed the issue and hope to avoid this happening in the future. As a way to apologize for any confusion caused by the last email, we {{Insert policy: temporary discount, free shipping, personalized code, added a credit, etc..}}. 

Thank you for understanding. Please respond to this email with any questions!

Best,

{{Current agent first name}} 

8) Reply to a bad customer review

When a customer is upset, a professional apology can go a long way to correcting the issue and retaining their business.

{{Customer First Name}},

Thanks so much for your feedback on {{Customer survey, review site, etc.}}.

I wanted to check in and get a little more information from you about your experience. This will help our team improve future experiences for you and other shoppers. If you’re open to it, you can just reply to this email and share your thoughts.

Thanks for your time, 

{{Current agent first name}}

9) Poor service experience

As we’ve discussed, poor customer experience can decrease loyalty. Correcting the issue and apologizing can help get that loyalty back.

Hi {{Customer first name}},

Thank you for reaching out and letting us know about your experience with us. This is not up to our standard and I've passed this along to our team to ensure this doesn't happen again. 

In addition, I've {{Insert policy: refund, added a credit, send a replacement, etc.}} to make this right. 

We truly value you as a customer and apologize for the inconvenience this caused.

Please let me know if I can help with anything else.

{{Current agent first name}}

10) Escalated customer

If a customer is already escalated, you need to have an apology email that reflects how the customer feels. Unhappy customers can cause lots of damage beyond lost business, including damage to your reputation through social posting and reviews.

Hi {{Customer first name}},

Thank you for reaching out and letting us know about your experience with us. This is not up to our standard and I've passed this along to our team to ensure this doesn't happen again.

I have CC’d {{Technical/Lead agent first name}} on this email. They will be able to figure out what happened here and ensure that we resolve this for you. 

{{Current agent first name}}

Winning back upset customers is worth it

When mistakes happen, remember that your most valuable customers are the ones who come back again and again. Mistakes create a risk of losing a customer, but it’s also an opportunity to rebuild loyalty and turn a bad situation into a chance for a positive customer service interaction.

Your customer service team should have a clear process in place for winning back upset customers and having a thorough library of sincere, on-brand customer apology emails is a key piece of the process. 

For further reading on customer responses, read about Gorgias’ other customer email templates and customer service scripts inspired by top ecommerce brands.

Start a demo with Gorgias today to streamline your customer responses and get the best possible return on investment with customer service.Mistakes happen. Even with the best-laid plans, your ecommerce business will inevitably run into shipping delays, website outages, and other mishaps that cause customer complaints.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

The trick to ecommerce is having great products and attracting a bunch of people to your website. Right? Not quite. 

Great products and brand awareness are important, but so are all the little details that make up your website’s shopping experience. Everything — from the way your products are categorized to the live chat widget (or lack thereof) — impacts how successfully you can turn browsers into buyers, also known as your site’s conversion rate. One of the most important of those elements is your online store’s shopping cart. 

In this article, we’ll explore everything that happens after a website visitor clicks “Add to cart,” including the reasons customers abandon carts and 14 shopping cart best practices to encourage customers to keep shopping and place an order.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

How damaging is cart abandonment for your brand’s revenue?

Shopping cart abandonment is when a customer adds items to their shopping cart on your website, but leaves before making the purchase. Recent data from the Baymard Institute shows that the average shopping cart abandonment rate is 69.82%. This means that about seven out of every 10 shoppers at your store will not click “purchase.” 

Baymard also crunched the numbers to find out that companies across the U.S. and Europe collectively lost out on $260 billion worth of revenue due to cart abandonment. This revenue could be recovered through a stronger checkout flow and cart design. 

What causes shoppers to abandon shopping carts?

The next layer of navigating how to address checkout abandonment issues revolves around reasons for abandonment, which run the gamut. Baymard’s research reveals the top reasons for cart abandonment:

Let’s dive into some of the top reasons.

Multi-step checkout processes 

A checkout process that requires the customer to go through multiple steps is one reason that customers abandoned their carts, as cited by the Baymard survey from late 2021. Of those surveyed, 17% say that they didn’t complete their purchase because the process was “too long or complicated.” 

It’s vital to get your shoppers to quickly find a checkout button that actually completes the purchase, in as few clicks and screens as possible. 

Gated checkout processes

If you require customers to create an account before checking out, you’re most likely losing some of them before checkout. Simply put, people don’t want to be forced into creating an account (that will most likely lead to emails they do not care for in their inbox) just to purchase a product from your company. In the Baymard study, 24% of consumers report “the site wanted me to create an account” as their top reason for abandoning during checkout. 

Even if customers do comply and create an account, they may be annoyed or frustrated by having to do so — which your company should avoid at all costs in order to ensure an excellent customer experience. 

Not enough payment options (or missing convenient options)

Another reason for cart abandonment cited in the Baymard survey was “not enough payment methods.” This could mean that an ecommerce company doesn’t accept certain credit cards or other payment options like PayPal.

When your online store accepts multiple payment methods, you are more likely to meet each customer’s individual expectations. This leads to a sense of convenience and a smoother customer experience. 

Lack of trust in the shopping cart’s security 

Most online shoppers want to feel a sense of trust before plugging their credit card details into any website. Baymard’s 2021 survey finds that 18% of customers say they abandoned their online cart because they did not feel that the ecommerce store was trustworthy. 

It’s important to make your customers feel secure, specifically when dealing with privacy and sensitive data like credit card numbers and personal information. Social proof like customer reviews on your products, as well as security guidelines like secure sockets layer (SSL) and payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS), are a great way to bolster trust among first-time visitors. 

Surprise shipping charges or long delivery wait times

Finally, the most commonly cited reason for cart abandonment among consumers is surprise shipping costs or long delivery wait times. According to Baymard, “extra costs” and “delivery was too slow” made up 68% of survey responses. This shows just how much shipping can impact whether or not someone chooses to go through with ordering your product.

Related: Trying to improve your shipping experience? Check out our guides on shipping for ecommerce and how to offer free shipping. 

14 optimization tips for the best shopping cart experience

1. Offer the right payment options
2. Don’t require shoppers to create an account in order to buy 
3. Add “mini cart” functionality to keep your cart visible
4. Make product descriptions and thumbnails visible on the shopping cart page
5. Limit the customer information you collect
6. Provide total cost estimates during checkout
7. Use breadcrumbs to show the number of steps in your checkout process
8. Create an abandoned cart workflow automation
9. Give your customers multiple shipping options
10. Implement an auto-save feature for items in shoppers’ carts
11. Offer a live chat feature on the checkout page
12. Make it easy for customers to move between their cart and product pages
13. Use your shopping cart for upselling and cross-selling
14. Add a “Buy now” button to skip the shopping cart

Now that you know some of the top reasons customers are abandoning their carts, let’s look at some best practices you can implement to give customers a positive shopping cart experience — and lower your cart abandonment rate.

1) Offer the right payment options for your customers 

As mentioned, a lack of payment options is one reason customers abandon their online shopping carts, so ensuring your ecommerce website has options is vital. According to SaleCycle, the majority of online shoppers want the option to pay for purchases online with either a digital wallet (digital payments not attached to a card), credit card, debit card, or bank transfer. 

The more options you have available, the better. Additionally, some payment options can also make checkout faster and easier for customers, which also helps with cart abandonment rates. 

Pro tip

Be sure to think about which payment types will make the most sense for your customers and your business size. If you are just starting out and have a limited budget, consider starting with PayPal or Venmo. Once you start growing, expand to include all the major payment options: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Apple Pay, PayPal, and maybe even a buy-now-pay-later option like Klarna or Afterpay. 

Also, consider investigating whether your ecommerce platform has express checkout options. Shopify, for example, has express checkout options that let people pay through services like Amazon so they can skip typing out contact, payment, and billing information. Here’s an example of express pay on CROSSNET’s website:

Read more about choosing payment options for your ecommerce business. 

2) Don’t require shoppers to create an account in order to buy 

Shoppers don't want to create an account in order to make a purchase, so eliminating this requirement (if you’re using it within your online store) can be a quick fix for boosting conversions. 

The National Retail Federation reports that 97% of cart abandonment is due to inconvenience. So, keep the shopping cart design as simple as possible — give customers the option to create or sign into an account, but also provide a guest checkout option with a prominent checkout button.

Pro tip

Give customers the option to create an account via social media or their Google account after they purchase. This taps into the convenience factor, and gives you a chance for future email marketing or customer loyalty programs. 

Also, if you have subscribe-and-save functionality, make the discount clear to customers throughout the checkout process — again, without making it mandatory. Olipop’s “Add to cart” option is a great example of advertising the better deal without sacrificing usability for the shopper:

3) Add “mini cart” functionality to your ecommerce site to keep your cart visible while browsing

Keeping a customer’s online shopping cart accessible while browsing is another best practice that can help decrease cart abandonment. A mini cart makes the shopping process much more seamless because customers can easily add products to their cart — or review current cart contents — in a drop-down and without being directed to a new page. This can help minimize potential website loading issues, which Baymard’s survey cites as a top reason that customers abandon their carts during checkout. 

Pro tip

Mini carts are usually a simple add-on, depending on which platform your online store is based. Both Shopify and WooCommerce offer mini cart options that you can easily add to your shop. If you’re looking for a brand that has a successful mini cart, check out fashion retailer Marine Layer. Here’s the drop-down that happens if you hover over the cart icon:

Looking for more Shopify-specific tips on abandoned cart recovery? Read more here.

4) Make product descriptions and thumbnails visible on the shopping cart page (where it makes sense) 

Adding your product details to customers’ carts can be extremely helpful — if it makes sense for your business. 

For example, if you sell power tools and a customer is purchasing new drill bits, they may want to double-check that the drill bits they put in their cart are the correct size. So, in order to keep them on the checkout page, include a brief description below the product name. This eliminates the need to go back to the main product page, which eliminates the potential for slow page loading and frustrated customers.

Pro tip

The product description on the checkout screen doesn’t need to be long or complicated — one or two solid sentences from the original product page will do. Or, if your company sells highly visual merchandise, a thumbnail — a picture’s worth a thousand words, after all. One store that add thumbnails to their shopping carts is Glamnetic:

5) Limit the customer information you collect to only the essentials

Everyone values their personal privacy, especially when shopping online. ROI Revolution reports that ”39% of consumers say they have maintained the same level of concern about their online privacy over the past year and 20.5% of consumers say they’re much more concerned about their online privacy compared to one year ago.” Only 8.6% of online shoppers say they’re less concerned now than they were a year ago. 

This is why it’s so important to only collect information from your customers that is absolutely necessary. In a typical shopping transaction, these essentials would include things like email address, phone number, and street address. In some cases, you might also ask for some basic demographic info that’s important to your company’s segmentation, such as gender and purchase habits. You may offer the option to keep customers’ credit cards on file, but we don’t recommend doing this without their permission. 

If customers do opt to keep their credit card information stored on your site, be sure to let them know exactly how this works. Most companies take advantage of encrypted online or cloud-based storage systems. Let customers know there are even regulations that dictate what you can and can’t do with your information. This will help put them at ease and show that your brand is trustworthy. 

Pro tip

Offer customers two-factor authentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA) when shopping on your site, which signals to your customers that you take their privacy seriously. Many companies have opted for MFA or 2FA in the past few years, and you can use Amazon Pay or Google Pay as a version of 2FA on your ecommerce site. 

6) Provide total cost estimates during checkout to reduce sticker shock

As pointed out earlier in this article, unexpected fees are cited as the most popular reason that customers abandon their carts before checkout. To avoid this, give customers an estimated subtotal before they get to the checkout screen. This can be especially important for larger-ticket items because shipping a $1,000 sofa will most likely come with a higher shipping fee (and more tax) than a box of clothing. 

Pro tip

When a customer is on a product page, include an option to enter their zip code to calculate a preview of tax and shipping before they click “add to cart.” Native Union does an excellent job of this on its website. They even break down the costs for various shipping options like standard and express delivery:

7) Use breadcrumbs (progress indicators) to show the number of steps in your checkout process

The breadcrumb feature can be used in many ways on websites but has a specific use for ecommerce checkout processes. Letting customers know how much time, or how many steps, they have left in the checkout process is important to ensure they complete their purchase. Progress indicators can be as simple as a little block of text on the checkout screen that says “1 of 3,” or can use graphics for more visual appeal.

Pro tip

Take this time to think about each step of your business’ checkout process and make it as simple as possible. The more steps a customer has to go through, the more chances you have to lose them. Shopify’s default checkout page has a clear progression from Cart > Information > Shipping > Payment, which you can see on Comfort One Shoes’ site:

8) Create an abandoned cart workflow automation for customers that leave items for later

Some ecommerce sites let customers add items to a wish list or “save for later” to reduce the number of times customers add items to a cart without plans to buy them in that shopping session. Regardless of whether you have that functionality, you should create a workflow for customers who leave items behind. 

This workflow could include things like email reminders, on-screen pop-ups, retargeting ads, and sending follow-up coupon codes. It’s important to keep in mind the specific goals of your ecommerce business. What may be right for some brands may not be right for yours. 

Pro tip

Timeliness is everything when it comes to your abandoned cart workflow. When customers are ready to buy, you must be there. Some sites use exit-intent pop-ups as a hail mary for customers about to abandon carts. And while this is effective, some customers find it disruptive. 

Consider instead adding live chat to your website, ideally with proactive functionality. Live chat can have an incredible impact on sales — Ohh Deer generates about $12,500 per quarter in sales through Gorgias’ live chat — because you can reach out to customers with certain order values in their cart to ask if they need support or offer a discount to stop them from leaving. 

"When you make sales thanks to your good service, customers will come back and recommend you. That's revenue-generating."

Alex Turner, Customer Experience Manager at Ohh Deer

Check out our guide to shopping cart recovery for more recommendations on winning back lost sales.

9) Give your customers multiple shipping options

Every customer has different expectations and needs when it comes to shipping. Offering robust shipping options expands the number of situations your ecommerce business can seamlessly respond to. Beyond helping to decrease your brand’s cart abandonment rate, providing various shipping options can lead to more sales as well as higher retention and customer satisfaction. 

Pro tip

Take into account your target customers’ needs and try to cater to every shipping scenario, which could include the following options:

• Flat-rate shipping (4-5 business days)
• Expedited shipping (3 business days)
• Next-day/overnight shipping (1-2 business days)
• Local pick up, especially if you have a large number of customers in the city where you operate

Regardless of your options, clarify the price as early as possible to avoid unwanted surprises. Here’s the clear layout of shipping costs on Sol de Janeiro’s website:

10) Implement an auto-save feature for items in shoppers’ carts

At this point, you know many of the reasons customers may abandon their shopping carts online. From frustration and slow page loading speed to simply being distracted, customers leave their carts a lot, so implementing an auto-save feature on your website can help decrease your shop's cart abandon rate. A customer may be distracted and leave your website, but then come back to it a few days later. When they reopen it, their saved cart will remind them of their previous intent to purchase. 

Pro tip

Tap into your website management software to see if an auto-save feature is available. It may be as easy as flipping a toggle. If you use Shopify, you can also save carts between visits so customers can retrieve their old carts when coming back to your site.

11) Offer a live chat feature on the checkout page for customer questions

Most customers (90%) expect an immediate response to their customer service inquiries, according to HubSpot. Being able to provide your customers with this support through a live chat feature can boost the overall customer experience, as well as improve your store’s cart abandonment rate. Even more, Kayako reports that 79% of businesses say offering a live chat feature positively impacted sales (including upsells), revenue, and customer loyalty.

Pro tip

Use Gorgias for live chat (and more). The live chat widget can seamlessly integrate with your Shopify store and provide a solution for customers who may have questions at the time of purchase to drive sales. You can even use chat campaigns to target certain customers — like those lingering on a checkout page — to see if they need information or a discount to complete the purchase:

Want to learn more about the power of live chat for ecommerce? Check out these lists:

• The best live chat apps (general)
• The best live chat apps for ecommerce
• The best live chat apps for Shopify
• 22 statistics about live chat

Alternatively, if you already have a live chat app in mind, learn how to install it into your Shopify store.

12) Make it easy for customers to move between their cart, product pages, and more in your online store 

Ensuring the design and user experience of your ecommerce shop is up to par is the last but extremely important best practice when it comes to lowering your cart abandonment rate.  You’ll want to ensure customers can move through all areas of your website with ease. 

Pro tip

Explore new features and add-ons that your website software offers. If you’re currently building everything yourself, we encourage you to check out how a tool like Shopify can drastically elevate your customers’ experience while not taking too much time away from your team. For inspiration from an online retailer who does this well, check out skincare brand Then I Met You. 

Related: Learn how to offer proactive customer service to improve your customer experience.

13) Use your shopping cart for upselling and cross-selling — with limits

Your shopping cart can be a good place to recommend additional products to browsers. This is especially true if some of your products require others for full functionality. 

As you can imagine, pushing items onto customers before they’ve even decided whether they want to make a purchase in the first place is dangerous. They could get annoyed and abandon the purchase altogether. So, if you do decide to add this to your store, do so strategically. For example, Little Poppy Co. uses in-cart recommendations to offer a discount and subscribe-and-save option, which many customers may appreciate.

Tools like In Cart Upsell and Cross Sell can activate this feature on your store. 

14) Add a “Buy now” call to action (CTA) button to skip the shopping cart altogether

As we described above, the shopping cart is a bit of a minefield. Customers can fall off at any second and decide not to buy anything or, worse, check out your competitor’s website. One way to avoid issues is to let shoppers skip the shopping cart altogether and let customers just buy the product. 

If you use Shopify, check out their article on Buy Buttons for more information, including some words of warning about the button’s shoddy functionality. 

Check out Loop Earplug’s website for a good example of a clear, visible button to skip the checkout process and buy now:

Check out our customer story on Loop Earplugs to learn how Gorgias helped them increase 43% of their revenue from CS.

“We’ve seen 43% increase in revenue from customer support since we launched pre-sales flows. Quick response flows give us the ability to build trust with our customers and that’s priceless. When customers get a quick and honest answer, they often end up buying more than one product in a short span of time. Seeing customers live the life we’re aiming to create for them in Loop Earplugs is extremely rewarding for us.”
‍‍- Milan Vanmarcke, Customer Service Manager at Loop Earplugs

3 amazing ecommerce shopping cart experiences to inspire you

Finally, let’s take a look at what we consider to be the gold standards of ecommerce shopping experiences. Don’t hesitate to take some ideas back for your online shop — they may be exactly what your ecommerce strategy needs.

Revolve

Clothing retailer Revolve is a top example of a clean, efficient customer checkout process. The brand doesn’t force customers to log in or sign up for an account in order to purchase — but does give the option. Revolve also provides a live chat option, as well as text and phone numbers to get a hold of a customer service rep should a question come up. 

Amazon

Amazon is another leading example of a shopping cart experience that covers a lot in a small amount of space. Though it may seem busy for some customers, Amazon features additional information about the product a customer is buying right in the checkout screen, such as the stock count (if there is a low number), eligibility for free shipping, and even information about if the product is Climate Pledge Friendly. 

Nike

Third, we’re highlighting the athletic wear brand Nike. The company takes a similarly minimalistic approach to Revolve, but is a top-tier example of breadcrumbing and providing estimated additional fees like shipping and tax. The brand also provides a product description on this page, which can be especially helpful when purchasing shoes. 

Take your ecommerce customer service to the next level with Gorgias

Providing a smooth shopping and purchasing experience can lead to a satisfying, stress-free customer experience. Ensuring a positive customer experience will lead to greater customer experience which has a huge impact on your revenue.

To make the process even more seamless, we recommend checking out Gorgias to manage all of your customer support in one place. The all-in-one platform was built specifically for ecommerce businesses and can integrate easily with other online shop platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento. Learn more about how Gorgias can optimize all customer interactions and streamline your business.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

TL;DR:

• FAQ pages deflect repetitive support tickets and reduce response times by providing instant self-service answers
• Strong FAQ pages combine clear categorization, search functionality, and schema markup to capture organic traffic
• Top-performing examples from Amazon, Nike, and Etsy use accordion user interfaces (UIs) and contextual placement across product pages
• Creating an effective FAQ requires mining customer data, writing concise answers, and maintaining content freshness
• Schema markup can earn rich results for government and health sites, though eligibility is limited

Shoppers expect instant answers, but support teams can't scale 24/7. FAQ pages bridge this gap by providing self-service resources that work around the clock.

A well-executed FAQ page reduces ticket volume while building trust with shoppers. This guide covers proven examples, creation steps, search engine optimization (SEO) implementation, and strategies to measure your FAQ's impact.

What is an FAQ page?

An FAQ page is a self-service resource that answers your shoppers' most frequently asked questions in one centralized location.

The questions typically cover key information relevant to most visitors: operating hours, product availability, pricing, return policy, basic troubleshooting, and more.

By providing these answers proactively, customers get the information they want immediately without contacting your support team. FAQ pages are fairly low-tech but highly strategic. 

You can create an FAQ page in just a few hours and start seeing benefits immediately, whereas more advanced customer service strategies like customer service automation and omnichannel customer support require more investment.

FAQ vs. Help Center (when to use each)

A Help Center is a broader knowledge base that includes detailed articles, tutorials, video guides, and, in some cases, community forums. It serves as a comprehensive resource for complex topics that require step-by-step explanations or troubleshooting flows. 

An FAQ page, by contrast, is a focused Q&A list designed for high-frequency, straightforward questions that can be answered in a few sentences.

Use an FAQ page when customers need quick answers to common questions like shipping costs, return windows, or order status. Build a full Help Center when your products or services require detailed guidance, technical documentation, or multi-step tutorials. Most ecommerce brands benefit from both: an FAQ page for speed and a Help Center for depth.

Why FAQ pages matter

We identified the FAQ page as one of our top customer service trends because more brands have realized how much time their customer support teams can save by implementing effective self-service resources. FAQ pages aren't just great for agents, they're great for customer experience.

Reduce support tickets (deflection)

FAQ pages intercept repetitive inquiries before they reach agents, a strategy called ticket deflection. A Microsoft study shows that 66% of all customers consult self-service resources before contacting an agent. Your team doesn't need to spend hours answering questions about return policies, shipping rates, or order status.

Reducing repetitive tickets improves your customer service response time and frees up agents to work on sensitive, urgent, or higher-value support tickets. self-service resolves up to 60% of common inquiries, letting your team focus on conversations that actually require human expertise and build customer relationships.

Creating an FAQ page to answer common customer questions is one of our top tips in our CX-Driven Growth Playbook. The playbook shares 18 actionable tactics to boost revenue by 44% by improving CX. Our team created it using data from over 10,000 Gorgias merchants and in-depth interviews with 25 top ecommerce brands.

Improve conversion and trust

Shoppers experience pre-purchase anxiety about shipping, returns, sizing, and product quality. They need clarity before buying, especially when visiting your site for the first time. An FAQ page addresses this anxiety by demonstrating transparency and making essential information easy to find.

Earning shopper trust is key to growing your store, and a well-organized FAQ page shows customers you have clear policies for essential buying considerations. When answers are readily available, cart abandonment drops because customers feel confident moving forward with their purchase.

Capture organic and AI Overview traffic

If properly search-optimized, your FAQ page becomes another entrance point into your website from Google. A Help Center article from FIGS, a direct-to-consumer (DTC) scrubs brand, appears on the first page of Google's search results for the question:

The person who searched the question might click this link, find their answer, explore FIGS' website, remember the brand, and eventually return to make a purchase. Schema markup, which we'll cover later, helps search engines understand your FAQ content and include it in these valuable search features.

Shorten time-to-answer

FAQ pages provide 24/7 availability, unlike human support that operates during specific hours. Global customers across time zones can find answers immediately, regardless of when they visit your site. For simple inquiries, 68% of people would rather use self-service resources like an FAQ page than contact an agent and wait for a response.

Mobile accessibility makes FAQ pages even more valuable for shoppers browsing on-the-go. Of course, some customers prefer human support, and many questions are too complex for an FAQ page. Offer a healthy combination of self-service and human support to cover the entire range of customers and questions.

Best FAQ page examples

Studying what works on screen helps you understand effective FAQ design patterns. These nine examples from brands of all sizes showcase different approaches to organization, search functionality, and visual presentation.

Amazon

Amazon's help center creates a tailored experience using customer data and purchase history. When you log in, the FAQ prioritizes topics relevant to your recent orders and browsing behavior. Amazon also integrates AI-powered conversational support alongside traditional FAQ sections, letting customers choose their preferred path to answers.

The platform seamlessly connects FAQ content with account history and order tracking, so customers can resolve issues without leaving the help interface. This contextual approach reduces friction and keeps resolution times low.

WhatsApp Help Center

WhatsApp's FAQ page features clean categorization with expandable sections that keep the interface uncluttered. The conversational tone matches WhatsApp's brand voice, making technical information feel approachable. Each answer is concise and written in plain language, avoiding jargon that might confuse users.

The mobile-first design loads quickly and works smoothly on small screens, which is essential for an app primarily used on phones. Fast load times and responsive design ensure customers can find answers without frustration.

Wikipedia Help

Wikipedia's main FAQ page exemplifies how text-heavy, comprehensive FAQs can remain effective. It conforms to the overall site design, which creates consistency across the user experience. The page is fully searchable both on-page and using browser search, with a clear list of 11 questions linked to answers lower on the page.

Wikipedia also maintains a FAQ index page listing 20+ different FAQs on the site. While it doesn't list all questions for every FAQ, it includes strategic keywords that quickly guide users to the right FAQ for any use case.

Nike

Nike's Get Help page demonstrates how minimalist design with active white space can improve scannability.

The interface uses clear calls to action (CTAs) and simplified navigation that guide users to answers without overwhelming them with options.

This “less is more” approach works particularly well for brands with broad customer bases, where clarity trumps comprehensive detail on the main FAQ landing page.

Microsoft Support

Microsoft's page for Microsoft 365 mixes content types including video tutorials, community forum integration, and traditional text-based FAQs. This multi-format approach accommodates different learning styles and complexity levels. The robust search and filtering capabilities help users navigate vast amounts of information.

The top questions section smartly pulls the most-asked questions from each category and places them at the top of the page. For companies with complex products, this organizational strategy ensures quick access to high-priority information.

Google Support

Google's support hub serves as a reference example for organizing vast amounts of information with clear visual hierarchy. The categorization system breaks down complex services into digestible sections, each with intuitive icons and descriptions. Users can drill down from broad topics to specific questions through logical pathways.

The design, layout, and information architecture demonstrate how to scale FAQ content without sacrificing usability. Even with thousands of help articles, users can find answers quickly through strategic organization.

Etsy

Etsy's help center showcases ecommerce-specific FAQ structure with clear segmentation between seller and buyer resources. The platform spotlights cornerstone content based on engagement data, ensuring the most valuable articles appear prominently. This data-driven approach prioritizes what customers actually need rather than what the company assumes they need.

Etsy's search functionality is robust, with filters that narrow results by user type, topic, and issue category. This makes the Help Center scalable as the marketplace grows more complex.

Spotify Community

Spotify's community-driven FAQ model combines official answers with peer support through user forums. This push-pull information access lets customers choose between verified company responses and community-sourced solutions. The voting system on community answers helps surface the most helpful responses over time.

Blending official FAQs with peer support creates a scalable support model where engaged users help answer questions. This approach works particularly well for consumer products with passionate user bases.

Brooklinen

Brooklinen's FAQ page exemplifies effective DTC ecommerce design with focus on product care, shipping, and returns. The on-brand design matches the rest of their website, creating visual consistency. Simple navigation uses expandable sections to keep the page clean while providing detailed answers when needed.

The emphasis on product care information demonstrates understanding of customer concerns post-purchase. Addressing how to maintain product quality builds confidence in the purchase decision.

How to create an FAQ page

Building an effective FAQ page from scratch requires a data-driven approach. Follow these steps to create an FAQ that actually serves your customers and reduces support volume.

Identify top customer questions

Start by mining your support tickets, chat logs, and email conversations for recurring questions. Tag and categorize inquiries by intent to identify patterns in what customers ask most frequently. If you use Gorgias, our shopper intent detection automatically provides this information.

Supplement ticket data with competitive research, customer surveys, and on-site search queries. Focus on questions that appear more than once rather than edge cases that affect only a handful of customers. Look at data from the past three to six months to capture current trends.

Additional data sources include:

• Support tickets and chat transcripts
• On-site search queries
• Customer reviews mentioning confusion or questions
• Sales call recordings
• Social media comments and messages

Categorize by intent (shipping, returns, product)

Group questions into logical categories that match how customers think about their needs. Common categories include ordering, shipping, returns, account management, and product details. This categorization reduces cognitive load and improves scannability by letting users jump directly to relevant sections.

Use customer-facing language for category names rather than internal jargon. For example, use “Returns” instead of “Reverse Logistics” and “Shipping” instead of “Fulfillment.” Test your categories with a few customers to ensure the organization makes sense from their perspective.

Common category examples:

• Orders and tracking
• Shipping and delivery
• Returns and exchanges
• Account and billing
• Product information and care
• Technical support

Write concise, action-oriented answers

Answer the question in the first sentence, then provide supporting details if needed. Keep answers to two or three sentences maximum, linking to deeper resources for complex topics. Use active voice and simple language, avoiding jargon unless you define it first.

If you use Gorgias, AI Agent can auto-generate draft answers from existing Macros and Help Center content, giving you a starting point to refine.

Compare these two approaches:

• Bad example: “We have a comprehensive returns process that we've designed to be as customer-friendly as possible while maintaining our business requirements.”
• Good example: “You can return unworn items within 30 days for a full refund. Start your return by clicking the link in your order confirmation email.”

Add search + accordion UX

The accordion pattern uses expandable sections to reduce visual clutter while keeping all content accessible. Users see question headlines at a glance and can expand specific answers without scrolling past irrelevant information. This pattern works particularly well for FAQ pages with more than 10 questions.

Include a search bar for users with specific questions who don't want to browse categories. Mobile responsiveness is non-negotiable since many customers will access your FAQ from phones while shopping or awaiting deliveries.

UX best practices:

• Prominent search bar at the top of the page
• Expandable accordion sections for answers
• Clear category headings with visual hierarchy
• Mobile-friendly touch targets and readable text
• Fast page load times

Link to deeper resources

FAQ answers should be concise starting points, not comprehensive guides. When topics require detailed explanations, link to full Help Center articles, product pages, or contact forms. This keeps your FAQ scannable while ensuring customers can access depth when they need it.

With Gorgias, you can embed links to Help Center articles, product pages, or your live chat widget directly in FAQ answers. For complex topics, link to a full guide instead of cramming details into the FAQ. This tiered approach to information architecture serves both customers who want quick answers and those who need comprehensive detail.

FAQ page design and user experience (UX)

Search + accordion for scannability

The accordion pattern has become the standard for FAQ pages because it keeps the interface clean while making all content accessible. Users can scan question headlines without opening every answer, then expand only the sections they need. This reduces scroll length and gives customers control over their experience.

Search bar placement matters. Position it prominently at the top of the page with placeholder text that suggests how to use it. Implement keyword matching and autocomplete to help users find answers even if they phrase questions differently than you do.

Accordion benefits:

• Reduces page scroll length
• Keeps interface visually clean
• Lets users control their experience
• Works well on mobile devices
• Improves perceived load times

Accessibility and mobile readability

Use readable font sizes (minimum 16px for body text), sufficient color contrast ratios, and keyboard navigation support to ensure all customers can access your FAQ. Many customers have visual impairments or motor limitations that require assistive technologies. Following Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) isn't just ethical, it expands your potential customer base.

Test your FAQ on mobile before publishing. Mobile users represent a significant portion of traffic, and FAQ pages must work smoothly on small screens. Check that buttons are large enough to tap accurately and text is readable without zooming.

Accessibility checks:

• Font size of at least 16px
• Color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
• Full keyboard navigation support
• Screen reader compatibility
• Touch targets at least 44x44 pixels

FAQ SEO and schema markup

Schema markup helps search engines understand your FAQ content structure, potentially earning rich results in search. While implementation requires some technical work, the SEO benefits make it worthwhile.

JSON-LD FAQPage markup (eligibility caveats)

FAQ schema is structured data that tells search engines which content represents questions and answers. It uses JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data (JSON-LD) format, a lightweight markup language that sits in your page's code without affecting visible content. When implemented correctly, schema helps search engines parse your FAQ for AI Overviews and featured snippets.

Rich results are limited to government and health sites, but schema still improves SEO for all sites through better indexing and AI Overview inclusion. Even without rich results, search engines understand your content structure more clearly, which can improve rankings for question-based queries.

For complete implementation guidance, check out creating SEO-friendly FAQ pages, which walks through tactics like internal linking and keyword placement. Also see our guides on ecommerce SEO and creating ecommerce blog content that ranks on Google.

Track impressions/clicks in Search Console

Google Search Console shows how your FAQ page performs in organic search. Monitor impressions (how often your page appears in search results), clicks, average position, and click-through rate to understand which questions drive traffic. The URL Inspection tool validates your schema markup and identifies any implementation errors.

Key metrics to track:

• Search impressions
• Click-through rate
• Average position in results
• Top performing queries
• Schema validation status

Make your FAQ visible

Embed on product pages

Product-specific FAQs reduce pre-purchase friction by answering questions in context. Questions about sizing, materials, compatibility, and care instructions belong on product pages where shoppers are making buying decisions. Contextual FAQs address concerns before they become barriers to purchase.

If you use Gorgias Convert, trigger FAQ modals based on user behavior. If a shopper lingers on a product page, show a modal about sizing or shipping to address common hesitations proactively.

Reinforce at cart/checkout

Cart and checkout represent high-anxiety moments where FAQ content can prevent abandonment. Common questions at this stage include shipping costs, delivery times, and return policies. Link to your FAQ page prominently during checkout or embed critical answers directly in the checkout flow.

Consider adding an FAQ link in the cart sidebar or below the checkout button. This placement catches customers who hesitate before completing their purchase.

Surface via live chat/helpdesk

FAQ articles can be surfaced in live chat conversations before escalating to human agents. This deflects tickets while maintaining customer satisfaction since most customers prefer instant answers over waiting for an agent. With Gorgias, AI Agent auto-suggests relevant FAQ articles based on the customer's question, resolving issues before creating a ticket.

Surface FAQ articles in live chat to resolve questions before creating a ticket. This approach combines the efficiency of self-service with the personal touch of chat, creating a seamless experience.

Measure FAQ success

KPIs (engagement, conversions, search visibility)

Key metrics include page views, time on page, bounce rate, conversion rate, and search impressions. Track engagement in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) by setting up events for scroll depth, link clicks, and accordion expansions. FAQ pages should reduce bounce rate by providing answers that keep users on site rather than leaving to search elsewhere.

Set up GA4 events to track FAQ engagement. This data shows which questions get the most attention and which categories might need expansion or clarification.

KPIs to track:

• Page views and unique visitors
• Average time on page
• Bounce rate
• Conversion rate for visitors who view FAQ
• Search impressions and clicks
• Click-through rate from search

Ticket deflection ROI

Ticket deflection measures inquiries resolved via FAQ instead of creating support tickets. Calculate the value using this formula: tickets avoided multiplied by cost per ticket equals deflection savings. If your FAQ prevents 100 tickets per month and each ticket costs $5 USD to resolve, that's $500 USD in monthly savings.

Maintain and improve

Feedback loops (tickets, on-site search)

Monitor support tickets, on-site search queries, and customer feedback to identify FAQ gaps. New product launches, policy changes, and seasonal trends require FAQ updates to stay relevant. If you see the same question appearing repeatedly in tickets despite having an FAQ page, either the answer isn't clear or customers can't find it.

With Gorgias, use ticket insights and intent statistics to surface emerging questions that should be added to your FAQ. Review ticket data monthly to identify new FAQ topics and update existing answers that generate follow-up questions.

Feedback sources:

• Support ticket themes and trends
• On-site search queries with no results
• Customer surveys and feedback forms
• Product reviews mentioning confusion
• Sales team questions and objections

Update cadence and ownership

Schedule quarterly reviews of FAQ content to verify policies, refresh screenshots, add new questions, and remove outdated content. Assign ownership to your CX or content team to ensure accountability. Without clear ownership, FAQ pages decay over time as policies change and products evolve.

Outdated FAQs erode trust faster than having no FAQ at all. Customers who find incorrect information lose confidence in your brand and may abandon their purchase or leave negative reviews.

Example update checklist:

• Verify all policies are current
• Refresh screenshots and visual examples
• Add questions that appeared in recent tickets
• Remove content about discontinued products
• Update seasonal information (holiday shipping)
• Test all links to ensure they work

Build your FAQ page today

FAQ pages deliver immediate value through ticket deflection, improved conversion rates, and SEO visibility. The key is treating them as living documents that evolve with your business rather than static pages you build once and forget.

Gorgias makes FAQ implementation seamless, helping you turn FAQ pages into a strategic asset that reduces costs while improving customer experience. 

Book a demo to see how Gorgias can transform your approach to self-service support.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

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.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

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:

{{lead-magnet-2}}

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!

TL;DR:

• Ecommerce churn rate measures the percentage of customers who stop buying from your store over time, typically ranging from 60-80% annually depending on industry.
• High churn directly hurts profitability because acquiring new customers costs 5-25x more than retaining existing ones.
• You calculate churn differently for subscription and non-subscription stores: subscriptions use cancellation data, while other stores use cohort analysis.
• Reduce churn by removing support friction, personalizing offers, streamlining post-purchase experience, and automating save plays with AI.
• AI automation helps prevent involuntary churn and speeds up issue resolution across all customer touchpoints.

While ecommerce churn rate is most common among subscription-based businesses, every online store should track it. Rising customer acquisition costs (CAC) mean that constantly chasing new customers doesn't lead to sustainable revenue.

Instead, data from Gorgias customers shows that repeat customers account for only 21% of customers, but generate 44% of revenue and 46% of orders. 

In this article, we explain how to calculate your churn rate, what causes customers to leave, and how to reduce attrition using multiple strategies.

What is churn rate in ecommerce?

Ecommerce churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop buying from your business over a given period. 

For subscription businesses, churn is easy to spot when a customer cancels their subscription. 

For non-subscription stores, you track churn by analyzing repeat purchase behavior and identifying customers who don't return within an expected timeframe.

There are two types of churn:

• Voluntary churn occurs when customers actively decide to stop buying from you, often due to poor service or better alternatives. 
• Involuntary churn happens when technical issues like payment failures prevent purchases, even though customers want to continue buying.

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) scores or net promoter scores (NPS)

How do you calculate ecommerce churn rate?

Your calculation method depends on your business model. Subscription businesses track when customers cancel, while non-subscription stores use cohort analysis to identify when customers stop returning. Both methods help you understand customer retention and identify where you're losing business.

How to calculate customer churn for subscriptions

Find the total number of customers at the start of a period. Then, find how many customers canceled during that same period. Then apply this 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: If you start the month with 5,000 subscribers and end with 4,800, your calculation looks like this:

[(5,000 - 4,800) / 5,000] x 100 = 4% monthly churn rate

How to calculate churn for non-subscription stores with cohort analysis

For non-subscription stores, use cohort analysis to track customer retention over time. This method groups customers by when they made their first purchase and tracks how many return within your expected repurchase window.

Follow these steps:

1. Define your repurchase window based on your product type (e.g., 30 days for consumables, 90 for apparel).
2. Group customers by their first purchase month to create cohorts.
3. Track how many customers in each cohort make a second purchase within your repurchase window.
4. Calculate the percentage of customers who do not return to find your churn rate.

Example: If 1,000 customers made their first purchase in January and only 300 purchased again within 90 days, your churn rate is 70% [(1,000 - 300) / 1,000 x 100].

How to calculate revenue churn

Revenue churn rate is the change in your store's incoming revenue from existing customers. For brands that sell standalone products rather than subscriptions, revenue churn may be a more accurate indicator of retention because it accounts for purchase value, not just customer count.

[(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 (%)

You can calculate gross revenue churn (revenue lost only) or net revenue churn (factoring in upsells and additional purchases from existing customers).

Pro Tip: 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.

What is a good ecommerce churn rate by industry?

A good churn rate varies significantly by industry and business model. Subscription ecommerce businesses typically see 3-8% monthly churn (36-96% annually), while non-subscription stores experience 60-80% annual churn on average. Products with shorter replenishment cycles, like beauty and food, naturally see lower churn than durable goods.

Omniconvert analyzed data from over 1,000 online stores to benchmark churn rates by vertical. The following numbers show the percentage of customers who made at least one purchase but didn't return within a year:

• Beauty and fitness: 62%
• Food and drinks: 64%
• Health: 65%
• Apparel: 71%
• Home and garden: 75%
• Consumer electronics: 82%

Keep in mind that seasonality affects churn rates, too. Holiday shopping periods may show lower churn as customers stock up, while slower months reveal higher attrition.

Why ecommerce churn rate matters for profitability

Customer churn directly impacts your bottom line because acquiring new customers costs significantly more than retaining existing ones. 

Studies show that CAC can be 5-25 times higher than retention costs. When you lose customers, you're not just losing their immediate purchase. You're losing their entire customer lifetime value (CLTV).

Repeat customers drive disproportionate revenue. As we mentioned, while repeat customers account for only 21% of customers, they generate 44% of revenue and 46% of orders. They also spend more per order, require less marketing spend, and generate valuable referrals and reviews.

Lowering your churn rate improves your CLTV:CAC ratio, making every marketing dollar more effective. It creates a compounding effect where each retained customer generates more reviews and referrals, attracting new customers at a lower cost. 

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

What causes customers to churn?

Understanding why customers leave helps you prevent churn before it happens. Here are the most common causes of ecommerce customer attrition:

• Poor customer service
• Payment failures
• Lack of perceived value
• Better competitive offers
• Inconsistent experience across channels
• Complicated returns process
• Poor post-purchase communication

How to identify at-risk customers before they churn

Catching customers before they churn is easier and more cost-effective than winning them back. Watch for these leading indicators that signal a customer is at risk:

• Declining purchase frequency: Customers are buying less often than their historical pattern. Track this with recency, frequency, and monetary (RFM) segmentation to spot when purchase intervals stretch beyond normal.
• Negative CSAT or NPS scores: Poor satisfaction ratings after support interactions or low net promoter scores. Follow up immediately to address concerns.
• Increased support tickets: Multiple unresolved issues or repeated contacts about the same problem. Escalate to a senior agent and provide proactive updates until resolved.
• Cart abandonment spikes: Customers adding items but not completing checkout more frequently than before. Send targeted reminders or offer assistance via chat.
• Payment failures: Failed payment attempts on subscription renewals or saved payment methods. Automate follow-up sequences to recover the sale before the customer moves on.
• Extended browsing without purchase: Customers visiting your site regularly but not buying. Use proactive chat to offer help or highlight new products.

How to reduce ecommerce churn rate

Reducing churn requires a multi-faceted approach focused on customer experience, personalization, and automation. Here are four proven strategies to keep customers coming back.

Remove support friction across channels

Great customer support prevents churn by helping customers solve issues quickly, no matter where they reach out. The key is reducing customer effort: make it easy to get help and fast to get answers.

Omnichannel customer service lets customers contact you on their preferred channel without repeating themselves.

Specific tactics to remove friction:

• Proactive support: Welcome new customers with DMs, use live chat to ask if visitors need help, and reach out before customers have to ask.
• Self-service resources: Build an FAQ page and Help Center so customers can find answers without waiting.
• Fast response times: Use AI to provide instant responses 24/7, reducing wait times that drive customers away.
• Consistent experience: Keep customer context across all channels so they never have to repeat themselves.

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

Personalize offers and timing

Personalization makes customers feel valued and ensures they receive relevant messages at the right time. Segment your customer base to deliver customized experiences that increase engagement and repeat purchases.

Customer segmentation helps you target the right people with the right message. You can segment customers based on factors such as items purchased, purchase timing, purchase volume, and demographics. These segments enable targeted advertisements, reduced message fatigue, and personalized support.

Specific personalization tactics:

• Loyalty programs: Reward repeat customers with points for every purchase. Nearly 68% of customers said they'd join a loyalty program for brands they like, according to Yotpo's State of Brand Loyalty 2021 Survey.
• Behavioral triggers: Send win-back campaigns to inactive customers or special offers when customers reach purchase milestones.
• Product recommendations: Use purchase history to suggest complementary products and encourage additional orders.
• VIP treatment: Give your highest-value customers early access to new products, exclusive discounts, or priority support.

Reinforce the post-purchase and returns experience

Your post-purchase experience is everything customers see after they complete a purchase. A poor experience leaves first-time customers confused about what to expect, while a great one builds confidence and increases the likelihood of repeat purchases.

Think of your post-purchase experience as onboarding customers from first-time buyers to repeat customers. Clear communication about shipping, delivery timelines, and product usage removes anxiety and builds trust.

Specific post-purchase tactics:

• Proactive shipping updates: Send automatic notifications at each shipping milestone so customers know exactly where their order is
• Product education: Share how-to content and use cases to help customers get maximum value from their purchase
• Easy returns process: Make returns simple and fast. Even if you lose one sale, a great experience makes customers more likely to return
• Exchange incentives: Offer additional trade-in credit for exchanges instead of returns. Shopify stores that use Loop issue 15% fewer refunds than brands that don't

Automate common save plays with AI

Automation helps you prevent churn at scale by catching issues quickly and responding consistently. AI-powered systems can handle involuntary churn, win-back campaigns, and cancel-save flows without human intervention.

Involuntary churn (when payment failures or technical issues prevent purchases) is one of the easiest types to prevent with automation. Create a process to follow up after failed payments:

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

Additional automation use cases:

• Win-back campaigns: Automatically send targeted offers to customers who haven't purchased in their expected repurchase window
• Cancel-save flows: When subscription customers try to cancel, trigger automated conversations that address common concerns or offer alternative plans
• At-risk monitoring: Use automated tagging to flag customers showing churn signals and route them to your best agents
• Feedback collection: Automatically send CSAT surveys after every support interaction to catch dissatisfaction early

How Gorgias reduces ecommerce churn

Gorgias combines all the churn-reduction tactics above into one unified platform powered by AI. Our AI Agent handles repetitive support tasks instantly across every channel, while your team focuses on relationship-building that prevents churn.

Slow support is one of the top reasons customers leave, but AI Agent eliminates wait times for common questions. Customers get immediate help with order tracking, returns, product recommendations, and account issues.

The deep integration with Shopify means AI Agent can take actions, not just provide information. It can process refunds, update orders, apply discount codes, and handle exchanges — all automatically. This speed and efficiency create an effortless experience that builds loyalty.

See how Gorgias can help your team reduce churn. Book a demo today.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

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.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

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.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

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.