Most online transactions are fast, efficient, and completely lacking human contact. Why not shock your customers once in a while with a truly personal online experience? Below are 13 ways to get personal (in a good way) with your customers. Shock your first time customers by calling them within a day of their order. Ask [...]

As much as customer service is all the rage, and heralded as the new marketing, it’s still viewed as a cost-center by most online businesses. This I believe, is entirely due to a defensive approach to customer care. Defensive customer service can be defined as any type of reactive customer servicing such as answering calls, [...]

Imagine walking into a brick-and-mortar store, asking an employee a question, and being outright ignored. How about asking a specific, well-thought out question to a store clerk, then watching the employee thumb through a procedure manual, and read you a canned answer that completely misses your question. Sounds ridiculous, but these are everyday occurrences in [...]

Christmas is over, and now the fun begins…. the Handling the returns. As anyone whose ever sent a product back to an online retailer knows, the process is almost as fun as going to the dentist. Some research suggests that even the thought of sending back a return is enough to keep people from buying. [...]

When was the last time you actually took the time to find an answer on a FAQ page? What about searching through a customer service knowledge base? For me, if information I need is not immediately accessible, I will leave a website immediately. Likewise, most web customers are impatient and demand information at their finger-tips. [...]

E-tailers have a lot to learn from traditional retailers. It seems that well-known eCommerce sites get away with atrocious usability mistakes simply because the internet as a shopping medium is growing so fast. Web managers may think that because sales numbers are up they must be doing everything right. For many online stores, nothing is [...]

In my opinion, there’s two ways to build a well-known, enduring brand: Spend tons of money on advertising and PR campaigns Let your customers do the marketing for you With the rising cost of most traditional forms of marketing, who wouldn’t prefer the second option? Unfortunately, very few customers ever become true fans. After all, [...]

Surprisingly, many ecommerce sites waste the thank you or receipt page by making it a dead end. Instead of encouraging your visitors to close the window, continue to engage your customers with one of the following tactics: 1. Refer a friend form: After the user completes the purchase, ask them if they would be willing [...]

Hopefully, you’ve already begun to consider any necessary improvements to your site to accommodate the influx of holiday traffic.  Below I’ve compiled holiday improvement ideas for e-commerce sites. I hope you find something here useful. Offer Bounce Back Discounts: Think about how much traffic your site will receive during the holidays. How can you harness that traffic [...]

When you consider the competitive advantages of an online retailer, customer service is usually not the first thing that comes to mind. Many e-commerce sites, even the large well-known ones, are known for impersonal, mediocre customer service practices. And yet, the few e-tailors that differentiate themselves on serving their customers such as Zappos become well-known [...]