During the eCommerce explosion, the eCommerce merchants need to deal with various supply chain issues due to the sky-high demand and short supply with other barriers to logistics activities. The supply chain problems can cause customer dissatisfaction and worsen your customer service, so the eCommerce merchants should prepare for those barriers during their selling activities. Today, our article will give you some solutions for customer service to confront supply chain issues.
What Should You Do With Customer Service When Facing Supply Chain Problems?
Be Transparent
The customers should have detailed information and the right to keep track of their product fulfillment process, so the BigCommerce merchants should give them access to the tracking systems. If there are problems with their shipment, the sellers should provide customers with transparent reports about the incidents. When the customers are aware of the unexpected and uncontrollable issues, they can sympathize and are willing to wait for late delivery rather than keeping silent during the problems.
Suggest Alternatives
If you have a lot of products and one of them can be the alternatives to the customers’ products that get stuck due to supply chain issues, you can offer them the second choice. This approach can help avoid the negative impacts of supply chain issues and keep the transaction smooth. The BigCommerce merchants should pay attention to the supply chain shortage such as semiconductor shortages, plastics shortages, food shortages, etc. For example, the BigCommerce merchants can use organic or eco-friendly materials to replace some kinds of plastics. Another way that can help the sellers alleviate those shortages is using backorder. The BigCommerce merchants can install the BackOrder app and pre-set all the related products as backorder; the customers can still place orders and receive the shipment later.
Compensate For The Delays
No one wants to wait for a long time for their favorite products. You must reinforce customer satisfaction, you can compensate by giving them a discount, or voucher on current or next orders. Moreover, it is also a chance for you to keep customer relationships and encourage their demands on your BigCommerce stores.
Keep Customer Engaged
When customer satisfaction has been negatively affected due to supply chain issues, the BigCommerce merchants should keep them engaged via email marketing and real-time notifications. At this step, you can utilize customer data to generate insights and then find suitable approaches to connect with customers. The BigCommerce merchants can take advantage of this point to upsell or cross-sell with accurate well-matched product recommendations. However, it would be best if you still were careful because the border between suggestion and disturbance is delicate.
Conclusion
The global supply chain is stressful, so you need to have appropriate backup approaches to relieve the impacts on your selling activities. We hope you can improvise in customer service and run your BigCommerce businesses smoothly in this challenging context.
