Good customer service has become an essential part of the customer experience in e-commerce. At the same time, customers expect fast responses, easy returns, and seamless conversations across channels. For many online retailers, the challenge is no longer just handling a growing number of customer inquiries. It is about creating a customer experience that builds trust and encourages customers to return.
The experience makes the difference
Starting an online store has never been easier. At the same time, it has never been harder to stand out. Products can be copied, prices can be compared in seconds, and delivery times continue to get shorter. What often determines whether customers come back is how they experience shopping with your business.
Customer service plays a key role. It influences not only how a complaint is handled or how quickly a customer receives a response. Customer service also affects trust in your business, how your brand is perceived, and the likelihood that customers will buy from you again.
Zendesk highlights this shift in its research on the retail and e-commerce industry. Customer service was once viewed primarily as a cost centre. Today, it has become a competitive advantage.
Customers expect one continuous conversation
Customers do not think in terms of channels. They simply expect your business to know their history.
A conversation might begin in chat with a question about delivery times. Later, the customer sends an email to change the delivery address, and a few days later wants to return the product. From the customer's perspective, this is one conversation. For many businesses, however, it becomes three separate cases because customer interactions are spread across different systems.
This is why Zendesk identifies omnichannel support as an essential part of modern customer service. When all communication is brought together in one place, customer service teams gain a complete view of the customer journey. That makes it easier to provide fast and relevant answers without asking customers to repeat themselves.
Learn more about how to bring all customer inquiries together in a contact centre solution.
The best customer experiences start before customers get in touch
A large share of customer inquiries in an online store revolves around the same questions. Where is my order? How do I return an item? When will this product be back in stock?
If employees have to answer the same questions about deliveries and returns dozens of times every month, valuable time is spent on repetitive tasks.
A well-maintained help centre allows an online store to offer support around the clock. At the same time, knowledge becomes available across the organisation and can be used by AI to provide more relevant responses through digital channels.
Self-service is not about reducing personal interaction. It is about making it easier for customers to get help when they need it, while giving employees more time to focus on the cases where personal support creates the greatest value.
AI Agents: Example of how Zendesk AI can help customers complete a return directly in chat.
AI works best when people remain at the centre
Much of the discussion around artificial intelligence has focused on automation. Zendesk takes a different approach. AI is designed first and foremost to help customer service teams provide better support.
AI can summarise long conversations, suggest replies, find relevant information in the knowledge base, and help new employees get up to speed more quickly. As a result, customer service teams spend less time on routine tasks and more time on cases that require experience, judgement, and personal interaction.
At the same time, AI helps create more consistent responses across the team. When employees have quick access to relevant information and suggestions based on the organisation's knowledge, it becomes easier to provide accurate answers, regardless of who handles the inquiry.
For online retailers with major seasonal peaks, such as Black Friday or the holiday shopping season, AI can help maintain a high level of customer service even when inquiry volumes increase significantly.
Learn more about Zendesk Copilot.
Customer service provides valuable insights
Every customer inquiry reveals something about your business.
If many customers ask about delivery times, the information on your website may not be clear enough. If the same questions about a product keep coming up, the product description may need improvement. If customers are uncertain about the returns process, clearer guidance may be required.
When all customer inquiries are collected on a single platform, it becomes easier to identify patterns and use those insights to improve the customer experience. Customer service becomes more than a department that solves problems. It also becomes an important source of insight for improving the business.
An example from the real world
As Amundsen Sports experienced rapid growth, the number of customer inquiries increased significantly. Expanding into new markets made it necessary to centralise customer communication and establish service processes that could scale with the business.
Together with Kundelab, Amundsen Sports implemented Zendesk as a unified customer service platform. Today, all customer inquiries are managed in one place, the help centre enables customers to find answers on their own, and AI helps the customer service team work more efficiently.
The result is more than improved visibility. It also provides a stronger foundation for delivering the customer experience expected from an international brand.
Read the full Amundsen Sports customer story here.
Great customer service is about more than responding quickly
The best online retailers do not compete on price and delivery speed alone. They compete on how easy they make it to do business with them.
When customer service, the knowledge base, AI, and customer data work together, businesses can deliver faster and more relevant responses throughout the customer journey. This creates a better customer experience, a more efficient working day for employees, and a stronger foundation for future growth.
Technology only creates value when it supports business processes and makes it easier to deliver great customer experiences. Choosing a customer service platform is therefore about more than features. It is about how your business wants to serve its customers.
Learn more about Zendesk and ticketing systems here.
Wondering how Zendesk can help improve customer experience and customer service in your online store? Get in touch with one of our Zendesk experts for a no-obligation conversation.