How can you communicate with customers at online stores?

When you enter a store, you may have been greeted by a staff member saying, “Welcome!”,

“It’s hot today, isn’t it!”, “What are you looking for today?”,

or seen off with, “Thank you! Please come again!”…

When you enter a store, you may have been greeted by a staff member saying something like this.

These kinds of greetings are always used in every store as an important form of communication with customers.

Unlike in-store customer service, online stores cannot communicate face-to-face, but don’t you want to communicate with customers who have taken the time to visit your site?

So, this time, for those who run online stores,

I will introduce the importance of communication with customers and ways to communicate with customers at an online store.

What is the importance of communicating with customers?

Benefits of communicating with customers

By communicating with customers, you can expect the following effects:

Increased repeat customers

Your shop will become more active

Increased repeat customers

By communicating with customers, you can make them realize that your shop is one that can provide proper service.

In other words, you can eliminate customers’ concerns and increase their sense of security in your shop.

If your shop is reliable, they will want to buy from you again, which can lead to repeat customers.

In particular, with online shops, transactions are conducted without seeing the customer or being able to touch the product, so many customers have concerns like,

“Will the product arrive properly?”

“Will the size and shape fit me?”

“Is the product what I expected?”

That’s why it’s important to communicate in a way that makes customers feel a little more at ease and enjoy shopping, such as by responding to customer inquiries in detail and replying to comments received on social media.

A lively shop

Communication is achieved by mutual exchange, not by one-way imposition of information.

In other words, when you are able to communicate with customers, you can not only send out announcements from your side, but also receive “replies” from them, such as opinions, word-of-mouth, and reviews.

Increasing the number of opinions, word-of-mouth, and reviews you receive from customers creates the following cycle, helping your shop grow into a more lively and bustling one.

Not only will you receive comments like “Thank you for your polite service” and “It was just as cute as I expected,” but you’ll also receive comments like “I wish there was a product like this.”

By replying to customer comments and reviews, you can increase customer satisfaction.

Increasing customer satisfaction will encourage more customers to write reviews.

The number of reviews that can be introduced on social media will increase, and your store will become more active.

You’ve probably experienced this before, but when you see a store with a line or a lot of customers, you’ve been intrigued and decided to join the line or go into the store, right?

This “psychology of being interested in trendy or popular products” is called the bandwagon effect, and online stores that are bustling with opinions, comments, and reviews can also expect the bandwagon effect.

In other words, by communicating with customers, your store will become more active, and the bandwagon effect will be created, which means you can attract a lot of customers.

How to communicate with customers

What kind of email communication can you use to interact with customers one-on-one?

Reply emails to customer inquiries

Shipping notification emails

Thank-you emails to customers who have purchased your products

Examples include email newsletters that provide information about your shop, such as new products and sales information, but email newsletters are basically one-way communication from the shop, so you can’t expect a large response from customers, so it’s best to deal with them one-on-one as much as possible.

Some online store creation services you use may have an automatic shipping completion email, so you may not be able to adjust the wording.

In that case, it’s a good idea to follow up with an email asking “Did the product arrive safely?” when the product arrives.

Sending one-on-one emails like this makes it easy for customers to feel “special,” so it’s the best way to communicate with customers in an online store.

Basically,

Don’t make mistakes with the type of address, such as To, CC, BCC, etc. * If you use CC to send to multiple people at once, the addresses will be visible, so be careful.
Write emails in polite language.

• Be careful not to use double polite language.
  Make the subject line easy to understand, such as “Important: Product shipping notification.”
  Make sure to create emails with these three points in mind and communicate with your customers.