Don't be afraid of cross-border EC! Customer Support Tips - Where to start preparing? How to handle complaints? ～How to handle a complaint?

Hello, my name is Tara. I am a consultant.
If you want to sell your company's products to an international audience, one of the hurdles you may face is responding to inquiries from users. If it is only in English, how many languages will you support? Do you have to translate the content each time? Will we have to keep them waiting because of the time difference? The list goes on and on.
This article introduces the channels and systems required for response, as well as effective operational methods.

Where do you start? There are three decisions to make

1. Decide on the channel through which you will accept inquiries.
   In Japan, we often receive inquiries via inquiry forms or e-mail. Overseas, you need to assume that you will receive inquiries through various other channels. For example, from chat on the site, whatsapp, SMS, facebook messenger or instagram DM, comments on Social mediaposts, etc! Of course, you don't have to check all these channels all day long; some customer support tools that can be integrated with Shopify have the ability to manage multiple channels at once, so make sure you have the infrastructure in place to respond efficiently.
2. Decide on the languages to be supported
   Depending on the country or region in which you plan to operate, you will also need to decide on the languages you will support. English is a minimum requirement, but in some cases, multilingual support may be necessary. It is necessary to know the official languages and how widespread they are, and to prepare staff and translation services that can handle them.
3. Decide on the time of day you will be available to respond.
   Basically, since e-commerceis sold 24 hours a day, it is ideal to be able to respond to users all day long. However, there are many cases where it is difficult to do so with the current system...for example, if you are concurrently engaged in other duties, or if the scope of your work is extensive.
   Shopify's user inquiry tools include AI-based auto-replies and help tools that tag responses according to the language in which they are received, making it possible to respond efficiently. It is also important to increase the self-resolution rate so that customers can find the information they need before contacting you in the first place, so plan for a well-stocked FAQ page and routine Social mediacalls.
   Nevertheless, if there is a particular country you are targeting, you may want to consider assigning staff to respond in a timely manner in local time in the future.

Customer support is fundamental to a better customer experience

Even if you offer attractive products and services, poor customer support can make a bad impression. This section describes points to pay special attention to and countermeasures to take.

■Speedy response
It is important to respond to inquiries as quickly as possible. I am not sure if it can be called a cultural difference, but Japan is quite tolerant of waiting. I have received responses to my inquiries in half a day or the next day, saying, "I am sure they will respond to your inquiry if you look at it. I think few people would be outraged if they received a response to their inquiry within half a day or the next day, thinking, "I'm sure they will take care of it when they see it. You should think that speed is required in foreign countries to an extent that is incomparable to this kind of feeling. How to reply? Some customer support apps that work with Shopify have the ability to set rules and automatically reply based on the conditions of the incoming message.
By setting up a list of possible questions and answers in advance, you won't have to fumble through them every time you receive a message.

Enhancement and service improvement of Frequently Asked Questions page
Consumers are more stressed by the act of "asking questions" than companies realize. In other words, it is important to increase the "self-resolution rate," the rate at which consumers can find information without having to contact the company in the first place. This is a win-win situation for companies, as it will help them to address the lack of resources to respond to inquiries.

One U.S. study also found that

• 58% of customers cannot find all the information they need online,
• Furthermore, 63% of these customers spent more than 10 minutes on the site,
• Also, 59% of customers feel stressed about having to go out of their way to contact live operators, etc.

Source: https://news.nuance.com/

We know that giving up at the inquiry stage or damaging the brand image can be a lost opportunity.
e-commerceRather than creating a site and calling it quits, efforts should be made to continually enhance product and brand pages so that customers do not need to inquire in the first place.

Even if it is not possible to include everything, it is important for company representatives to update the question and answer collection so that they can respond to similar inquiries without making customers wait. Also, by receiving feedback from customers after responding to their inquiries, the company can improve its services in response to actual inquiries.

Summary

What do you think? it is necessary to constantly update the site so that customers can have a smooth buying experience without having to go through a complicated inquiry flow. Cross-border e-commercewe want to be prepared to anticipate ongoing customer relationship building, so that the development of the site itself is not the goal.

The most important prerequisite is also the most important aspect: compliance with the Privacy Policy. In the process of responding to customer inquiries, you will naturally handle a lot of privacy data. You should not think that it is enough to comply with Japan's privacy laws, but you should also pay attention to the laws of other countries. Whether or not you have a particular country or region you want to target, what laws do you need to comply with? Please contact us for more information about this as well.