Back in the early days of the internet, all a website needed to do was to give you some online presence. The design didn’t need to be particularly fancy or technical.

As long as it had About Us, Services, and Contact Us pages, the website would be good enough. Now, web design has become much more involved, mainly to meet the growing demands of customer service.

Good customer service is the lifeblood of every successful business

With more people buying their goods and services online, and as more companies shift their business online, every web development company must put smoother customer service and higher conversion rates at the top of their agenda with every design job they take.

Abandoned carts, high bounce rates, and low CTA click-through rates all suggest shoppers and visitors to your site aren’t confident in its security or are just not getting the information they need to make informed buying decisions. This leads to low conversions, poor sales, and a business that just isn’t going to do very well going forward.

What can you do to improve your customer service and, hopefully, grow your sales?

5 Things You Can Do To Improve Customer Service with Your Website

Web designing services have evolved so much over the years. There is an increasing need for input from marketing and customer service specialists on web design jobs.

No matter how many bells and whistles there are on the website, it isn’t going to help you meet your business goals if the website does not help customers find what they need without hassle. With so many options available on the internet, prospects will simply leave your site.

Here are five things you can do.

• Make it easy for customers to contact you

Today, almost every website has a Contact Us form. But not all of them are positioned where visitors can easily find them. Some are displayed only on a few, select pages of the website. Just having your contact details on the Contact Us page is not enough.

Because visitors have to get into their email client or spend their airtime just to contact you means you are giving them far too much to do. Their attention can easily be distracted by something else, or they may discover a better offer before they have had a chance to contact you. A contact form that they can fill and send without leaving your site is better.

But be careful not to make the Contact Us form too complex for its purposes. Make it clear to the web designing company you hire to make the form as simple as possible. One or two form fields are enough. People are not comfortable leaving too much of their personal information on every site they visit.

Even better is to place tappable contact phone numbers and email addresses at the top of your pages. If a prospect feels the need contact you, the contact information will already be in front of them. This works particularly well with smartphone users, who are growing by the day, as they can place a call with your customer service people by simply tapping on the phone number.

• Have an exhaustive FAQs page on your site

Making it easy for your customers to reach you is great. But in most cases, customers prefer to help themselves. As such, a good web designing company must incorporate tools that make this possible for your customers.

A good way to provide customers with the information they need without having to place a call with you is having a thoroughly exhaustive Frequently Asked Questions’ page on your website. Put links to the FAQs page at every potential friction point.

Things customers often want clarity on including your returns’ policy, payment options, and how disputes on things like shipping delays are handled. This lessens the chances of customers leaving your site before you have had a chance to convert them.

• Put a live chat facility so customers can speak to you without leaving the site

Some customers are impatient. They want their issues addressed the moment they encounter them. And as long as you want their business, you have to find a way they can speak to you when they want to. You risk losing their sale if they have to live your site to make a call or send you an email.

Giving customers a live chat option that puts them in direct communication with a customer service person improves their experience and, with it your chances of making a sale. A live chat facility keeps people on your site, which increases the chances they might even add another item to their shopping cart.

• Have your social media buttons prominently displayed on your site

Who doesn’t use social media these days? Well, no one who wants to improve their customer service and increase their sales. More companies are finding a growing chunk of traffic to their site is coming through their social media channels. Social media has become such an important channel, even for e-commerce businesses.

Prominently displayed social media buttons make it easy for people to share your content. This, in turn, improves your social media presence, increasing your chances of getting discovered by more people.

Prospects can contact you directly from your social media pages without visiting your site. It means people have more channels with which to raise queries and order your services and products.

• Blog regularly

Every business must blog regularly. A blog gives you a channel with which to answer customer concerns before they even raise them. It is an effective and cheap way to market your business and improve the chances of a deeper engagement and loyalty from your customers.

By watching trends, keeping your ears to the ground, and thoroughly researching your keywords, you can create and share content that helps your customers make better decisions and get more value out of your products.

Your Website must make it Easy for Customers to Get the Help They Need

A good website must make it easy for visitors to navigate from one page to the next. It must not put distractions that disturb people from consuming the content they came looking for. But above all, it must have tools that help people request information, raise queries, and even to complement your business without much effort.

A web development services company can do everything else well, but it is a waste of resources if the website they deliver to you does not help you serves your customers better by making it less difficult to complain, shop, and browse your product listings.