How to use the time you save by automating returns.

If you’re in ecommerce, up to 40% of your support tickets could be about returns. But when you add a tool like Loop to your tech stack, customers are now able to manage returns on their own.

So, what should your support team do with the time you save? 

21,000 support agents use Gorgias, every day. I have seen some killer initiatives picked up by support teams and this is how I would reallocate the time you save when automating returns:

1. Get involved on social media 

Reducing the amount of hours your team spends handling returns gives them bandwidth to support other high value channels for your business, like Facebook and Instagram. 

You might be thinking… isn't that marketing's job? 

Marketing is building the creative and ad strategy for those platforms, but they may be less focused on questions and comments that come through after the content has posted.

This is where support comes in – product questions, customer complaints, and general feedback about your brand are posted to social channels every day. When support agents have more bandwidth, they are able to answer these questions with a level of care and empathy that customers have come to expect on chat and email.

2. Respond to support requests in real-time 

We see many brands start with email support only. It allows teams to prioritize more effectively and move the highest urgency support requests to the front of the queue. But we live in an on-demand world. Your customers are expecting to be able to interact with you now. 

Thats where live chat can help. With less return tickets to manage, your team will have more time to devote to real-time support. 

Not only will this improve your response times, it will also improve your conversion rates. Customers who have questions about a product can get a reply in the same shopping session, making them much more likely to complete their purchase.

3. Build personalized customer interactions

Finally, use the time saved to research themes in past support conversations and deeply understand your return reasons. In this data, you will find exactly what customers struggle with when making a purchase. 

The better you understand past behavior, the more likely you are to predict and influence future behavior.

A simple first step is to prepare automatic replies to frequently asked questions. If customers often ask for a size chart, use your saved time to prepare responses that deliver this information automatically.

Taking this a step further – make yourself available to dig deeper into frequently asked questions. An example: instead of relying on size charts and customer chat alone, Knix has created virtual fittings where a member of their team will help customers choose the right size over a video call.

It is in these interactions that customers truly build connection with your brand. 

Gorgias and Loop have teamed up

All of these opportunities are unlocked when your team can free themselves of repetitive return tasks. To help you solve this problem, Gorgias and Loop have joined forces to make your returns experience and your support experience even easier.

Gorgias and Loop are the two best customer support tools in our tech stack and now we can use them together.

- Richard Ramsuchit, CX Manager, Vitaly Design

Using an on-demand returns portal with Loop will allow customers to start a return and generate a shipping label entirely on their own. And by integrating Loop with Gorgias, you ensure that all your return activity is tracked and available within your Gorgias admin every time you chat with a customer.

By using Gorgias and Loop together, you will: 

• Free up more time for customer support. With Loop, brands can automate most of their return-related requests so that your customer support team can spend more time in Gorgias on support tickets that matter.

• Empower your customers. We’re giving customers the power to submit their own return requests, which means no more frustrating back-and-forth emails. When customers do need to engage support, our integration lets your representatives quickly find answers to questions like "Where is my refund?" or "Has my exchange been approved?" right inside of Gorgias.

• Level up your customer experience. With our ability to automate returns and Gorgias’ ability to automate tasks (like copying answers to frequently asked questions and closing out old support tickets), your support team will have more time to actually engage with customers in a personalized and thoughtful way.

While dealing with support tickets is an inevitable part of running an ecommerce business, you are able to handle them more efficiently. Doing so allows you to allocate resources to other valuable areas of the business like social, live chat, and one to one experiences that stand out and leave a lasting impression on your customers. 

If you want learn more about Gorgias, click here.

If you want to learn more about Loop, click here.