Top Reasons for Cart Abandonment, #8: Lack of Support
Have you ever found yourself with a question about an item while shopping in a department store stocked wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with inventory? You look down one aisle – no one to help. Within a few minutes you decide to set the item down and walk out the door because you cannot find the timely help that you need.
One of the drawbacks to online shopping that must be mitigated is the fact that there isn’t inherent human to human contact (this has its pros and cons) and while you may think that your storefront, product information, and checkout process are simple and straightforward, those who visit your page may not. Or sometimes, they just want to hear a real live person telling them everything is gonna be okay.
Let’s look at an example. If I head over to Apple.com and try to buy the brand new Mophie Spacepack (Add 8 hours of battery plus 32gb of space to my iPhone? Sweet.), I am constantly greeted by a lifeline along the top of the store and checkout. If I have questions, I can contact them about it without having to dig for that info.
Chat Options
Another way to offer your customers personalized support is with an on site chat feature. We have implemented and had success with LiveChat and Website Alive, among others, as third party chat services. While many storefronts will host a LiveChat tab on the footer of their site, other more popular businesses like Warby Parker may include an option to LiveChat on their help page. See the screen shot from their current help page.
FAQ Page
And finally, if you are a business that gets a lot of the same questions asked over and over again, a simple and convenient way to mitigate this is with an easy-to-find and navigate FAQ page on your site. Be sure to clearly spell out your returns policy as well.
Bottom line: Be helpful.
Most of all, you want to come across as helpful and easily accessible. In my experience, if I get even the slightest sense that it is going to be difficult for me to contact the seller in the event that I need to return something or I have a question, forget it, this sale is history.