Thanks to the pandemic, stationery brands are going digital. E-commerce—once a negligible market for stationery brands—is now a significant source of growth.
For instance, in the first half of 2020, the brand Papier reported a 300% increase in online sales year over year. Those numbers are hardly slowing down.
Yet as stationery brands embrace digital selling, they also need to build a robust social customer service ecosystem to help convert and retain new customers.
For stationery brands, customer service has its specific challenges. Many major stationery brands, including American Stationery and Minted, let customers build their greeting cards. Customers love those offerings, but they often have questions about the process.
For stationery brands that are new to selling online, here are some of the key strategies to adopt and improve the digital customer experience:
For stationery brands specifically, many customer inquiries customer service reps end up fielding will relate to design customization.
Luxury stationery brands like Smythson and Bella Figura allow people to customize their greeting cards, wedding stationery, and notebooks.
Brands can consider working with a customer service partner to save time and money. Chatdesk recruits and trains customer service agents who are real fans of each brand to answer questions in comments, email, and chat quickly.
It's essential to be mindful of hiring customer service team members that know the ins and outs of each company's design process to address any customer issues swiftly.
Stationery brands should have an active presence on social channels like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.
Greeting card companies like Minted have amassed nearly half a million followers on Instagram. Social media is where users expect customer service interactions to happen in 2022.
44% of millennials want businesses to reply to customer comments within an hour. Instagram and TikTok have become the new hubs where people engage with brands; having this presence will drive sales and help deliver better response times and customer experience.
One way brands can ensure they answer customer questions on social media is to include a FAQ section on their social profiles.
On Instagram, brands can do this through Stories Highlights; the Stories featured at the top of each Instagram profile.
Artifact Uprising, which sells prints, cards, and photo books, has a Story called "New Here?" pinned to the top of its profile that walks new customers through the process of using Artifact Uprising.
A quick tutorial outlines how new buyers can build and customize a product on their website, including cropping and adjusting the brightness of a photo.
Stationery brands should consider pinning Stories that explain commonly asked customer questions such as their shipping process and returns policy to the top of their page.
One of the most common reasons buyers contact customer support is to ask questions about the return process.
Brands need to craft clear return policies to cut down on questions about customer interactions and avoid customer complaints or negative comments. A good return policy explains which products are eligible to be returned—and how.
A return policy should answer questions like: How long is the return window? Are all categories of products eligible to be returned? Do customers have to keep the original packaging when sending back a return?
To have a successful customer service strategy on social media, brands need to understand how to talk to their target audience on each social media channel.
It's important to have a centralized platform for social media monitoring that delivers valuable insights, and trends brands can implement and review.
Chatdesk Trends is unique because it can integrate with all of brands platforms, including:
Chatdesk Trends can detect customer needs and help brands understand what is—and isn't—working with their social media customer support strategy.
It makes social media management, social listening, and formulating strategies for delivering excellent customer service experiences so much easier. Schedule a demo here to see how Chatdesk Trends helps brands improve customer satisfaction.
