What is eCommerce Automation?
When we state ‘automation’ we indicate just that. Automating “work”, functions and jobs that can be done through your software. To put it simply, making use of the information available to you within your eCommerce platform to automate specific functions in order to much better serve your consumers and your company without manual intervention. With today’s eCommerce solutions it’s not only possible to do so, however it’s necessary for your marketing undertakings.
Basically, workflow automation is a method for you to improve your service. The idea is to recognize repetitive tasks or manual processes that can now be passed off to your eCommerce system. Save your time and let a commerce platform do the work.
Why Automate?
There are several reasons that any B2B company ought to think about automating a few of their systems. As we know, among the biggest benefits of choosing an eCommerce platform is to develop client relationships. Nevertheless here are a couple of more:
- Efficiency
Let’s face it, many day to day tasks in our business are tedious and time-consuming. Automation makes that go away. With the right amount of automation, tasks can be done at any time and more consistently than ever before. - Cost-effectiveness
This is an easy one and goes hand-in-hand with the first. Using automation, you’ll no longer be paying for hours to accomplish those tedious tasks. You’ll also be empowering your team to take on other projects. - The ability to provide customer insight
Using automation, you’re better able to develop a relationship with your customers by offering them products you know will fit their needs even before they do. - The ability to leverage data more efficiently
Now that your eCommerce platform is providing you with a plethora of data, you are automatically now more efficient and can spend time deciding how to use that data. In other words, your time is now spent on using the data as opposed to gathering the data. - Enjoy the rewards of a full marketing team without employing a full marketing team
Utilizing automatic features in your system, you can launch entire marketing campaigns with your current staff.
What Features Can/Should I Automate?
So we now understand a few of the reasons you must automate, let’s talk about what features you can and/or ought to automate and where to get going with automation on your store.
Smart Order Confirmations
In the old days, validating a consumer’s order would have to be done manually. Potentially an e-mail from a staff member who needed to go down a list, inspect the order was made then validate through e-mail. With automation, that’s no longer a time-consuming procedure. Utilizing automation you can now confirm an order immediately. However that’s not all.
Consider this. Was this a novice order? Was it a very first re-order? Was this your customer’s 20th order? Using the data from your eCommerce system, you now have the answers to these questions and can react accordingly with a better (and more individualized) ‘Thank you for your first order reaction. Or a, ‘We ‘d like to thank you for being such a loyal customer’ response.
These actions are extremely effective as you produce the action once, established the automation and your system sends it out. In addition, they construct your relationship with your customer.
Things to consider automating around the customer’s order:
- Order confirmation / Thank you email or text
- Shipping confirmation
- Tracking number
- Delivery confirmation
Customer Groups
Lots Of B2B or B2C organizations use discounts or new rates tiers to customers reaching specific limits. If you are among them, this is an excellent place to integrate that automation. Utilizing the date from your platform, you can create automation to notify customers of their brand-new rates and even immediately reveal them their pricing when they login to purchase.
This is a big time saver for your staff. No longer will a staff member have to keep track of that information and address orders based on it. You can likewise automate the upgrade process and internal alerts as well – consider notifying the sales and account groups when their customers or accounts have struck specific turning points.
Order Follow Ups
As we all know, customer relationships are type in today’s world. It is critically important that you know how you’re doing based on consumer feedback. For that reason you require to ask for it. Get in automation.
We mentioned above how you can use automation to send out order confirmations, shipping verification and even shipment verification. Why not ask for feedback?
When you have verification that a consumer’s order has been delivered, automate an email stating that and asking, ‘How did we do?’ This will offer you immediate feedback on customer care concerns or might bring up other issues you require to deal with.
You can also use automation to get a review on a particular item. If it’s a complicated or pricey purchase it’s that a lot more essential to discover how the consumer is utilizing the product or service.
Things to consider automating around order follow-ups:.
- How was your experience ordering?
- How was our shipping?
- Were you satisfied with a, b, c?
- How can we improve our service to you?
Product Specific Follow Ups
Among the very best uses of automation in your B2B eCommerce system is the ability it provides you to follow up on a customer’s purchases. However, in a different way than stated above. Using the information derived from your eCommerce system, you now have easy access, through reports, to all of a customer’s buying history.
With that information you can now determine if other items may be of interest to them and put those products in front of them. Via automation, you can ask a client how they liked a particular purchase and then suggest another based upon the very first.
For example, you can send out a communication asking “How did you like your purchase? Based on that order we feel you might take advantage of this item.”
This is a lot more crucial if you’re selling big ticket products that need maintenance, upkeep or products to keep them running. By developing a dataset of clients who have actually acquired these products, you can help them see those supplies therefore guaranteeing they continue to buy from you. You’re keeping your products in their line of view.
Last Order Notifications
As we have actually mentioned, among the biggest and best features of your eCommerce system is the amount of information you have access to. Your system not just informs you what your consumers have actually purchased, but when. Using automation, you can reach out to those who haven’t ordered in some time.
In other words, you can develop a data report that takes a look at the date of your customer’s last purchase. Then e-mail, ‘Hey, we have not seen you in awhile”
You can likewise utilize automation to target smaller sized groups of clients. Consider those that have actually been inactive for awhile or those who have just bought a certain variety of times. How do you want to market to them? Keep in mind, you do not have to use your entire consumer list for everything.
To Wrap Up
When it pertains to automation in your eCommerce platform, the sky’s the limit. Since you can so easily manipulate the huge amount of information collected through your system, you really can increase your marketing efforts. Make the effort to decide how you desire your system to work for you. What can be automated? How can you then make use of employees? Make it occur and watch your organization grow. To learn more about how Storehub.io can assist you enhance your eCommerce automation, contact us.
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