Fighting pictures, chatting, playing memes... this customer service has entered the next level

Why has customer service reached the next level this year? This article will show you how e-commerce customer service has changed this year and why Pinduoduo's customer service is so popular. This article is recommended for companies or individual business owners.

Fighting wits and courage with customer service has become the "new normal" of e-commerce consumption.

On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo, the discussion under the keyword #客服# is getting more and more intense. Some people have opened a thread to record the different after-sales attitudes of customer service on e-commerce platforms, some have questioned the feedback efficiency of customer service, and some have summarized and shared their experiences of arguing with customer service. The once insignificant role has gradually played a role that cannot be ignored in the e-commerce consumption process.

Image source: Internet

After years of development in the e-commerce industry, today's users have learned to carefully measure every aspect of e-commerce consumption. Consumers have begun to consider various back-end services, such as return and exchange costs, delivery speed, and delivery efficiency, and directly affect the direction of the final decision. As the shortest path for merchants and platforms to connect with consumers, customer service has become an important dimension for users to evaluate platform services and merchant attitudes.

Since last year, a number of mainstream e-commerce platforms have been inclined to provide services to the C-end. From the full popularization of freight insurance to the collective cancellation of the pre-sale system during the 618 shopping festival this year, e-commerce platforms have been "winning" the hearts of consumers step by step by optimizing their service policies. However, the service attitude of after-sales customer service is rarely mentioned by e-commerce platforms.

Under the calm surface, things have actually changed. In fact, some platforms have gradually realized the importance of customer service. Doujiao observed that during the just-concluded 618 period, a topic #有被拼多多客服宠到# became a hot search. Under the entry, there are real shopping stories, humane compensation plans, and timely and efficient processing efficiency. Many consumers said frankly that this is the reason they fell in love with Pinduoduo.

Image source: Weibo user @元气小鸡血

Behind every piece of sharing is the e-commerce platform's more complete, detailed and humane service logic, and it is also a two-way journey between the e-commerce platform and consumers.

1. Why does Pinduoduo customer service have so many fans?

With the reshaping of consumption concepts, users have also had a new interpretation of the extension and connotation of product quality and back-end services.

The decision-making chain and cycle of a complete e-commerce consumption are lengthening. Before placing an order, consumers will patiently examine multiple sources and repeatedly check the information on the product details page. At the same time, the after-sales process of the product is also proportionally enlarged. The "sunk costs" that were previously accumulated due to troubles and complexities have been crushed. Once consumers are dissatisfied with the product, they will actively seek return and exchange services.

Among these two key changes, after-sales customer service stands at the intersection of the two, and needs to closely connect with consumers' personalized needs and track the real-time progress of each order.

However, for many consumers, communicating with customer service is often a long and difficult process.

"Are all customer service representatives so arrogant nowadays?" This Xiaohongshu post attracted many users' attention. The post said that the user just asked about the delivery time, but the customer service representative was sarcastic and asked why I didn't read the product page carefully. Do I have to endure such humiliation when buying something?"

Image source: Xiaohongshu

Some netizens also shared their experiences in the comment section, "We had agreed on a refund and return, but the customer service didn't read the reply", "They called me dear and were very affectionate, but when we encountered problems they just passed the buck and it took several days to change clothes"... Some netizens even posted screenshots of the chat, "Reminding everyone to avoid this store, the customer service attitude is really bad."

Although users’ complaints vary, they all point to the same e-commerce consumption trend: “service” is becoming an important indicator influencing consumer decisions, and consumers urgently need humane and efficient services.

In this context, Pinduoduo's customer service stands out for two important reasons. First, the sincere and warm service attitude is the first label that impresses consumers with Pinduoduo's customer service.

"Human touch" is the most significant feature of Pinduoduo's customer service that has left consumers with a sense of humanity. Many consumers have long been annoyed by the rigid, formalistic customer service. However, Pinduoduo's customer service has changed the unequal communication relationship between "buyers" and "sellers" in the past, and provides after-sales service with a friendly attitude. Through strong empathy, it dilutes the original sense of distance in e-commerce shopping, thereby enhancing consumers' trust in merchants.

It is precisely because of the establishment of such an equal and friendly exchange relationship that so many heartwarming stories happen on Pinduoduo. "I was comforted to tears by a Pinduoduo merchant," said @-yiyy小易_, a netizen, who had a shopping experience on Pinduoduo that left a deep impression on her. After learning that she was in a bad mood, the merchant not only did not urge her to exchange the goods, but also took the initiative to comfort her. "The merchant shared a rainbow photo with me and said that if I had any questions, I could tell him and he was willing to chat with me." Sincerity is always a killer move, and this small, kind conversation touched many people.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

There are many such customer service representatives on Pinduoduo. A Pinduoduo store that mainly sells veterinary additives was alerted by a user who asked whether it could be drunk with milk. The customer service representative called the police for help and stopped the user’s risky behavior in time.

Image source: Internet

Only when merchant customer service is willing to empathize with consumers from a level perspective can they truly read and understand consumers' needs, and the cold and stereotyped e-commerce services will become warmer.

Secondly, in addition to merchant customer service, Pinduoduo's platform customer service provides solid support for consumers, and through the platform's comprehensive mechanisms, it adds another layer of protection for the consumer experience.

Timely and efficient platform services save consumers and users time. During the communication between users and merchant customer service, the Pinduoduo platform will monitor in real time. Once an after-sales problem occurs, the platform will make adjustments as a third party and respond to user needs reasonably. The efficiency of the platform customer service made users laugh and say, "I didn't even have time to get angry, and the platform customer service helped me solve the problem and gave me a compensation coupon."

Image source: Xiaohongshu

More importantly, the platform's customer service neither wastes time nor does it perfunctorily. Instead, it provides practical solutions to minimize users' "consumption internal friction". Yanyan, a senior Pinduoduo user, told Doujiao, "Pinduoduo's customer service is both pragmatic and straightforward, and also humane. Generally, it provides users with three after-sales solutions: return and refund, refund without return, or self-selection of compensation. It truly understands the core demands of our consumers."

The thoughtful service of the platform customer service is not only reflected in the communication link, but also covers the entire consumption process. For example, the logistics abnormality subsidy coupons given to users for slow logistics speed, and the after-sales experience compensation coupons issued to users after after-sales problems occur. These meticulous and thoughtful services can precisely reflect Pinduoduo's attention and respect for consumers, and put consumer experience in a key position.

2. Behind the “pampering fans” is the sincere service background

After-sales service is the manifestation of the attitude of users on e-commerce platforms. The vivid and heartwarming service cases that occurred on Pinduoduo outline the platform's background of treating customers with sincerity and putting users first. The opening of user service links and the improvement of after-sales processes have also made a number of merchants direct beneficiaries.

Looking back on the construction of this equal and harmonious relationship, we have to mention the optimization and iteration of the platform ecology.

On the merchant side, Pinduoduo adheres to the principles of "openness" and "inclusiveness" and provides merchants with a platform with lower barriers and flexible operations. Merchants of different sizes can also easily settle in, and there are many self-employed businesses. It is the participation of such merchants that can enable all kinds of high-quality, cost-effective agricultural products to enter a larger consumer market, and meet the personalized needs of consumers through strong supply.

This is most evident in the development of Pinduoduo's agricultural products category. As Pinduoduo's business base, Pinduoduo insists on implementing a zero-commission policy to help businesses and benefit farmers, helping fresh produce, fruits and other agricultural products to accelerate their upward trend. Many simple fruit farmers have established a foothold in Pinduoduo.

However, it is not easy to fulfill contracts for non-standard products such as fresh produce and fruits. These products have a short shelf life and high logistics requirements. In the operation of agricultural products, not only are the fulfillment costs high for merchants, but after-sales service is also difficult. It is difficult for users to achieve reverse cold chain logistics, and returns and exchanges are almost impossible.

Pinduoduo's timely and precise platform efforts provide a fulcrum for the balance between supply and demand of agricultural products.

In view of the difficulties in fulfilling agricultural product orders, Pinduoduo has established a set of after-sales service systems and standards for fresh agricultural products, including compensation for damage, 48-hour delivery, and quick refunds. The implementation of these measures can not only dispel users' consumption concerns and improve the shopping experience, but also use the power of the platform to steadily increase the merchant repurchase rate, thereby creating a benign and positive platform ecological closed loop, truly putting users first and empowering merchants.

Image source: Pinduoduo

On the consumer side, Pinduoduo focuses on the core needs of consumers and continuously extends its service tentacles to cover consumers of all regions and types. Only by opening up the link of consumer demand can we inject continuous vitality into the supply of merchants and the development of the platform.

This year, Pinduoduo began to implement a policy of free delivery to villages in Xinjiang, which responded to the strong demands of Xinjiang consumers. Even though the e-commerce environment is mature, Xinjiang, Tibet and other regions have been ignored by a number of platforms due to their geographical location. Not only is the popularization of free delivery slow, but it is also difficult to achieve express delivery to villages.

Niu Senlin, a chicken feed salesman born in the 2000s, said in an interview, "It takes five hours to drive from one village in Xinjiang to another." Although e-commerce platforms have achieved free delivery in Xinjiang two years ago, the vastness of Xinjiang has made it very troublesome to "pick up express delivery." Many Xinjiang consumers can only ride a bicycle from the village for dozens of minutes or even several hours to the town to pick up the express delivery.

Pinduoduo's promotion of free express delivery to villages in Xinjiang has once again filled another gap in Xinjiang's e-commerce logistics and distribution, bringing e-commerce services from Xinjiang's county towns to village entrances, enhancing consumers' happiness with online shopping, and also driving convenient and efficient e-commerce to truly penetrate thousands of households in Xinjiang.

3. Focusing on consumers: the main line of Pinduoduo’s service innovation

Looking back at every transformation and development of the Pinduoduo platform, it is not difficult to find that the upgrade of Pinduoduo has always been complementary to the improvement of e-commerce services.

In the first few years of Pinduoduo's development, based on consumer shopping feedback, Pinduoduo launched service policies such as 48-hour delivery and compensation for overpriced products, actively showing the platform's sincerity. E-commerce platforms not only need supply power, but also need to strengthen service capabilities. With this as a starting point, Pinduoduo has been improving its e-commerce service architecture step by step, and has single-handedly promoted the direction of change in the e-commerce industry.

In recent years, Pinduoduo has pioneered the "refund only in special circumstances" policy, which is another major step in upgrading e-commerce services. Through platform protection, it takes care of consumer needs, makes the silent majority visible, and protects their rights. Now, this e-commerce service reform has long become the "standard configuration" of most e-commerce platforms, which shows the leading effect of Pinduoduo.

In fact, Pinduoduo's pace of service innovation is closely related to the current consumption environment and user needs.

The change in the background of the times has also brought about a major change in consumption concepts. Contemporary consumers' demands for a better life are constantly upgrading. Specifically, consumers no longer or rarely pay for a single factor of a product. They are more willing to make in-depth considerations on many factors such as merchant services, product prices, and product quality, and only decide whether to make the final purchase after careful consideration.

Changes on the consumer side directly drive the upgrade of the supply side, and e-commerce platforms are also following the trend. This year, with the 618 mid-year promotion as a turning point, a number of mainstream e-commerce platforms have successively realized that simple and direct services are crucial, and have begun to reshape the logic of e-commerce services with the idea of ​​"simplifying the complex". The most obvious proof is the complete cancellation of the pre-sale system, which has been criticized by consumers in recent years.

Whether it is the change in the consumption environment or the shift in consumption behavior, it essentially points to the change in user needs. For e-commerce platforms, only by identifying the main line of user needs can the positive cycle of the ecosystem be truly realized.

On the one hand, users’ demand for e-commerce services is “large and comprehensive”, covering the entire consumption path. For this reason, the upgrade of Pinduoduo’s service policy also covers all aspects of pre-sales, sales, and after-sales.

In the pre-sales stage, Pinduoduo has established a rapid response mechanism to promptly answer users' questions about products. Currently, the three-minute response rate of Pinduoduo stores is no less than 80%.

During the sales process, the platform also links multiple parties to provide consumers with the best and safest services. This year, Pinduoduo cooperated with third-party service platforms to launch the "trade-in" service, covering categories such as mobile phones, digital products, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, and televisions. Not only that, under the "trade-in" category of Pinduoduo, it can also support popular products with 10 billion subsidies, provide consumers with additional large subsidies, and activate users' consumption needs.

Image source: Pinduoduo

When it comes to the after-sales stage, Pinduoduo has also built a bridge of trust between consumers and merchants through 48-hour delivery, quick refunds, compensation for experience losses, etc., and through perfect after-sales service to ensure user experience, help merchants establish a service reputation, and lay the foundation for subsequent repurchases.

On the other hand, users' e-commerce service demands are "precise and detailed", and different types of users have refined service demands.

Pinduoduo has taken the right medicine, sorted out and summarized the characteristics and needs of various types of consumers, and accurately created a differentiated service map. Taking the "silver generation" as an example, older people are also increasingly joining the online shopping trend. However, compared with young people who have a strong sense of the Internet and learn quickly, the elderly are not proficient in the application of e-commerce platforms, especially in terms of returns and exchanges, claims, etc.

Therefore, Pinduoduo's after-sales strategy is tilted towards serving the elderly, helping elderly consumers solve problems with more thoughtful and patient service methods and enhancing their happiness in online shopping.

The trend from "selling goods" to "selling goods and services" and from "cost-effectiveness" to "price-performance ratio" has become an irreversible trend for e-commerce platforms. How to improve service capabilities is a multi-party proposition related to consumers, merchants and platforms, and is also a core factor affecting the development direction of e-commerce platforms. As a leader in e-commerce, Pinduoduo has widened its "moat" with service capabilities, providing the industry with a development model worthy of deep thought and reference.

Author: Bukong

Source: WeChat official account: "Chopped Pepper Spicy (ID: ylwanjia)"