This post was originally published on this site.
As Black Friday fever fades, the Christmas shopping season is peaking, Many will be hitting the pavements for ‘Panic Weekend’ on 20-21 December, as well as making last-minute online shopping orders. And it doesn’t stop there, with the usual massive post-Christmas sales slated for January.
Online retailers are managing spikes in website traffic and ensuring customer service readiness as complaints and issues inevitably arise. But what about the ‘middlemen’? The SaaS companies like Shopify, BigCommerce and Wix, which power the services for retailers? While they do not sell the product or drive the van, they are often first on the chopping block when festive cheer turns to consumer frustration.
The customer complaint challenge
eCommerce SaaS platforms act as the invisible engines powering global digital storefronts and transactions. For these platforms, the holiday shopping period presents a unique customer complaint challenge: consumers rarely differentiate between the merchant, the courier, and the supporting technology platform.
As a result, eCommerce SaaS platforms are often held accountable for issues they cannot directly control, such as merchant fulfillment or third-party logistics. For instance, when a transaction fails, a delivery vanishes, or a package is late, frustrations from the retailer are often aimed at the SaaS provider.
To protect their brand reputation during this season, SaaS companies must move beyond basic troubleshooting and embrace curated customer service. It is no longer sufficient to simply host a static FAQ or provide a basic chat widget, and these platforms need carefully constructed customer service. Solving the issues as fast as possible, and providing helpful guidance on them is important.
Empathy meets AI
The key to this strategy lies in a sophisticated balance between AI and human empathy. Over-automation can create more problems than it solves. We’ve all experienced the endless loop of back-and-forths with a chatbot, leading to a “sad path” that ends in a digital cul-de-sac. For a consumer trying to locate a missing gift which they need in two days before they drive to their in-laws for Christmas, or an unhelpful bot isn’t just a technical glitch, it’s an emotional failure.
Real value is created when technology is used to identify when a “sad path” has begun and intervenes at the right time. Sophisticated deployment of Natural Language Processing (NLP) should be used, not to replace humans, but to better determine when to hand a customer over to a live agent from a chatbot or any other channel. The NLP can determine a customer’s frustration levels by understanding the cues in the language being used, then triggering an “empathetic decision” to involve a human, rather than forcing the customer further down the automated path.
Proactivity: the gift that keeps on giving
Taking this a step further, eCommerce SaaS platforms should use their data to be proactive, not just reactive. Poor onboarding or technical updates can result in massive spikes in customer service contact. By identifying where a customer is in their lifecycle and anticipating potential issues, like anticipated system maintenance or logistics delays, platforms can provide information and support before a complaint is even raised. This proactive approach reduces “noise” for customer support teams, allowing human agents to focus on the high-risk, complex interactions where they can truly deliver value to a customer.
As retailers and eCommerce SaaS platforms alike navigate the coming weeks, they must remember that the customer is always human. Technology and automation should be a bridge to a resolution, not a barrier to it. By refining the ratio of technology to human touch, and ensuring that automated channels are backed by empathetic human support, eCommerce SaaS platforms can move from being the festive “chopping block” to becoming a trusted, reliable part of the consumer journey.