There is a Human Side to the Order Taking Shopping Cart
Shopping carts are, arguably, one of the best things to ever happen to grocery store shopping. This seemingly simple contraption allows buyers to get a week’s worth of groceries yet easily get around the store without flustering items like eggs and other fragile stuff. And once done, a shopper can simply roll his or her cart to the check-out counter so the cashier can take down their orders and purchases.
Yes, the shopping cart has been such an ingenious device that e-commerce developers have actually adopted the concept for online shopping sites. The good news is that you can, too, for your budding Shoppers R Us online retail store. You have a slew of features and options to choose from to suit your needs and make your clients’ online buying experience a breeze. But before you launch that e-commerce shopping site, don’t forget one very important factor: an order taking call center service, complete with live human agents.
Why put this final piece in place, you ask? Internet multi-millionaire Tom Antion said it best in his ResourceNation blog post “Do You Have a Squeaky Online Shopping Cart?”. “Awesome products, persuasive copy and great prices aren’t going to make every sale for you”, says Antion. In plain English, this means that you need to put in place systems and tools that will make life simple and convenient for the online shopper—which is the whole point of sites such as these, right?
So aside from the shopping cart where they can “store” and keep track of their items before paying for them, it would be an excellent idea to have a toll-free call center number visible one every page, so they can simply dial it to get help with their orders. Better yet, have a Live Chat link as well, as a simple click will save them the trouble of having to dial to ask for help or get their questions answered.
Apart from the “salesperson” role, that call center agent can likewise facilitate payment (a la cashier). Not only does it serve as a “double-check” for payment transactions, but dealing with a human being assures many a shopper that they aren’t simply giving away their credit card details to god-knows-who-could-be-at-the-other-end-of-the-computer (if there is anyone, to begin with).
So go ahead and use that online shopping cart for your order taking service. Just don’t forget to be human.
