Operations · 4 min read
Marketplace customer service: what should you automate, and what needs a human?
Finding an order, checking delivery tracking, passing on a request: which steps can be prepared automatically, and which need your attention?
In this article
A customer writes to say their parcel has not arrived. Before replying, your team finds the order, checks the tracking information and reads the previous messages. They can then assess the situation and prepare a response.
To automate marketplace customer service, start by looking at this preparation. Gathering information or passing a request to the right person can save repeated manual steps. Deciding on a refund or responding to a dispute requires an understanding of the customer’s situation.
Start by observing the work around each message
Go through a few recent requests with the people who handled them. Follow each one from arrival to response: the tools they opened, the information they looked for, the fields they copied and the messages they exchanged with colleagues.
Note what interrupted the work, too. A missing reference or an exchange that cannot be found can explain a long wait. And if nobody knows who handles a return, start by assigning someone: an automatic rule will not resolve that uncertainty on its own.
You can then describe a simple rule. For example, a delivery question with a valid order reference goes to the dispatch team’s queue. A request without a reference stays pending review. The team then knows where to find each case.
From the incoming message to the adviser’s reply.
Choose a tab to explore the example.
The customer asks where their parcel is. Their message includes an order reference, but no tracking details: those need to be found.
“Hello, where is my order #1042? I haven’t received my parcel.”
Automate steps with clear rules
Sorting requests, assigning them and finding information are useful starting points to consider. First, check what your tools can already do and which data they can exchange.
Consider a hypothetical example. For a delivery question, an automation looks up the tracking information using the order reference, then adds it to the request. The customer service adviser finds both in one place. If the order cannot be found, the adviser receives an alert and can continue the search.
Zendesk offers rules of this kind, called triggers. They check conditions when a request is created or updated, then carry out the specified actions. The available options vary according to the trigger used. Official Zendesk documentation.
You could also use the information found to prepare a draft response for review. To judge whether this helps the team, include the time spent reviewing and correcting it.
Keep a human involved when a situation needs judgement
A tracking status marked ‘delivered’ does not explain why a customer says they have received nothing. Someone still needs to understand their request and check the available information.
For a first project, we recommend requiring human approval for goodwill gestures, disputes and responses to unusual situations. Someone should be able to check the information before promising a replacement delivery or a refund.
Agree with the team which cases they want to review and which they can allow to follow an automatic rule. You can revisit this decision based on the requests actually handled.
When an adviser takes over, give them the conversation history, the information found and the reason their help is needed. They can continue the work without searching for everything again or asking the customer to repeat their story.
Check what each marketplace allows
Before developing anything, check how messages arrive, which information is accessible and what your account allows you to do. The options may differ from one marketplace to another.
Amazon, for example, provides a technical function that identifies the message types available for a particular order. Check this information before planning to send a message automatically. Official Amazon reference: getMessagingActionsForOrder.
Then ask the person responsible for the project to confirm that your tools support the necessary exchanges. This check helps you avoid planning an automatic response that your account or software cannot send.
Test the complete process, including exceptions
Start with one category of requests that the team can monitor closely. Test the expected case, along with a missing reference, a duplicate, an unavailable tool and a request sent to the wrong department.
Track the time spent on each request, the corrections needed and the delay before someone picks it up. Also count requests that come back after the first response: an acknowledgement does not tell you whether the problem is resolved.
PerfSell Agency can work with you to identify steps to simplify and automations to consider. PerfSell software brings together sales, fees and costs to help you track profitability. You can use the software on its own or work with the agency on a project with an agreed scope.
Let’s talk about the tasks taking up your customer service team’s time.
Further reading
Sources used in this article. Illustrative examples are not client results.
