The cross-border e-commerce market in Southeast Asia is becoming increasingly popular. Shopee, as one of the leading e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia, is becoming the most preferred choice for global e-commerce sellers. It covers seven major and vast markets, including Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. It has a splendid variety of products, including electronics, home appliances, beauty and wellness, parenting, women’s apparel, and fitness equipment. After attracting new and global sellers into the market, the variety of products has also expanded. Under the epidemic and technological era, it has become the first choice for online shopping in Southeast Asia by Shopee customer service.
As a cross-border e-commerce seller on Shopee, customer service and marketing are not completely independent. These two sections are needed to maintain a harmonious and long-term relationship, playing a crucial role in business development. As seller chat is an essential communication tool between sellers and customers, the related response rate is one of the critical indicators for store assessment. After becoming the Shopee Preferred Seller, not only the products will have greater exposure, but also be able to raise its product ranking that eventually generates leads and sales.
When opening a new shop on Shopee, the chat response rate is set to 57% by default. After five chats, the response rate will be re-calculated genuinely and automatically. Due to the weighted calculation and smoothing processing used by Shopee, the maximum response rate is set at 95% even if the shops have replied to all messages.
The chat response rate algorithm is used to assess the frequency for sellers to respond to buyers in chat, including answering questions, accepting or rejecting bids. Answering all messages, including bids and stickers, within 12 hours can improve the overall response rate. Otherwise, no replies or replying after 12 hours will be regarded as a delayed reply that will degrade the response rate! If the vacation mode is adapted, all messages received will not be counted in the algorithm.
The figure below indicates the seller chat’s responsiveness assessment index needed to become the Shopee Preferred Seller
When shopping in the brick and mortar stores, customers can easily engage in face-to-face conversations with salespersons or store managers. However, under the cross-border e-commerce virtual shopping environment, excellent communication strategies should be adopted to execute valuable and efficient interactions with customers. Effective customer service and communication are increasingly important in the cross-border e-commerce platform like Shopee. As a global customer service provider with advanced technology, Callnovo shares the following customer service solutions specially designed for Shopee and other cross-border e-commerce sellers:
1. Equipped with native English-speaking customer service representatives:
Shopee sellers, who open stores in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and the Philippines, need to provide customer service for buyers. The customer service teams need to equip with Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese, as these are the common languages in Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Therefore, to achieve the most trustworthy communication and to provide the most reliable customer service experience, the use of non-native customer service representatives or Chinese-English translation software is an unfavorable strategy for the market in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Deploying authentic English-speaking customer service representatives for daily customer service is particularly important for cross-border e-commerce sellers with long-term brand strategies in Southeast Asia.
2. Local customer service representative:
Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore are three different countries. Although it used to be a single country, they all have different races, religions, and cultures. As the domestic customer service representatives share the same cultures with the customers, they understand the subtle consumption habits and precise ideas of customers in different age groups. This allows them to communicate using phrases and dialects that are closest to their home countries. Callnovo can provide local customer service representatives in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore that raise cross-border e-commerce customer service to a new horizon.
3. Reduce the use of vacation mode
Although adopting the vacation mode can actively manipulate the response rate, turning it on too frequently will cause a drop in the store’s ranking. More importantly, customers are unable to get in touch with the seller, resulting in a poor pre-sales and after-sales experience. Therefore, sellers should minimize the chances of utilizing vacation mode to provide efficient, high-quality, and long-term customer service. Apart from increasing the conversion rate, it also improves brand reputation.
In the next few years, with the rise of the ASEAN economy, Shopee is expected to become an irresistible cross-border e-commerce platform. Shopee sellers, coming from different countries around the world, aim to stand out from the millions of sellers. They need to start paying serious attention to operate professional and interactive customer services with the help of professional methods and resources. We look forward to sellers from all over the world with a vision of sustainable development and operations on Shopee!