Maximizing peak season sales isn’t only about driving customers to your website. If website visitors people encounter a slow, unhelpful, or lackluster customer experience, they’ll click away before buying — flushing away all your marketing efforts and dollars.

In a recent webinar, Caela Castillo, Director of Customer Experience at luxury men’s jewelry brand Jaxxon, shared Jaxxon’s strategies for optimizing customer experience to maximize revenue during peak season. 

We’ll start with some of the most concrete strategies Jaxxon leverages, and wrap up with some bigger-picture insights on how Caela manages the team. 

You can also hear Caela share these tips herself by watching the webinar here.

How Jaxxon manages ticket spikes during peak season

Last year, Jaxxon had what Caela describes as a very successful but challenging peak season, when customer support tickets skyrocketed to three times normal levels. As a result, Jaxxon has stepped up its approach to optimizing customer support for efficiency and self-service during the 2022 peak season.

Here are the tactics and tools Jaxxons used to manage ticket spikes this year:

Provide self-service answers to FAQ in live chat

Jaxxon uses Gorgias Quick Response Flows to answer frequently asked questions during peak season. Caela and her team customize the questions and answers so that customers can get an instant response to common queries.

“We really noticed that adding automated self-service with Gorgias took part of the load off us. A lot of customers’ questions are answered by self-service, so then they’re happy and we don’t have to do anything further with those tickets,” Caela says. 

Automating these responses has two-fold benefits:

1. Customers get instant answers to questions — no wait time required
2. Agents actually have time for conversations that need a human touch

“If the customer has additional questions, then our agents have the time to have an authentic conversation with them, and give them a really great experience.”

Regularly review tickets to monitor performance and spot emerging issues

Caela regularly reviews recent customer conversations to monitor individual agent performance and identify areas for improvement or lessons learned. Using Gorgias tags — automatically applied to customer tickets for categorization and filtering — Caela can also get a sense for the most common customer questions and issues.

“If we're noticing a trend with a certain issue, then we want to solve it right away rather than figure it out weeks from now when it’s a bigger issue,” Caela explains. “So we don't want to only review tickets once a month. We want to do it in real time.”

The real opportunity for peak seasons is turning first-time customers into repeat shoppers

Jaxxon realizes that any peak season is a starting line, not a finish line. Providing an awesome first customer experience doesn’t just net a sale. It nurtures longterm relationships and turns happy customers into loyal brand advocates.

“We want to make sure that first shopping experience is really great — everything from the customer support to the shipping to the box it arrives in — so they want to come back and buy again. We listen to our customer reviews and we really want to help people have a great experience.”

Jaxxon invests in ongoing training and support to ensure its customer service agents have the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to do their job confidently and effectively.

“Sometimes customers are a little hesitant about buying something as expensive as solid gold online. And our agents can explain to them the difference between our products, or suggest an upgrade, or say, hey, would you like this bracelet to go with the Cuban link chain you bought last time?” says Caela. 

“For our agents to be able to upsell and cross-sell like that is super important for us — and it works.”

Quick Response Flows help Jaxxon open the door to some of these conversions. Providing quick, helpful answers about product restocks, sizing, shipping and more, lays a positive foundation that human agents can easily build on.

How Jaxxon sustains the team during peak seasons

One of the biggest challenges during any peak season is thinking ahead so that your team — not just your customers — succeed.

Plan ahead when it comes to coverage

First off, make sure you have enough customer service agents in place to cope with soaring demand. Jaxxon has increased its customer support team for this year’s peak season. 

Caela uses a zoning plan to stagger agents’ shifts across different time zones and locations, so there is always enough coverage for Jaxxon’s 24/7 customer support. She adapts this as peak season unfolds to meet shifting demand.

“Having open communication is essential. We always say there are no stupid questions. We’re here to help each other. Even though we work remotely, we're still able to communicate really well and work as a team.

Once the team is in place, get them ready. “Training your team is really important, and making sure they have the resources and support they need,” Caela says.

📚 Related reading: How to stand out during Black Friday with 18 marketing strategies

Maintain staff morale during crunch time

“Keeping morale high is so important for peak season, because it’s a busy time in life, not just at work,” Caela says. This is a unique situation in ecommerce — did anyone else have a turkey in the oven while answering support tickets during BFCM?

“Everyone gets stressed; sometimes people get sick. It's hard to sustain motivation sometimes. So we want to make sure everyone's really taken care of and set up for success. And we try to make it fun for the team.” 

A culture of mutual support among the Jaxxon customer service team is reinforced by team-based incentives to win gift cards, jewelry and more when certain targets are met.

“A positive attitude goes a long way to keeping people motivated. You get so much farther if you're kind and positive. And I’m very big on looking at difficult situations as learning experiences. And if someone is struggling, other team members will help them so we all rise together.” 

📚 Related reading: How Jaxxon offers motivates agents with rotating customer support incentives.

Lean on tools and systems to manage high demand

Having the right systems in place to manage customer support more efficiently is important at any time of year. But it has the biggest impact during peak periods when demand balloons. 

“You have to prepare for the worst, in terms of very high demand. Things just get crazier as peak season progresses! So make sure to have your self-service and automation set up and ready to go,” says Caela. “After last year’s challenges, we've made sure to have stronger systems in place this year.”

Jaxxon now uses Gorgias to manage all customer conversations. This helps the team work more efficiently in several ways:

• Seeing all customer conversations across different channels in one place, to avoid tab-shuffling and duplicated responses
• Filtering and sorting tickets, for easier prioritization
• Deflecting some questions to automated self-service, to free up customer service agents’ time for more complex customer conversations
• Bringing together all of a customer’s information, to enable more personalized service

Implementing self-service chat has cut Jaxxon’s live chat volume by 17%, yet increased conversions by 6%. Meanwhile, revenue generated by chat has shot up by an impressive 46%. The overall impact has been positive for customer experience and Jaxxon’s bottom line.

Read more about how Jaxxon uses Gorgias to speed up response times without sacrificing the quality of customer service.

Customer experience is vital to maximize peak season sales

By assembling a larger, well-trained customer service team and putting the right tools in place, Jaxxon is poised to continue delivering high-quality customer service this peak season — even when ticket volumes triple. Caela and her team are excited to dive into the peak season. With Gorgias by their side, they are ready to ride out whatever challenges come their way.

To hear the full story of Caela’s tips, lessons learned, and Jaxxon’s preparations for peak seasons, watch the webinar replay.

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Yohan Loyer started his job at Gorgias as the first Customer Success Manager for Europe. His current position is EMEA Partner Manager, with the goal of growing Gorgias’ presence in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). The role boils down to building meaningful relationships and being a reliable, trustworthy partner for our agency partners. 

In this interview, Yohan tells his story and we learn more about his internal career development and the environment Gorgias provided to nurture it accordingly.

1) What is your role at Gorgias right now and how do you find it?

My role is to help our ecommerce agency partners:

• Understand the value of Gorgias
• Keep Gorgias top of mind when recommending customer service solutions to their customers
• Identify customers that are a good fit for Gorgias

As a social person who likes to interact with other people and has hands-on experience working with Gorgias customers, this role is a great fit for me. There really is no chance to be bored in Partnerships!

2) What did you do before Gorgias? What is your educational and professional background?

I did my undergraduate degree in international business in New York, where I got a scholarship to play for my university’s soccer team. Then, I did my master's in Business Consulting and Information Systems Management in France. 

Right after university, I worked as an IT consultant and then moved to Salesforce as part of the EMEA customer success team in Dublin. I worked as a Customer Success Manager (CSM) for 3.5 years, when my main focus was helping the company’s customers get the most out of the Salesforce platform and resources.

Apart from that, I have always been passionate about new technologies and how they impact the world, so continuing to work in tech and ecommerce at Gorgias is not a coincidence.

3) How did you find out about Gorgias and what made you apply to work here?

I was looking for a role in a fast-growing company in the ecommerce space with an innovative product, strong company culture, and competitive package. I did some research online and found out about Gorgias on an ecommerce blog, if I remember correctly. 

Gorgias had everything I was looking for. They were also hiring for their first Customer Success Manager in Europe at that time, so it was perfect timing for me to apply!

4) What are the roles you had at Gorgias and how did they change over time?

I was initially recruited as the first Customer Success Manager (CSM) in Europe. We already had one Onboarding Manager in Europe when I joined (Emna Charfi, who is now the manager of our Customer Success team). 

She was already working as a CSM with some customers (on top of her main role as Onboarding Manager). Even after I joined as the first full-time CSM in Europe, she continued as the CSM for some of our largest customers while I onboarded. 

After a few months, I took over as the Customer Success Manager for our largest European customers for about 1.5 years, before transitioning to the Partnerships team last July.

I worked closely with Louis Lavedan from the Partnership team when I was a CSM, so I got to see what Partnerships was like. When he moved to San Fransico, taking over his role as Partner Manager for EMEA seemed like a logical next step.

5) What training and resources did Gorgias provide to help you in your new roles? 

The Gorgias team has always been super helpful and available with me and new team members in general. 

Learning directly from colleagues has definitely been one of the highlights of my onboarding and overall experience with Gorgias. Whether it is answering questions on Slack, sharing screens, recording Loom videos, or jumping on a quick call, there is always a Gorgian ready to help!

6) How did your manager (or others at Gorgias) help you upskill and grow yourself?

The two managers I worked with both have hands-on experience with Gorgias customers and partners, and a genuine desire to be helpful and see their team members grow. They are always reliable and helpful when needed, which builds trust and promotes a culture of feedback and transparency. 

Gorgias as a company is obsessed with scaling and automating processes, and my managers have definitely lived up to those values and helped me become more efficient and see the big picture when working on projects.

At Gorgias, we are also lucky to have a best-in-class product and grow at a very rapid rate, which comes with a lot of super interesting challenges and opportunities. The company has a really unique positioning with an obsession for customer satisfaction, which all contribute to a great environment to work in.‍

7) How can you connect your experience with Gorgias's core values?

My experience at Gorgias so far has been very much aligned with our core values, especially “Customer first”, and “Maximize your impact”. 

We live and breathe for customers, automate time-consuming tasks, share best practices with the rest of the team, and try out new tools and processes — all with the end goal of providing a better product and experience to merchants who use Gorgias. 

Our managers highlight Gorgians who are living up to our core values weekly on our Slack channels, so we get to see first-hand all the great things our team does in accordance with our values.‍

8) What is your favorite thing about working at Gorgias?

As someone who worked closely with customers for all of my career, I think that my favorite thing at Gorgias is our huge focus on customer experience and satisfaction. Making our customers happy and successful, independent of their size, is our target and biggest investment as a company.

Whether it is reviewing our processes to make sure they benefit our customers, going the extra mile when helping our customers out, finding workarounds, prioritizing product features, or letting our customers get on a call with our highly available success and support teams, we are always doing things with our customers’ interest in mind.‍

9) If there is one thing you would like to change about the company, what would it be?

I guess it would maybe be the name of the company (haha). Simply because it’s hard to pronounce. Also, people don’t read or hear “Gorgias” for the first time and instantly know what we do. 

10) What's next for you at Gorgias (and how is Gorgias helping you get there)?

As I started my new role as EMEA Partner Manager recently, my focus is becoming a great Partner Manager, first and foremost. 

We have a pretty good presence and network in Europe, but it’s still in the early stages compared to the US. I am learning and getting a lot of help from our US team who built a very strong market presence and brand in the US, and I am super excited to help develop the Gorgias brand and customer base in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa!

Interested in joining Yohan and the rest of Gorgias team? Check out our jobs page to learn more about our benefits, interview process, and open roles.

TL;DR:

• Your tech stack directly impacts revenue and efficiency. The right tools create faster experiences, automate work, and enable impactful decisions.
• Evaluate beyond price. Consider total cost of ownership, ease of use, integration capabilities, and vendor support quality.
• Match architecture to your resources. Managed platforms offer quick setup; composable stacks provide flexibility but need developer expertise.
• Build methodically, not all at once. Audit current tools, prioritize high-impact gaps, and pilot solutions before finalizing your stack.

Your tech stack can make or break your ecommerce business, but most new store owners don't realize it until they're already drowning in disconnected tools and manual workarounds. 

The right combination of tools should result in fuss-free customer experiences, automated tasks, and the ability to scale effortlessly. Choose the wrong stack, and you’ll have a piling tech debt (and wasted budget) than you know what to do with.

In this guide, you'll learn what an ecommerce tech stack is, why it matters, how to evaluate and choose the right tools for your business, and how to build a stack that grows with you — without the costly mistakes most founders make.

What is an ecommerce tech stack?

An ecommerce tech stack is the collection of digital tools and software that work together to run your online store. These tools handle sales, marketing, customer service, fulfillment, payments, and other essential operations while revealing customer insights that fuel growth.

Your tech stack has two main parts:

1. Front end: The customer-facing elements like your store design, interface, and shopping experience
2. Back end: Behind-the-scenes systems like servers, databases, and order processing

According to Gorgias’s 2025 Ecommerce Trends Report, most ecommerce professionals use 3-5 apps to perform their day-to-day tasks. 

A typical stack includes your ecommerce platform (like Shopify or BigCommerce), CMS, CRM, payment gateways, analytics tools, and customer support software. These tools connect through APIs so data flows smoothly between them — avoiding data silos that slow you down.

Pro Tip: Use builtwith.com to scan the back-end of any website to see the tech it uses.

Why your ecommerce tech stack matters

A poorly assembled tech stack creates slow site speeds, lost sales, and frustrated teams drowning in manual work. The tools you use directly impact every aspect of your business, from customer experience to operational efficiency. Here's why getting it right matters.

Faster customer experiences

The right tools improve site speed and streamline checkout, reducing friction at every touchpoint. Customers expect pages to load in under three seconds and checkout to take less than a minute.

Operational efficiency

Integrated tools automate repetitive tasks and unify customer data across channels. Your team spends less time switching between platforms and more time solving problems.

Better decision-making

When your tools connect properly, you get analytics that show the complete customer journey. You can identify bottlenecks, optimize campaigns, and make data-driven decisions rather than make uninformed guesses.

Scalability

The right stack handles growth without requiring a complete rebuild. As you add new channels, products, or team members, your tools should scale with you — not hold you back.

Cost control

Avoiding redundant tools and reducing manual work saves money over time. Understanding your total cost of ownership (TCO) — including implementation, training, and maintenance — helps you invest wisely.

How to choose your ecommerce tech stack

Selecting the right tools requires careful evaluation beyond flashy features and marketing promises. The wrong choices lead to wasted budgets, frustrated teams, and technical debt that's expensive to fix. Consider the following as you build your stack.

Cost (TCO)

Go beyond looking at the monthly subscription price to gauge total cost of ownership (TCO). Look at implementation costs, training time, maintenance efforts, developer hours for customization, and migration costs if you outgrow the tool. A $50/month tool requiring 40 hours of developer time costs far more than a $200/month plug-and-play solution.

Most AI tools have usage-based pricing models, which makes it easy to scale, but makes budgeting harder. Set a realistic budget early, factor in growth projections, and balance costs against ROI — will the tool save team time, increase conversions, or reduce cart abandonment?

When evaluating costs, ask yourself:

• What's the total setup cost, including developer time?
• How will pricing change as we grow?
• What ROI will this deliver — time saved, higher conversions, or reduced cart abandonment?

Complexity

Consider ease of use for both technical and non-technical users on your team. A powerful tool that requires developer expertise for basic tasks will slow you down if your marketing team can't use it independently.

When evaluating complexity, ask yourself:

• Can non-technical team members complete tasks on their own?
• How long will onboarding take, and what training resources are available?
• Does the tool offer low-code/no-code options to reduce dependency on developers?

Yes, some complexity is unavoidable for enterprise-grade features, but unnecessary friction kills adoption and will cost you productivity during the transition period.

Compatibility

Your tools have to integrate seamlessly to create a connected ecosystem.

For this reason, native integrations are always preferable. They're faster, more reliable, and easier to maintain than third-party connectors. 

For example, Gorgias offers 100+ integrations with ecommerce platforms, marketing tools, and shipping providers, allowing support teams to access order data, modify subscriptions, and process refunds without leaving the helpdesk.

When evaluating compatibility, ask yourself:

• Does this tool offer native integrations with our existing platforms?
• If not, can middleware solutions like Zapier bridge the gap reliably?
• Will our team be able to access the data they need without switching between systems?

Support and SLAs

Evaluate the vendor's support quality before committing. Check reviews from current customers about their support experiences and documentation quality. These include knowledge bases, video tutorials, and active community forums.

For enterprise plans, review the service level agreement (SLA) carefully. It should define expected uptime percentages, response times, and solutions if the vendor fails to meet commitments.

When evaluating support, ask yourself:

• Is support available during our business hours through our preferred channels (email, phone, chat, etc.)?
• What are the guaranteed response times for our plan tier?
• Does the vendor provide quality documentation and self-service resources?

Scalability and ease of use

Scalability means the tool grows with your business without requiring a complete overhaul. User-friendliness drives team adoption. If your staff finds the tool frustrating, they'll find workarounds that undermine your data quality and workflows.

Test tools with actual team members who'll use them daily, not just decision-makers. The best tool is the one your team will actually use consistently.

When evaluating scalability and usability, ask yourself:

• Can it handle traffic spikes during peak seasons and support new sales channels as we expand?
• Are there flexible pricing tiers that match our growth trajectory?
• Will our team find this tool intuitive enough to use consistently?

Which tech stack architecture is right for your business?

Your tech stack architecture reflects the balance between flexibility and control and the speed of launch. 

You don’t have to pick one or the other. Most businesses land somewhere on the spectrum between fully managed solutions and completely customized, composable architectures. 

Your decision depends on your technical resources, growth stage, and how differentiated your customer experience needs to be.

Managed SaaS platforms

Managed SaaS platforms handle hosting, security, and updates automatically. You get faster setup, automatic updates, built-in security features, and predictable monthly costs. These are well-known platforms, like Shopify and BigCommerce, which are fully managed. You don't worry about servers, patches, or uptime. The tradeoff is less customization and ongoing platform fees.

Self-hosted solutions

Self-hosted solutions give you complete control over your infrastructure. You can customize every aspect of the experience and avoid platform transaction fees. But you're responsible for security, scaling, updates, and troubleshooting. Self-hosted works best when you have dedicated developer resources and specific requirements that managed platforms can't meet.

Composable/modular commerce

Composable commerce means building your stack from tools that integrate via APIs. Instead of one platform handling everything, you select specialized solutions for each function. For example, an app for checkout, another for content, another for search. This approach maximizes flexibility over being pilot-ready.

The benefits are clear: You're never stuck with mediocre features in one area because you love the platform's other capabilities. You can swap tools as better options emerge. On the opposite end, it requires more integration work, ongoing maintenance, and technical expertise. Your biggest dependency? Someone who can troubleshoot when integrations break or APIs change.

Headless commerce

Headless commerce separates your front end (what customers see) from your back end (where data is managed). You can update your storefront design without touching back-end systems, or vice versa.

This architecture shines for brands building omnichannel experiences. However, you’ll have to sacrifice time and effort to build and maintain the front end. Headless isn't necessary for most businesses starting out, but it becomes more valuable as you scale.

API-first platforms

API-first platforms expose all functionality through APIs, making it easier to build custom experiences across any device or touchpoint. This approach enables seamless integration between tools and allows you to access data and features programmatically, giving you maximum flexibility in how you build and scale your customer experience.

Components of an ecommerce tech stack

Every ecommerce tech stack is made up of foundational layers. Understanding each layer helps you identify gaps in your current setup and make smarter vendor choices.

Platform/storefront and hosting

Your ecommerce platform is the foundation — it's where you build your online storefront, manage products, and process orders. Popular options include Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento. Managed platforms like Shopify handle hosting automatically, while open-source options like WooCommerce require separate hosting arrangements.

Whether you choose managed or self-hosted, prioritize platforms with strong performance track records and reliable infrastructure. Look for built-in CDN support, image optimization, and mobile responsiveness out of the box.

Tip: Site speed and uptime are critical. Even a one-second delay can reduce your sales significantly.

CMS and content

A content management system (CMS) controls how you create and publish content beyond product pages. These include blog posts, landing pages, promotional banners, and educational content. Many platforms include basic CMS functionality, but brands with content-heavy strategies often need bigger solutions.

Headless CMS platforms like Contentful or Sanity lets you manage content separately from your storefront and push it to multiple channels. This matters if you're publishing across web and other touchpoints. For most businesses, the CMS built into platforms like Shopify is sufficient. 

Payments and checkout

Payment gateways and processors securely handle transactions between your customers and their banks. Options like Stripe, PayPal, and Shop Pay each offer different features, fees, and geographic coverage. Your checkout experience directly impacts conversion rates, so prioritize speed and simplicity.

Security and compliance are non-negotiable. Your payment solution must be PCI DSS compliant (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) to safely process credit card information. Most managed platforms handle this automatically. Consider offering multiple payment methods — credit cards, digital wallets, buy now pay later — to reduce friction at checkout.

Inventory, order and returns

Inventory management systems (IMS) track stock levels across locations and channels, preventing overselling and stockouts. Order management systems (OMS) coordinate fulfillment, shipping, and delivery tracking. For larger operations, these might be separate tools; smaller businesses often use platform-native features.

Returns and exchanges platforms streamline the post-purchase experience. Tools like Loop Returns and ReturnLogic create self-service portals where customers can initiate returns without contacting support. 

For end-to-end fulfillment, 3PL partners like ShipBob handle warehousing, picking, packing, and shipping, plus platforms like NetSuite offer comprehensive ERP solutions for larger operations.

CRM and customer support

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system stores customer data, tracks interactions, and manages the entire relationship with a customer. Customer support platforms handle inquiries across multiple channels — email, chat, social media, SMS, and voice — from a unified dashboard.

Gorgias is a unified platform for support and sales, built specifically for ecommerce. It centralizes conversations from every channel, giving agents instant access to order history, customer preferences, and inventory levels without switching tabs. Gorgias’s AI Agent can automate 60%+ of repetitive questions 24/7, route tickets to human agents, and can even modify orders, offer upgrades, and personalize recommendations interactions. 

Other options include Salesforce for enterprise-level CRM and HubSpot for marketing automation, combined with basic CRM functionality.

Analytics and reporting

Web analytics platforms track customer behavior, traffic sources, and conversion funnels. Google Analytics is the standard for understanding how visitors interact with your site. More advanced options like Mixpanel offer deeper product analytics and cohort analysis. Business intelligence tools help you aggregate data from multiple sources into actionable dashboards.

Performance monitoring tools track site speed, uptime, and user experience metrics in real-time. The goal is reporting that connects marketing spend to revenue, customer lifetime value, and operational efficiency. Without proper analytics, you're making guesses. 

Security and compliance requirements for your ecommerce store

Don’t overlook the potential for security breaches to occur. Ecommerce businesses handle sensitive financial and personal data, making them prime targets for attacks. Building security into your tech stack from day one is far easier and cheaper than retrofitting it later. Here are the essentials.

Payment security and PCI DSS compliance

PCI DSS compliance is legally required if you process, store, or transmit credit card data. Most managed platforms handle this automatically, but if you're self-hosted, you're responsible for maintaining compliance through regular audits and security updates.

Data encryption at rest and in transit protects customer information from interception. Use HTTPS everywhere, encrypt databases, and ensure your payment processor uses tokenization.

Access controls and web application firewalls

Access controls limit who can view and modify sensitive data. Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all administrative accounts, use identity and access management (IAM) systems to enforce role-based permissions, and audit access logs regularly.

Web application firewalls (WAF) protect against common attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting. Many managed platforms include WAF protection; self-hosted stores need dedicated solutions.

Regional compliance requirements

Compliance requirements vary by region. GDPR (Europe) and CCPA (California) mandate specific data privacy practices, including customer consent for data collection, the right to deletion, and transparent privacy policies. Failure to comply results in significant fines.

Managed platforms typically include compliance features, but you're still responsible for how you use customer data. Review your vendors' security certifications and data processing agreements to ensure they meet your requirements.

How to scale and optimize your tech stack as you grow

Your tech stack needs room to grow without reactive overhauls. This means choosing tools that can handle increased traffic, new channels, and expanding teams. It also means building automation and analytics into your function. Here’s how.

Step 1: Start with workflow automation

Automation frees your team from repetitive tasks so they can focus on strategic work. Start with high-volume, low-complexity processes, i.e., answering where is my order tickets, fulfilling return and refund requests, and sending out shipping updates and inventory alerts. 

Workflow automation tools connect your apps and trigger actions based on specific events, automatically adding customers to email sequences, updating your CRM, and creating fulfillment tasks.

Step 2: Use AI to scale customer support

Customer support is your direct line to your loyal followers. Using AI-powered automation lets you satisfy customers with immediate replies 24/7, without a big lift. 

Gorgias's AI Agent, for example, helps hesitant customers pick the right product and move them closer to a sale. It can even execute Shopify actions autonomously, making order edits and address self-serve.

Step 3: Monitor performance regularly

Performance monitoring tools track uptime, response times, error rates, and user experience metrics across your entire stack. Dashboards should alert you to issues before customers complain. Regular monitoring helps you identify bottlenecks, optimize slow queries, and plan capacity upgrades proactively.

Step 4: Audit tools and costs quarterly

Review your tool usage and costs every quarter. Are you paying for licenses your team doesn't use? Do you have tools that overlap in functionality? Unused subscriptions quietly draining your budget every month? 

Cut tools that don't deliver clear value to keep your stack lean, efficient, and focused on what moves the business forward.

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How to build your ecommerce tech stack

Building your tech stack works like furnishing a new home — you don't buy everything on day one. Start with the essentials, identify what's missing as you go, and add the right pieces gradually. The best approach is methodical.

Step 1: Audit existing tools and identify gaps

Map out every tool your team currently uses across all departments. Document what each tool does, who uses it, what it costs, and how it integrates with other systems. Identify redundancies (multiple tools doing the same job), gaps (critical functions with no solution), and friction points (manual workarounds or data silos). Talk to your team about their daily pain points — they know where the breakdowns happen.

Step 2: Prioritize based on impact and urgency

Not all gaps are equally important. Focus first on tools that directly impact revenue (checkout optimization, customer support, marketing automation) or create significant operational friction (manual data entry, disconnected systems). Score potential solutions based on expected ROI, implementation complexity, and strategic importance. Build a phased roadmap rather than trying to fix everything at once.

Step 3: Pilot new tools before full rollout

Start with proof-of-concept trials on a small scale. Test with a subset of products, a single customer segment, or a small team. Measure results against clear success criteria before committing to annual contracts or company-wide deployment. Pilots reveal integration issues, usability problems, and unexpected costs that demos never show. Get stakeholder buy-in by demonstrating real results, not vendor promises.

The right tech stack is waiting for you in Gorgias

Gorgias integrates with 100+ ecommerce tools, centralizes all customer interactions, and uses conversational AI to automate repetitive customer requests, so you can continue growing.

Book a demo to learn how our platform fits into your ecommerce tech stack and helps you scale support without scaling costs.

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Free shipping has become so ubiquitous in ecommerce that shoppers now expect it. 

According to a survey conducted by Forbes, 77% of respondents abandoned their cart because they were unhappy with the shipping options. 84% made a purchase because it qualified for free shipping. 

Free shipping isn’t always an option for ecommerce stores though, especially for those with small margins or where shipping is expensive for every order. 

These are the best strategies for how to offer free shipping, even if you’re unsure it’s something your business can afford. 

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Is offering free shipping in ecommerce worth the cost?

Free shipping has become a key differentiator in a very crowded ecommerce ecosystem, with 75% of customers now expecting it on all orders. 

Offering free shipping can drive more revenue for your business, encourage repeat business, decrease cart abandonment, and even pull customers away from your competition. 

Let’s be clear: Offering free shipping for all products is not sustainable for most businesses. But free shipping is not all-or-nothing. Below, explore why providing free shipping in some capacity is worth the expense for your business. 

Encourage customers to become repeat buyers

One survey found that 90% of consumers consider free shipping to be the primary factor driving them to shop with online retailers more frequently. And, according to Gorgias, repeat shoppers generate 300% more revenue than first-time shoppers, on average.

When customers are online shopping, they remember easy experiences, which includes not having to pay for shipping when they find something they love. A stress-free experience (without unpleasant surprises at checkout) creates loyal customers who want to shop with your business long term. 

📚 Recommended reading: Learn why customer experience is a largely untapped revenue stream for most ecommerce brands. 

Incentivize higher average order volume (AOV)

On top of that, some free shipping models encourage customers to place larger orders, generating more revenue per customer.

Take the minimum order value model (what you might call the Amazon not-Prime model), where shipping only becomes free once the cart reaches a certain subtotal. Depending on which study you prefer, at least 84% — and perhaps as many as 93% of customers — have added items to their cart to qualify for free shipping, increasing average transaction value and potentially total revenue per customer.

Sway customers away from competitors

When you offer free shipping and a competitor doesn’t, that single difference can pull new customers your way — and away from the competition. When 90% of consumers consider free shipping their top incentive and a full 60% of them expect free shipping no matter what, offering it is a huge differentiator for your customer base. 

📚Recommended reading: 7 Strategies for Creating a Customer-Centric Post-Purchase Experience

Decrease cart abandonment

One firm determined the overall rate of cart abandonment in ecommerce stores is north of 75%, and unexpected charges (including shipping charges) at checkout are the top culprit.

In other words, providing free shipping — and keeping other unexpected fees out of the checkout process — will reduce cart abandonment and increase conversion rate for typical ecommerce businesses.

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Is your online store ready to offer free shipping?

Making the decision to implement free shipping isn’t always as simple as flipping a switch. It takes careful planning and even more careful execution. Consider the following factors to help you understand the cost of free shipping for your business and decide if it’s the right move for you.  

Understand how much shipping costs your ecommerce business

The demand for free shipping has changed the way that small businesses choose to operate. For example, writer Amanda Mull at The Atlantic reveals how free shipping priorities (and algorithms favoring the vendors who offer it) have hurt numerous small business owners on Etsy. 

If you’re operating on razor-thin margins and you’re already struggling to be price-competitive, pivoting to an always-free shipping model might not be feasible. Even if your margins are healthy, for many smaller ecommerce retailers, blanket free shipping isn’t sustainable or feasible—nor are the extra costs that come with it.

Next steps: How to calculate shipping costs for your business 

On a spreadsheet, compile the shipping costs for every product you sell — from the smallest and lightest to the largest and bulkiest — to all four corners of the US (if you’re a US-based store) and anywhere you ship internationally. 

This cost will differ based on your preferred shipping carrier, too. Compare rates between FedEx, UPS, and USPS to see who has the most affordable option — we’ve linked shipping calculators for each above. Once you have these numbers, calculate your average shipping cost. Then, multiply it by the average number of orders you get in one month. 

You’ll also want to look at your best-selling items and calculate how much it costs to ship them, as you’ll likely be sending these out more often than other items in your catalog. 

Don’t worry about exact numbers here. The goal is to get a ballpark number to compare with your monthly revenue. If your estimated shipping costs will put you in the red, free shipping may not be the best option (even with the bump in orders). If this is the case, consider qualified or flat-rate shipping instead — more on both below. 

📚 Recommended reading: Our list of shipping best practices for ecommerce businesses.

Consider flat-rate shipping instead

Offering a flat-rate shipping charge is one way to give customers a low-cost shipping option without absorbing the entire cost yourself. 

Even if you can’t afford free shipping, charging one flat shipping cost for all orders on your site incentivizes larger orders. And, if you can keep the flat rate low, it can convince customers who just want to make a small order to convert. 

Set up flat rate shipping in Shopify

Setting up flat rate shipping is quick and easy if you use Shopify: Here’s how to do it.

Determine your free shipping limit

Most brands can’t support universally-free shipping. That’s why a qualified free shipping option based on factors like order size or location is such a good option. 

The most straightforward way to offer qualified free shipping is to set a minimum order amount. But in terms of your bottom line, this minimum threshold needs to be high enough that you aren’t losing money on most transactions.

Here’s a formula for calculating your free shipping threshold:

Free shipping threshold = (Average shipping cost per order / gross profit margin percentage as a decimal) + average value of an order

Free shipping threshold = ($10 / .30) + $50

Free shipping threshold = $83.33

The result you get from this formula is the average amount at which free shipping won’t create a loss for you.

Now in some cases that figure will be too high to be all that relevant. “Free shipping on orders $350+” can make sense for some retailers, but not those with an average ticket of $50.

Fit Small Business gives additional formulas for calculating a minimum threshold that still operates at a loss. 

Consider free shipping for returns

Customers hate paying for return shipping. If you can afford it, letting shoppers return an item for free is a great way to avoid driving them away. It also can create repeat business, low-effort experiences, and encourage loyalty. 

Of course, free returns leave you vulnerable to expensive spammers and order spikes. So, tighten up your return policy and try to incentivize exchanges over returns to protect lost revenue.

Find other ecommerce differentiators besides free shipping

Ecommerce is a wide field, and your business is competing for only a small slice of the market. Look for differentiators with lower cost pressures and high levels of impact that may be unique to your industry or market.

Free shipping isn’t the only thing that matters. Fast delivery also makes a difference in many industries and markets. Can you outmaneuver your competition by offering next-day shipping, even at a premium price? Perhaps your customers will be willing to pay for faster service if it isn’t available elsewhere.

Here are a few other areas you might explore in search of other ecommerce differentiators:

• Unique services
• Ecosystem effects (think Apple: “Our products all work better together, so stick with us across our catalog”)
• Value-adds (freebies, discounts on future orders, etc.)
• Multiple shipping and delivery options, including fast or flat rate
• Eco-friendly shipping or packaging approaches

Similarly, you may not be able to prioritize free shipping until you figure out other logistics like inventory management, order management, order fulfillment, order tracking, and returns management.

How to offer free shipping on a budget

If you’re ready to put together your free shipping strategy, use these tips to craft a program that’s enticing to online shoppers without destroying your bottom line.

1) Increase product prices to absorb the cost of shipping

According to research from the Baymard Institute, 48% of shoppers abandoned their cart because the extra costs were too high. People like the transparency of seeing one price without getting surprised by additional fees at checkout. 

Speaking generally, most customers would prefer to pay $50 for an item that ships free than spend $45 on the same item, only to discover an additional $5 charge for shipping in their shopping carts. Even though you’re passing shipping costs onto the customer in other ways, you still give buyers the perception of lower costs overall. 

Consider raising your prices to include shipping costs to limit surprises at checkout and increase transparency. 

2) Offer a “free shipping for orders over” model to incentivize higher AOVs

Offering free shipping when a customer reaches a minimum price threshold can be a powerful strategy for raising ticket value.

Customers will frequently add more items to reach that threshold, increasing average order value (AOV), overall revenue, and your business’s order volume as a whole.

To make it easy for customers to see how close they are to free shipping, add an app to your ecommerce store (like the Essential Free Shipping Bar for Shopify stores) that shows progress visually. For example, Gorgias customer OLIPOP makes it easy for folks to see how many more packs of soda they need to purchase to get free shipping. 

This is also a great way to build upselling into your strategy. When customers are looking for additional items to meet the free shipping threshold, consider showing items that pair well at checkout. This automation is easy to add via the app store if you’re on Shopify, and you can see how OLIPOP sneaks in suggestions in the screenshot above.  

If you’re going to offer completely free shipping, make sure you use it as a marketing tool and make it very clear to shoppers. For example, Woxer uses a banner at the top of its site to announce that it offers free shipping across the US no matter the order total.

A cohesive and realistic shipping strategy is highly valuable to any company that ships products to people because it is part of your brand image.

📚 Recommended reading: Our guide to creating an ecommerce shipping and fulfillment strategy. 

3) Offer subscription-based products to increase LTV

In a survey conducted by Salesforce for CFO, more than half of survey respondents said that 40% of their revenue was made up of subscriptions. 

A subscription format is powerful because it ensures repeat purchases and raises the overall lifetime value (LTV) of customers who opt in. If you choose to become part of the subscription economy, you could choose to offer free shipping on subscriber orders only. That way you limit the amount of free shipping you give, and further incentivize shoppers to sign up for a subscription. 

4) Limit free shipping to certain items, customers, or locations

Stores with wide product catalogs that include many low-dollar items may not be able to offer blanket free shipping. But, you can limit free shipping to certain high-dollar product categories, select items within those categories, people who live within a certain distance, or VIP customers.

Here are a few approaches you can use to limit free shipping: 

• Shoppers must reach a designated spend threshold
• Free shipping is limited to members (like Amazon Prime or Madewell Insider) 
• Free shipping is limited to shoppers with a certain number of points in a loyalty program (a service like LoyaltyLion can help you manage this) 
• Shipping costs are location based (For example, US only if your store is located there) 
• Products that cost over a certain dollar amount automatically qualify 

5) Partner with a third-party logistics company to offer free (sometimes two-day) shipping at scale

Partnering with a third-party logistics company allows you to split inventory across multiple fulfillment centers throughout the nation. That means they’ll end up closer to customers’ homes, which reduces shipping costs because of location proximity, and means that you can offer faster shipping for less cost. 

ShipBob is a great option for this, as they’re a trusted global fulfillment company.  

Take care of your shoppers with the Gorgias + ShipBob integration. Sync shipping data with your helpdesk, reduce tab-shuffling, and help you improve customer experience during fulfillment. 

6) Optimize your packaging for cost

Shipping fees are calculated based on item weight, size, speed, and distance to destination. And the size and weight of your packaging contribute to that cost. Cutting down on the dimensions of your packaging where possible and using lighter-weight mailers can lower the cost of each package. 

📚Recommended reading: 8 Tips to Minimize Shipping Costs and Maintain Quick Delivery

7) Create a limited-time free shipping offer

There’s nothing quite as powerful as a ticking timer, whether it’s a 15% off coupon that’s only good for the next hour or a sale that only lasts for the weekend. Discounts are powerful, but free shipping can be just as enticing.

Consider adding free shipping promotions to existing promotional events such as holiday sales, store anniversary sales, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and other seasonal events pertinent to your industry and market.

Time-limited holiday sales can be effective, but they also tend to be some of your busiest sales windows in any given year. If you could use some additional help with your logistics this upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday, check out our complete guide to BFCM logistics.

📚Recommended reading: The 12 Best Shipping Software Tools for Ecommerce Stores

Provide world-class customer service with Gorgias

Free shipping is often one key to a world-class customer experience in ecommerce. But whatever you choose to do with your shipping policies, you absolutely must pair it with world-class customer service and support. Customers will appreciate your free shipping, but they’ll love you (and show it through repeat business) when you outpace the competition in terms of customer service.

Gorgias is an all-in-one customer service and helpdesk platform built for ecommerce businesses like yours. It integrates with a variety of different apps, like LoyaltyLion, Attentive, and Klaviyo. We operate at the speed of ecommerce, empowering you to serve and scale like never before. We also offer support for logistics like free shipping and order management, largely thanks to our many ecommerce integrations.

Ready to see what Gorgias can do? Get started for free right now!

TL;DR:

• BigCommerce apps extend store functionality and automate tasks to help you grow faster
• This guide covers top apps across marketing, customer service, analytics, reviews, subscriptions, and utilities
• Gorgias is the leading customer service app for BigCommerce stores, automating support and turning conversations into sales
• Choose apps based on your specific needs, budget, and integration requirements
• Most apps offer free trials so you can test before committing

BigCommerce's app ecosystem offers hundreds of tools to extend your store's functionality beyond its built-in features. The right apps help you automate repetitive tasks, improve customer experience, and drive more revenue. This guide covers the top BigCommerce apps across key categories including marketing, customer service, analytics, reviews, subscriptions, and site utilities. Each app includes pricing details, key features, and ideal use cases to help you make informed decisions. Whether you're looking to automate support, boost marketing performance, or optimize your analytics, there's an app that fits your needs.

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Why use BigCommerce apps?

BigCommerce provides solid built-in functionality, but apps unlock capabilities that would take months to build in-house. Apps extend functionality by adding features like subscription billing, advanced analytics, or AI-powered chat that aren't native to the platform. They help you automate repetitive tasks like sending review requests, updating inventory across channels, or routing support tickets.

The best apps offer seamless integration with BigCommerce through native APIs, pulling in customer data, order history, and product catalogs automatically. This means your tools work together rather than in silos. Apps also provide customization options to match your brand and workflows without requiring developer resources.

Most importantly, apps provide scalability — they grow with your business. Here are the core benefits:

• Enhanced functionality to extend what your store can do
• Improved efficiency by automating repetitive tasks
• Customization to tailor your store to your brand
• Seamless integration with BigCommerce and other tools
• Scalability to grow with your business

Best BigCommerce apps for marketing and growth

Marketing apps help you attract, engage, and convert shoppers into loyal customers. Data from 14,000 brands shows how automation tools turn customer conversations into sales opportunities, demonstrating how the right apps drive measurable revenue. Here are the top marketing apps for BigCommerce stores.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a top marketing automation app for ecommerce stores. It offers features to help you optimize your email marketing campaigns and SMS marketing flows.

Klaviyo's marketing platform is built specifically for ecommerce. Its advanced segmentation lets you target customers based on purchase history, browsing behavior, and predicted lifetime value. The platform's predictive analytics help you identify customers at risk of churning or ready to make their next purchase.

Klaviyo's integration with BigCommerce pulls in real-time customer data, enabling highly personalized campaigns that drive conversions. You can automatically trigger emails based on cart abandonment, price drops, or back-in-stock notifications. We prefer Klaviyo over its competitor, Mailchimp, because of Klaviyo's superior SMS offerings and better segmentation features.

Main features:

• Advanced email marketing automation with behavioral triggers
• SMS marketing with two-way communication
• Segmentation and targeting for personalized campaigns based on customer actions and predicted behavior
• Predictive analytics for churn risk and customer lifetime value
• Comprehensive analytics and reporting dashboard
• Large library of pre-built templates and flows

Ideal for:

• Brands wanting to automate email and SMS campaigns
• Stores needing advanced segmentation and personalization
• Merchants focused on data-driven marketing decisions

Klaviyo is free for up to 250 contacts, and paid plans start at $20/month.

Are you a Gorgias user? See how Klaviyo integrates with Gorgias.

Privy

Privy is a conversion optimization platform that helps you capture leads and reduce cart abandonment through targeted popups and email campaigns. The platform excels at exit-intent technology, displaying offers at the exact moment a shopper is about to leave your site. Privy's drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to create on-brand popups without any coding knowledge.

The platform includes gamification features like spin-to-win popups that increase engagement and email list growth. Privy's email marketing capabilities let you follow up with captured leads through automated welcome series and cart abandonment campaigns. Built-in A/B testing helps you optimize popup performance over time.

Main features:

• Email marketing to generate leads with targeted campaigns
• Exit-intent trigger popups to reduce cart abandonment
• A/B testing to optimize campaign performance
• Segmented targeting based on behavior, location, and cart value
• Gamification features like spin-to-win popups
• Drag-and-drop popup editor

Ideal for:

• Stores wanting to reduce cart abandonment
• Brands looking to grow email lists quickly
• Merchants needing simple, no-code popup tools

Pricing:

• Free plan available
• Starter plan at $30/month
• Growth plan at $45/month (includes SMS)

Justuno

Justuno is a conversion optimization platform with advanced targeting and personalization capabilities. Unlike basic popup tools, Justuno lets you create sophisticated targeting rules based on visitor behavior, traffic source, geolocation, and more. The platform's product recommendation engine suggests relevant items based on browsing history and cart contents.

Justuno's analytics dashboard provides detailed insights into popup performance, conversion rates, and revenue attribution. You can run multiple campaigns simultaneously with different targeting rules for different customer segments. The platform's exit-intent technology captures abandoning visitors with personalized offers before they leave.

Main features:

• Conversion popups to capture leads and improve conversions
• Email list growth tools with advanced targeting
• Exit-intent technology to engage abandoning visitors
• Personalized promotions based on visitor behavior
• Segmentation by page views, referral sites, geolocation, and device type
• Product recommendations based on browsing history

Ideal for:

• Stores needing advanced targeting and segmentation
• Brands wanting detailed conversion analytics
• Merchants running multiple campaigns simultaneously

The Essential plan is $25/month, and the Justuno Plus plan starts at $399/month.

Best BigCommerce customer service and helpdesk apps

Customer service apps help you support shoppers across email, chat, social media, SMS, and more. According to data from Microsoft, 90% of Americans consider customer service an important factor when deciding which companies to do business with. The right helpdesk can turn support into a revenue channel by empowering agents to upsell and recommend products. Here are the top customer service apps for BigCommerce stores.

Gorgias

Gorgias is a powerful customer experience solution (also called a helpdesk) built specifically for ecommerce brands. Unlike generic helpdesks, Gorgias understands ecommerce workflows and integrates deeply with BigCommerce to pull in customer data, order history, and product catalogs. This means your support agents can see everything they need in one place without switching between tools.

Gorgias's AI Agent automates up to 60% of repetitive support inquiries, handling questions about order status, returns, and product information automatically. When complex issues require human attention, agents use Macros (templated responses with variables) to respond faster while maintaining personalization. The platform's Self-service capabilities let customers help themselves through a Help Center and automated flows.

Since Gorgias was purpose-built for ecommerce businesses, we're proud of how deeply it integrates with BigCommerce. You can see customer information pulled directly from BigCommerce, including past orders. You can also control order management from within Gorgias, processing refunds, cancellations, and much more without leaving Gorgias.

Gorgias also integrates with most of the tools on this list for a more unified customer experience hub. Check out our App Store to see if your favorite apps integrate.

Main features:

• Unified helpdesk managing email, chat, social media, SMS, and voice
• AI Agent automates up to 60% of support inquiries
• Deep BigCommerce integration with order management and customer data
• Macros and automation Rules for faster agent responses
• Performance analytics and AutoQA for quality monitoring
• Self-service Help Center with AI-powered article recommendations
• Fast-loading Live Chat widgets that won't slow down your website

Ideal for:

• Ecommerce brands wanting to automate repetitive support tasks
• Stores needing omnichannel customer service
• Merchants looking to turn support into a revenue channel
• Brands using BigCommerce and Shopify together

Gorgias offers custom pricing based on ticket volume and includes a 7-day free trial.

To see for yourself how Gorgias can optimize your customer support process, be sure to book a demo today.

LiveChat

LiveChat is a real-time customer support platform that helps you engage shoppers at the moment they need help. The platform's chat widget loads quickly and doesn't slow down your site, making it ideal for high-traffic stores. LiveChat's mobile app lets your team manage conversations on the go, ensuring you never miss an opportunity to help a customer.

The platform includes canned responses and chat tags to help agents work more efficiently. You can route chats to the most qualified agent based on skills, availability, or customer history. Chat transcripts and archives make it easy to review past conversations and identify training opportunities.

Main features:

• Live chat to offer real-time customer support
• Canned responses and chat tags for efficiency
• Chat routing and assignment to appropriate agents
• Mobile app for managing chats remotely
• Chat transcripts and archives for review
• Visitor tracking to see who's on your site

Ideal for:

• Stores wanting to add live chat quickly
• Brands needing mobile support capabilities
• Merchants prioritizing real-time customer engagement

Pricing starts at $16/month per agent.

Tidio

Tidio offers live chat and chatbot capabilities for your BigCommerce store. Its AI-powered chatbots automate support conversations and handle chat requests around the clock.

Tidio's visitor tracking shows you who's browsing your site in real time, letting you proactively reach out to high-intent shoppers. The platform integrates with email marketing tools to capture leads and nurture them through automated sequences. Live visitor lists help you prioritize the most valuable conversations.

Main features:

• Live chat to offer real-time customer support
• AI-powered chatbot for 24/7 assistance and lead collection
• Drag-and-drop editor to create custom chatbots
• Live visitor lists to engage high-intent shoppers
• Integration with email marketing tools
• Chatbot programming to showcase promotions and improve your conversion rate

Ideal for:

• Small to medium stores wanting affordable chatbot automation
• Brands needing 24/7 support without hiring more agents
• Merchants looking for simple chatbot setup

Pricing:

• Free plan available
• Starter at $25/month
• Communicator at $25/month
• Chatbots at $29/month

Related reading: Our list of the best live chat apps for BigCommerce.

Best BigCommerce analytics apps

Analytics apps help you understand customer behavior and make data-driven decisions about your store. According to data from Intergrowth, 70% of online marketers say that good SEO is more effective at generating sales than PPC ads. Track everything from traffic sources to product profitability with these analytics tools. Here are the top analytics apps for BigCommerce stores.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the industry-standard web analytics platform that every BigCommerce store should use. The platform tracks visitor behavior, traffic sources, and conversion paths at no cost. Google Analytics' ecommerce tracking shows which products drive the most revenue. It also reveals which campaigns generate the highest ROI and where customers drop off in the checkout process.

The platform integrates seamlessly with Google Ads and Search Console, giving you a complete view of your paid and organic traffic performance. Custom reporting lets you create dashboards focused on the metrics that matter most to your business. Enhanced ecommerce tracking provides detailed insights into product performance, shopping behavior, and checkout abandonment.

Main features:

• Customized reporting for ecommerce metrics
• Advertising ROI tracking
• Ecommerce tracking for product and transaction data
• Cross-channel and multimedia tracking
• Integration with Google Ads and Search Console
• Conversion funnel analysis

Ideal for:

• All BigCommerce stores (essential baseline analytics)
• Brands running paid advertising campaigns
• Merchants wanting free, powerful analytics

Google Analytics is free.

Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange is a heatmap and session recording tool that shows you exactly how visitors interact with your store. Watch session recordings to see where customers get confused, stuck, or frustrated. Heatmaps reveal which elements get the most attention and which get ignored.

The platform's conversion funnels help you identify exactly where customers drop off during checkout. Form analytics show which fields cause friction in your checkout process. Lucky Orange's live chat feature lets you proactively engage visitors who show signs of confusion or hesitation.

Main features:

• Heatmaps showing where visitors click and scroll
• Session recordings to watch how shoppers use your site
• Conversion funnels to identify drop-off points
• Live chat to assist visitors before they leave
• Form analytics to optimize checkout process
• Visitor tracking by device type

Ideal for:

• Stores wanting to understand why visitors don't convert
• Brands optimizing product pages and checkout flows
• Merchants needing visual behavior analytics

Pricing:

• Starts at $10/month

OrderMetrics

OrderMetrics is a profit analytics platform built specifically for ecommerce sellers. Unlike Google Analytics which focuses on traffic, OrderMetrics shows actual profitability. It does this by factoring in product costs, shipping expenses, and marketing spend.

OrderMetrics' marketing ROI analysis shows which campaigns actually drive profitable sales, not just revenue. Cohort analysis reveals customer lifetime value and helps you optimize retention strategies. The platform's shipping cost optimization identifies opportunities to reduce fulfillment expenses.

Main features:

• Profit tracking by product, order, and customer
• Marketing spend and ROI analysis
• Shipping cost optimization
• Discount effectiveness tracking
• Cohort analysis for customer lifetime value
• Product profitability ranking

Ideal for:

• Stores needing detailed profit analytics
• Brands wanting to optimize product pricing
• Merchants tracking marketing ROI closely

Pricing:

• Starts at $59/month

Best BigCommerce review and UGC apps

Review apps help you collect and display customer feedback that builds trust and increases conversions. We've written about how ecommerce product reviews instill confidence in your site's visitors. They also nudge potential customers to make a purchase. Social proof is essential for ecommerce success. Here are the top review apps for BigCommerce stores.

Yotpo

Yotpo helps you generate and manage product and site reviews. It also handles other forms of social proof like testimonials and user-generated content (UGC). The platform's automated review collection sends perfectly timed email and SMS requests after purchase, maximizing response rates. AI-powered review prompts help customers write more detailed, helpful reviews.

Yotpo's schema markup ensures your star ratings appear in Google search results, improving click-through rates from organic search. The platform syndicates reviews to Google, Facebook, and other channels automatically. Photo and video reviews provide richer social proof than text alone. Yotpo is the best tool for managing that process, thanks to the automation features for collecting and displaying reviews on your site.

Main features:

• Automated review collection via email and SMS
• Photo and video review capabilities
• Star ratings and schema markup for SEO
• Review syndication to Google and social media
• Loyalty and rewards program integration
• Turn reviews into paid ads on Facebook
• Collect and showcase customer photos and videos on product listings

Ideal for:

• Brands wanting comprehensive review management
• Stores needing loyalty program integration
• Merchants prioritizing SEO with schema markup

Pricing:

• Growth plan at $15/month
• Prime plan at $119/month
• Premium and Enterprise plans with custom pricing

Are you a Gorgias user? See how Yotpo integrates with Gorgias.

Fera

Fera is a review and social proof app that helps you consolidate reviews from multiple sources into one platform. Import existing reviews from Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other platforms to build social proof quickly. The platform's customizable widgets let you display reviews in ways that match your brand aesthetic.

Fera's social proof notifications show recent purchases, reviews, and other customer actions in real time, creating urgency and trust. Photo and video reviews give shoppers a realistic view of your products. Automated review requests are sent at optimal times to maximize response rates.

Main features:

• Automated review requests post-purchase
• Import reviews from Google, Facebook, and other platforms
• Customizable review widgets for storefront
• Photo and video review support
• Social proof notifications showing recent purchases
• Multi-language support

Ideal for:

• Stores wanting to consolidate reviews from multiple sources
• Brands needing affordable review management
• Merchants wanting social proof notifications

Pricing:

• Free plan available
• Startup at $9/month
• Small at $29/month
• Medium at $99/month

Best BigCommerce subscription apps

Subscription apps help you build recurring revenue streams by offering products on a subscription basis. Subscription models improve customer lifetime value and create predictable cash flow. Here are the top subscription apps for BigCommerce stores.

Recharge

Recharge is an app that allows BigCommerce store owners to sell subscription-based products or services. The platform's self-serve customer portal lets subscribers manage their own subscriptions, reducing the burden on your support team. Customers can pause, skip, or modify subscriptions without contacting support.

Main features:

• Recurring billing and subscription management
• Self-serve customer portal for subscription changes
• Dunning management to reduce churn and retry failed payments
• Mixed cart support for one-time and subscription purchases
• Integration with Klaviyo, Gorgias, and other tools
• Analytics for subscription metrics and customer retention
• Actionable insights to optimize your subscription offerings

Ideal for:

• Brands launching subscription offerings
• Stores needing flexible subscription options
• Merchants wanting to reduce subscription churn

Recharge provides subscription payment options at checkout. It also makes it easy for customers to manage their subscriptions through SMS or a pre-built customer portal.

Pricing:

Recharge offers custom pricing based on subscription volume.

Are you a Gorgias user? See how Recharge integrates with Gorgias.

PayWhirl

PayWhirl is a subscription and recurring payment solution designed for BigCommerce merchants. The platform handles recurring billing, pre-orders, and payment plans with ease. PayWhirl's pre-designed customer portal gives subscribers control over their subscriptions without requiring custom development.

The platform's automated billing handles failed payments automatically, retrying with smart logic to maximize successful charges. Customizable subscription widgets match your store's design and brand. Reporting tools provide insights into subscription performance, churn rates, and revenue trends.

Main features:

• Recurring billing management
• Customizable subscription widgets
• Customer portal for self-service
• Automated billing and failed payment management
• Reporting tools for subscription analytics
• Support for payment plans and pre-orders

Ideal for:

• Stores wanting simple subscription setup
• Brands needing payment plan options
• Merchants prioritizing customer self-service

Pricing:

• Business Pro at $49/month
• Business Plus at $149/month
• Business Ultimate at $249/month

Best BigCommerce site tools and utilities

Site utility apps handle essential behind-the-scenes tasks like backups, translations, and mobile optimization. These tools protect your store and expand your capabilities. Here are the top site utilities for BigCommerce stores.

Rewind Backups

Rewind Backups is an automated backup solution that protects your BigCommerce store from data loss. The platform creates daily backups of your entire store, including products, images, inventory, settings, themes, and orders. Cloud storage keeps your backups secure and accessible from anywhere.

One-click recovery lets you restore your store quickly if something goes wrong. Version history tracks changes over time, making it easy to identify when problems started. Rewind's automatic backups run in the background without any manual effort, giving you peace of mind that your data is protected.

Main features:

• Automatic daily backups of store data
• One-click recovery for quick restoration
• Secure cloud storage for backup data
• Backs up products, images, inventory, settings, themes, orders
• Version history for tracking changes
• Restore individual items or entire store

Ideal for:

• All BigCommerce stores (essential protection)
• Stores making frequent catalog updates
• Merchants wanting peace of mind against data loss

Pricing:

• Free plan available
• Paid plans start at $9/month
• 7-day free trial

Weglot Translate

Weglot Translate is a website translation solution that helps you sell internationally without rebuilding your store for each language. The platform automatically translates your entire store, including product descriptions, checkout pages, and navigation. Machine translation provides a solid foundation that you can refine with manual edits.

Weglot's visual editor lets you customize translations to ensure they sound natural and on-brand. SEO-friendly translated URLs help you rank in international search results. The platform handles right-to-left languages and supports over 100 languages, making global expansion accessible for any store.

Main features:

• Automatic translation for website content
• Support for multiple languages (100+)
• SEO-friendly translated URLs
• Visual editor for translation customization
• Seamless BigCommerce integration
• Support for right-to-left languages

Ideal for:

• Stores expanding to international markets
• Brands needing multi-language support
• Merchants wanting quick translation setup

Pricing:

• Starts at $21/month

Unbound Commerce

Unbound Commerce helps you create custom mobile apps for your BigCommerce store. With mobile commerce growing every year, a dedicated app gives you direct access to customers through push notifications and app-based shopping. Unbound builds native iOS and Android apps that integrate with your BigCommerce store through APIs.

The platform's dashboard lets you manage app content, send push notifications, and track mobile commerce performance. Push messaging reaches customers directly on their phones, driving higher engagement than email. Mobile-optimized shopping experiences load faster and convert better than mobile web browsers.

Main features:

• Custom iOS and Android app design and build
• API integration with BigCommerce store
• Push messaging for customer engagement
• Dashboard control panel for monitoring
• Mobile-optimized shopping experience
• Native app performance

Ideal for:

• Brands wanting dedicated mobile apps
• Stores with high mobile traffic
• Merchants needing push notification capabilities

Unbound Commerce offers custom pricing, which is not listed on its website.

How to choose the right BigCommerce apps for your store

Choosing the right BigCommerce apps starts with identifying your store's specific needs and pain points. Are you struggling with cart abandonment? Look for marketing and conversion optimization tools. Is customer support overwhelming your team? Focus on helpdesk and automation apps. Be honest about where you need the most help before browsing the BigCommerce App Store.

Check app reviews and ratings in the BigCommerce App Store to see what real users think. Pay attention to recent reviews, not just overall ratings, since apps change over time. Look for patterns in complaints or praise. Compare pricing carefully and ensure it fits your budget, factoring in any transaction fees or usage-based charges as you scale.

Most quality apps offer free trials, so test before committing. Install the app in your store and use it with real customer data to see how it performs. Finally, verify integration compatibility with your existing tools. The best app ecosystems work together seamlessly, so choose apps that connect with your email marketing platform, analytics tools, and other critical systems.

Here's a quick checklist for evaluating BigCommerce apps:

1) Identify your store's specific needs and pain points. 2) Check app reviews and ratings in the BigCommerce App Store. 3) Compare pricing and ensure it fits your budget. 4) Test apps with free trials before committing. 5) Verify integration compatibility with your existing tools.

Start optimizing your BigCommerce store with the right apps

The right BigCommerce apps transform your store from a basic online shop into a sophisticated ecommerce machine. Apps help you automate repetitive tasks, freeing up time to focus on growth and strategy. They improve the customer experience by adding features like live chat, personalized recommendations, and self-service portals. Most importantly, the best apps drive revenue by optimizing conversions, reducing churn, and turning support into sales opportunities.

Start with the essentials: analytics to understand your performance, customer service to support your shoppers, and marketing tools to drive growth. Add specialized apps as your needs evolve and your business scales. Don't try to implement everything at once — focus on solving your biggest problems first, then expand your app stack over time.

Ready to transform your BigCommerce customer service into a revenue channel? Book a demo to see how Gorgias can help. You can automate support, increase sales, and deliver a customer experience that builds loyalty.

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When you say the word “growth,” most brand leaders think of customer acquisition, paid ads, or the newest marketing trend — probably something about TikTok influencers. And while acquiring customers is important, we know that truly sustainable growth comes from loyal customers, organic referrals, reviews, and repeat buyers — all of which stem from your customer experience. And at the core of that customer experience is your customer service team.

Your customer service agents spend more time interacting with customers than any other department, including marketing and sales. They manage VIP customers, repair at-risk relationships, and have the opportunity to chat with customers at make-or-break moments (like right before a sale). In other words, your brand’s growth hinges on the quality of your customer service team.

We can’t offer any algorithms or magical software to find and hire talented agents. Hiring takes time, experience, and a strategic approach. That last part — a strategic approach to hiring — is what I’m here to provide. 

At HelpFlow.com, we run 24/7 live chat and customer service teams for over 100 brands. We’ve hired hundreds of customer service agents successfully and built scalable, robust customer service operations that provide great customer experiences and drive growth for brands we work with. 

In this post, I’ll walk through the framework we use step-by-step. My goal is to help you or your hiring managers simplify your customer service hiring process, find high-impact customer service professionals, and transform your brand’s customer service from a frustrating cost center to a seamless and scalable revenue driver.

But first, what’s really at stake here? 

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Bad customer service will kill your brand

If you are like most ecommerce brands, you hire customer service reps when your team needs additional support to keep up with tickets. This purely reactive approach means your support team will always be buried in tickets or onboarding new team members. The constant scramble means they’ll never have the bandwidth to think strategically, improve processes, or work on higher-impact initiatives to help the business.

Here’s the snowball effect we often see. First, your agents become overworked with an ever-growing number of tickets to process each day. This endless sprint to keep up contributes to extremely high turnover in the customer service industry. According to Harvard Business Review, CS reps typically last a job for about a year. 

As agents start to burn out and fall behind, customer service experience quality suffers. Customers feel frustrated with slow response times and often disappointed with incomplete or ineffective solutions from junior agents hired just a few months before. A downtrend in customer satisfaction is common with brands as they start to scale. 

Eventually, a poorly run customer service operation starts to have a direct effect on sales. First-time shoppers give low NPS scores and never develop brand loyalty. Customer complaints start to appear, scaring off potential customers, and referrals dry up. 

As the quality of service goes down, the cost of customer service goes up because you have to spend more time hiring and training customer service representatives that won’t be productive for weeks, if not months. Replacing an employee typically costs 1.5-2x their annual salary when you factor in all the costs, according to Gallup. 

The business sees these poor results and high costs, and refuses to invest in the department, which leaves them even more under-resourced. The cycle continues.

Great hiring processes can accelerate growth

A great customer service team (that’s not over-worked and under-resourced) will stop this vicious cycle. But beyond answering customer inquiries and managing ticket load, they’ll systematically improve your brand’s customer experience and, by extension, growth engine.

An excellent customer service team will create replace the vicious cycle with a positive one by:

• Improving your shopping experience by collecting customer feedback, building self-service resources, and studying data for high-impact opportunities
• Intercepting new visitors with proactive support to raise the conversion rate
• Helping customers who have unsatisfactory experiences, winning some of them back
• Encouraging happy customers to purchase more, leave reviews, refer new customers, and remain loyal to your brand

Ready to learn how to fill your customer service positions with agents who will make an impact? Let’s get into it. Here’s our 6-step framework to hire the best customer service teams around.

1) Assess your customer service hiring needs

The first step to hiring great customer service reps is to shift from a reactive hiring process to a proactive one. When you hire reactively, you tend to rush hiring and training to get a body in a seat processing tickets as quickly as possible. Of course, this leads to low-quality interactions and dings to brand perception. By proactively forecasting customer service needs, you’ll have time to run a more thorough hiring process to find and hire the ideal candidate.

Here is a quick overview of how to forecast customer service volume:

1. Identify the percentage of orders that typically turn into support tickets. For example, if you historically get about 20 tickets for every 100 orders then you can forecast that 20% of your future orders will turn into tickets. 
2. Use the traction to ticket ratio to forecast how many tickets you expect to receive in the future, based on your sales forecast for the upcoming quarter or another time period. 
3. Use the agent ticket capacity per day, accounting for PTO and sick leave, to determine how many agents you need to process that upcoming ticket volume. Account for ramp-up time for new team members.

The three tips above are just a snapshot of a true forecasting process. Check out our framework for customer service forecasting for more detailed guidance.

Forecasting will help you predict your future needs and shift to a more proactive approach. Remember to give yourself enough time to conduct a thorough hiring process and onboarding program. If you anticipate needing two new agents in Q4, start collecting applications by early Q3.
Forecasting is just one strategy to understand when you should hire. Here are a few additional signals that could mean your team is understaffed: 

1. Declining metrics: Each week, you should check on important metrics that measure your customer service management such as first response time, handle time, and customer satisfaction. If you start to see these metrics decline, it could mean your team can’t keep up with ticket volume and needs additional support.
2. Team morale: As part of your customer service team meeting cadence, you should have regular team huddles, manager-led 1:1s, and anonymous climate surveys.  Managers should work to foster trust and open dialogue so agents can share their stress. Don’t be afraid to ask them directly about their workload. If agents start to report challenges, especially if the concern comes up across multiple agents, you may need to staff up. 

You may find that you need additional support, but you may not need to hire people full-time to solve the problem. You may be able to support your core team with other solutions such as:

1. Efficiency improvements: If you’re like most brands, you’ve frankensteined together a customer service process, piece by piece. Consider doing a workflow audit to identify opportunities to improve the team’s workflow with process improvements, email templates, and customer self-service options. 
2. Changes to coverage schedules: You may have the right amount of agents, but simply have a schedule that leads to ticket buildup. For example, if everyone is staffed M-F, response and resolution times will suffer over the weekend. Look into your hour-to-hour ticket volume, especially on conversational channels like live chat and phone, and schedule agents whenever you have peaks in incoming tickets.
3. High-quality outsourced help: Hiring full-time employees is cumbersome and expensive, and sometimes more than you need. By working with a high-quality outsourced team, you can bridge the gap to have additional agents on a custom schedule or just for a season of high volume. 
4. Overtime opportunities: If your agents are currently salaried, you could change them to an hourly model so they can earn overtime during busy weeks. Don’t make this decision without consulting the agents. They might be enthusiastic, but they might also dislike that your solution for being understaffed involves working more hours.

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That said, you may conclude that you need to hire new agents. Here’s how to do it well. 

2) Create a target hire persona for the role

Before you start your search, I recommend taking some time to understand your hiring needs and describe your ideal candidate.

First, take stock of:

• Everything the customer support team does today
• Everything the team wants to do but doesn’t have the bandwidth for
• Everything the team currently does that could be phased out with process improvement or recalibration of ownership

Once that’s done, you’ll be better prepared to understand:

• What existing roles need to be filled or staffed up
• What new roles need to be developed
• What type of skills would match each of those needs — this is where your target persona comes into play

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A target persona is a tool we developed to build clarity around your jobs to be done, the skills needed to accomplish those jobs, the type of person who would succeed in this role, and how you’ll measure that person’s success.

The value is similar to an ideal customer profile (ICP) for sales and marketing. By defining the core qualities you need ahead of time, you can create a sharper job description, distribute the job posting in more targeted channels, and decrease the time it takes to find the right person.

What to include in a target hire persona

Below are the key sections to include in a target hire persona: 

Mission:

• What is the purpose of this position in your organization?
• Why does it exist?
• What will the role focus on?
• Why are you hiring this person now?

Outcomes:

• How will you measure this person’s success?
• How will you keep this person accountable to the mission described above?
• Use specific, clear, and quantifiable outcomes to answer both questions above.

Competencies:

• What experiences and qualifications should this person have?
• What attributes and customer service skills will help this person succeed? (For example, is it more important to be organized or empathetic for your specific needs?

Culture fit: 

• Separate from the role, what are the specific attributes that make someone a culture fit for your team? 
• These will vary depending on the company, but it’s very important to define these so that you can screen otherwise qualified applicants if they aren’t a culture fit.

Customer service agent target hire persona example

We put together a full customer service agent target hire persona example that you can access and modify for your own needs. Consider revising the mission and outcomes slightly to match your needs, and adjust the target experience for your specific company.

Have questions? Feel free to reach out! 

3) Create a job posting that sells (and market it)

Once you have a target hire persona completed, it’s time to start marketing- yes, I said marketing, just like how you grow your business. 

Typically, when someone is hiring they simply put together a job description, post it on a few job boards, and work with the applicants that come in. This is especially true for customer service hires, which are unfortunately seen as low-value.

This approach leads to a small number of low-quality applicants. The kinds of A-players you’re looking for aren’t scouring job boards and responding to basic job postings — they’re likely crushing it at their current role.

Here’s how to create and distribute a job posting that reaches the right people and convinces them to apply:

Sell the role in the job posting

Remember, hiring is a two-way street. You have to impress the candidate just as much as they have to impress you. Don’t just publish a list of duties and requirements on a job posting website with an application link. Instead, sell the role (and the company) by using parts of the target hire persona above:

Clearly explain the company’s current position, mission, and goals. Share a bit of the journey you’ve been on so far and the successes you’ve had. The right candidate will be excited about your particular growth stage and the opportunity to help you with the next leg of the journey.

Also, dedicate some space to selling your team and unique company culture. This doesn’t need to be all rainbows and unicorns: great candidates know building a great company takes hard work. But they should be able to get an understanding of your company’s unique values, priorities, and ways of working. Describe and share examples about how your teams collaborate, the level of autonomy, accountability, coaching, and support they can expect, and the general vibe of a day-in-the-life of your team. 

Finally, paint a very clear picture of what success looks like by sharing the outcomes and target metrics. This will ensure the applicants understand what you want to accomplish before your first conversation. Clear success metrics will also attract goal-driven people with an “I can do that” attitude. 

This may seem like a lot of work, but you’ll save time by getting higher-quality candidates quickly, and in the long run, having to rehire due to rushing into a bad hire.

How to drive a lot of quality applicants

An enticing job description gets you halfway to an inbox full of strong applications. Now, you have to get that job description seen by a lot of high-quality candidates.

Remember, great team members don’t typically spend their days scouring job boards to find a new job. You need to catch their attention in other ways to spark their interest in jumping ship and joining your brand.

Here are multiple ways to drive a lot of great applicants for your role:

Publish on multiple job boards. For example, if you are working with a remote team, consider publishing on WeWorkRemotely or Remote.co. If you are hiring locally, leverage a few different job boards such as Indeed.com or ZipRecruiter.com to get the best coverage. LinkedIn is also a good option for both local and remote hires. If possible, make the extra investment to make a premium or boosted posting. And, especially if you are in a challenging niche, consider specialized job boards and communities. The Support Driven Slack community, for example, has a job board for ecommerce community service positions. 

Another best practice is to share the role with your network. Send a few messages to peers who may know someone fit for the role and publish the posting on your social media. Also, encourage your team to do the same — they’ll be working with this new hire, after all. Again, don’t just copy/paste the link. Sell the role to attract the best candidates. 

Finally, involve your customers in the recruitment process. One of your customers may want the job or know someone else who could be a good fit. Customers who love and use your products have a great head start: they’re familiar with your brand, your shopping experience, and the benefits of your products. And since customer service skills can be transferred from many other types of roles, your customer base may have more qualified candidates than you expect.

4) Screen applicants async to avoid wasting time

A great job description effectively shared means you’ll have a steady stream of applicants. You might feel overwhelmed with the workload of screening applicants to find the right hire. And rightfully so: Applicant screening can turn into a lot of work if you do it with typical in-depth reviews of each applicant and blocking out time for interviews. 

Interviews are important, and we’ll explain how to hold a customer service interview below (including interview questions to use). But first, here’s how to effectively screen the large number of applicants you’ll receive to find the best possible hires. 

Quiz them on the job posting

Screening starts by gauging how well applicants read through the details of the job posting. If they’re not willing to spend the time reading and following the instructions on the job posting, odds are they won’t be detail-oriented in the role. 

By asking a simple question or making a request deep within the content of the job posting, you can quickly screen whether applicants read it. For example, you can ask applicants to start their cover letter with, “ready to rock!’“ This way, you can skip over anyone that didn’t catch and follow the instruction. 

Optional: Assign a micro take-home assignment

At HelpFlow.com, we skip take-home assignments because our hiring process is so thorough. However, since customer support agents spend most of their days writing, you may choose to request a short writing sample at this stage.

If you opt to include this step, consider keeping the writing sample very short — something applicants can complete in 10-15 minutes. However, be aware that more up-front work from your candidates means:

• You’ll spend more time reviewing applications
• You may lose some qualified job seekers due to a too-strenuous application process — but they likely wouldn’t be the most committed hire

Send them a common customer question or one of your most common customer problems. Give them resources like a knowledge base article and your policies so they have all the necessary information. At this stage, you’re looking for their ability to communicate clearly and empathetically. 

Request a brief video questionnaire

Rather than jumping straight to an interview, send a brief questionnaire to the applicant so they can tell you more about their experience in a short video message. There are tools such as Spark Hire that make this easy. But a simple list of questions and instructions to send a response using a screencast tool like Loom is just as easy. 

For the questionnaire, you should ask open-ended questions to get a sense of how their experience and capabilities fit your needs. You might also choose to include a fun, get-to-know-you question to get a better sense of their personality. 

Asking why they think they are the best fit for the role is a good starting point, as it gives them the ability to provide more context than they typically would in a text response. Also, this gives you the ability to compare their experience to the target hire persona. The way someone answers this question typically makes clear if they’re a fit at a high level.

Consider asking questions like:

• Why do you think you’re the best fit for this role?
• What are you looking for in your next role?
• How are you looking to grow and learn?
• What’s a mistake you made and learned from?
• How would your friends and family describe you? 
• If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

In their video response, you’ll see their communication skills, confidence, and personality — without having to schedule dozens or hundreds of 30-minute meetings.

5) Conduct two interviews to assess fit and experience

Interviews can be time-consuming. They take time to schedule and conduct, especially if you put too many people through the entire interview process. Multiple rounds of screening ensure you only invest time in the most promising candidates.

Ideally, your job posting results in hundreds of applicants. Your first screening (described above) gets you down to about a dozen, max. The first interview we’re about to describe gets you down to the single digits — about four or five. Then, you’ll only have to deeply interview those four or five candidates to find your new hire(s).

1) A quick interview to assess skills and mindset

This first interview is a brief (20- or 30-minute) phone call to learn more about each applicant's skill set, goals, and mindset. Skills aren’t the only prerequisite for success: True rock stars have a growth mindset and will look at this opportunity as the next step in a passionate career.

At the beginning of this interview, we like to build up the candidate’s confidence by saying something like, “We had ### applicants and you’ve made it this far, so you’re definitely a strong person for this role. We’re confident you’ll be successful regardless of whether you work for us or get scooped up by someone else.”

Then, you’re ready to start asking questions.

Questions to understand their goals and mindset

• What does success look like for you a year from now?
• What do you want to accomplish in this role?
• What specific achievements will make you feel the most successful?

These questions should feel familiar, and that’s because they should roughly align with the mission and outcomes you chose in the target hire persona. Of course, candidates didn’t read that document so it’s unfair to expect perfect alignment. But they will help you understand which applicants are the best fit for your needs.

For example,  if your target hire persona was a systems thinker who can help with problem-solving and organization across your team, you might look for answers about strong processes and great teamwork. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a brilliant customer-facing agent, you might seek answers related to empathy and customer advocacy. 

Also, a lack of clear, focused goals at this stage is a red flag. If someone answers vaguely or responds with a variation of “I just want a good customer service job and your company seems great,” then they’re not going to be a rock star on your team.

Questions to understand skillset

Skills are a difficult thing to discuss. If the candidate prepared well, they’ll likely know what skills you need for the role based on the job posting and find ways to weave those skills into their answers. They may also have completed courses or customer service certifications that indicate what they can do, but it's important to go beyond that and get a sense of real-world applications of these skills.We like to ask a series of questions that force candidates to reflect on their skills in a slightly different way. Here’s how we get there:

• We’re going to talk to a few people you’ve worked with at the end of the application process, should you make it that far. What’s a role you succeeded in, and who was your boss in that role? If we talk to them later in the interview process, how do you think they’ll describe you? What parts of the job would they say you excelled at?

Again, you’re looking for clear answers and alignment with your target hire persona. 

Second, gauge which parts of the job they’re least skilled and excited about. Here’s how we might get at this answer:

• Now I want to understand the opposite. What are some things that boss would say you’re not great at? Or maybe, what are some things you’re capable of doing but don’t love?

To make this question a bit less intimidating, we usually share an example. We’ve often used the example, “I’m able to whip up some graphic designs for our website and they look pretty good. But graphic design is something I just hate doing. It’s a tedious process and I would rather have a marketing person handle that if at all possible, so I can focus on my strengths.” 

This question allows the candidate to essentially complain about select aspects of the role. You’re not looking to trick someone into disqualifying themselves from the running. However, you are trying to avoid a situation in which you hire someone to spend all week doing something they’d rather avoid.

Once they answer, consider asking follow-up questions to get more examples and context.

Questions to understand teamwork and self-awareness

• How would past supervisors rate you on a scale of 1-10?
• How would your peers rate you on a scale of 1-10?

These questions are quick and help you understand whether their previous answers were honest and self-aware. 

Ask them for the name of two previous bosses and two previous colleagues. Explain that you won’t reach out to those people yet, but might if you extend an offer. 

Once they give you names, ask how each person would rate them on a scale of 1-10 — insist on a single number for each. You’re looking for lots of 8s and 9s. If you see a trend of 7 or lower, that could indicate this person has — and may have oversold themselves when discussing their skillset earlier in the interview. Also, 10s across the board show a lack of self-awareness and growth mindset. 

By the end of this interview, you’ll have a solid understanding of whether each candidate’s skills and mindset fit your needs. Move the best candidates onto the final interview, thank the rest for their time, and invite them to re-apply for future roles — after all, each role should have a specific target hire persona, and they might just fit your next opening a bit better. To thank them for their time, you can also refer them to anyone else in your network that’s hiring.  

2) A deep-dive interview to know you have a great hire

Each candidate that makes it to this final interview should be a pretty great fit for the role. Some companies might go straight to a job offer at this stage, but the risk of bringing on the wrong new hire still exists.

The deep-dive interview will last two hours. Two hours might seem like a big investment. But two hours is nothing compared to investing two or three months into a candidate before realizing you need to start the hiring process over because they’re not a great fit.

A deep-dive interview gives you a crystal-clear understanding of each candidate’s entire career history, their ability to communicate clearly and effectively in a long-format meeting, and their personality. After this conversation, you’ll have zero doubts about which candidate is your rock star.

Here’s how the deep-dive interview works.

Set up a two-hour conversational interview with a small panel

When you invite the candidate to this meeting, be clear about:

• The goal of the meeting
• The format of the meeting
• The list of attendees

If you give the candidate some context behind such a long meeting, they can approach the interview with more preparation and less anxious energy. 

As far as the list of attendees, you can make a decision based on your team’s makeup and availability. If possible, we recommend inviting the hiring manager, a senior manager, and a peer to introduce the interviewee to the team they’ll work with (and vice versa). However, you can also run the interview solo if that works better for your team. 

Once you assemble the panel and schedule the interview, the long-form interview itself is quite straightforward and formulaic. Here’s what it looks like:

Discuss every full-time position the candidate has had, in chronological order

Start from the beginning of the candidate’s resume and discuss each and every full-time role in their job history. For early parts of their career (or jobs that are not related to your open role) you can move quickly through these questions. But it is important to discuss each role.

By digging into every single part of the candidate’s career with a standard set of questions, you will get a clear overview of how they’ve performed and what makes them tick. 

Ask the same set of questions for each position

What makes this interview process effective and simple is that you ask the same questions for each role. This gives the interview a conversational flow that produces powerful insights. Here are the questions:

• What were you hired to do? This gives you an idea of the mission and outcomes they were hired to accomplish
• What accomplishments are you most proud of? This helps you understand whether they accomplished those goals and what they value in terms of achievement
• What were the low points of the role? This helps show the candidate’s self-awareness and growth mindset, and gives you a chance to spot red-flag trends — that said, recognize every job naturally has high and low points
• Who was your boss? What was it like working with them? This gives you context for your reference call later on and tells you how the candidate likes to be managed

Together, these answers give you a good idea of their specific experience in customer service roles, their experience with handling a helpdesk and the challenges of customer service, and some insight into their soft skills that a shorter interview could never provide.

Don’t bother with a take-home assignment for these qualified candidates

Many companies will assign a test assignment this late in the process to do a final check on the skillset and quality of candidates. We don’t recommend a test assignment — especially at this point — because assignments are too simple to game and sometimes give candidates a bad impression of your company because you asked them to do “free work.” 

If you want to use an assignment, keep it short and earlier in the process. But at this point in the process, the deep-dive interview will give you much richer information. Specifically, it helps you understand what the candidate will actually be like on your team before you invest in onboarding and two or three months of work.

6) Use reference checks to get more context and certainty

Most people treat reference checks as a way to make sure the candidate told the truth on their resume and during the hiring process. That can be part of the process, but the greater value of reference checks is to get even deeper context into the candidate’s skills and work style.

Here’s how to approach reference calls:

• Use the deep-dive interview to decide who to contact. If the candidate mentioned a particularly important or interesting relationship, success, or challenge, make a note to call their boss in that position to get more information.
• Chat with references for 5-10 minutes. These conversations should be informal and conversation — you want the major takeaways about what it’s like to work with this person.
• Give the reference person context. Start on a positive note, explaining that you’re hiring for a customer support role and the candidate in question seems like a great fit. 
• Ask high-level, open-ended questions. Questions like “Is what they said true?” limit the conversation. Instead, ask questions like “What was it like working with this person?” or “What kind of role would this person excel in?”
• Ask about strengths. For example, ask “What’s a project this person absolutely crushed? What responsibilities did they nail every time?” Ideally, the answers align with the candidate’s self-reported skills and strengths.
• Ask about challenges. For example, say, “They mentioned [the challenge] at your company. How did they handle that challenge?”. Then, open it up: “What are some other areas of improvement for them?” By framing this positively as improvements, you’ll get more direct feedback about the candidate's rough spots. 

Each call takes fewer than 10 minutes but gives you valuable insight into the highs and lows of working with this person. Again, similar to the deep-dive interview, you’re looking for patterns across reference calls more than any single answer. If the candidate’s answers line up with the answers you get during the reference checks, the candidate has high self-awareness and emotional intelligence — both important qualities in customer service. 

By the time you go through the entire process with multiple candidates, you’ll be certain about the best fit(s) for your open role(s). And once you’ve run this interview process a few times, it will become much more efficient and much less daunting. 

Bonus: How to choose a start date and win over unsure candidates

As we mentioned earlier in this guide, hiring is a two-way street. You have to win a candidate over just as much as they have to win you over. Once you choose a candidate, here’s how to give yourself the best chance for an accepted offer and a successful start.

Tips for sending an offer letter they’ll want to sign

If all went well, the candidate should be thrilled that you offer them the job. However, they may be considering other offers and it never hurts to demonstrate that you’re a thoughtful employer that’s genuinely excited about working with them.
First, consider giving them a call before sending the offer letter. Most candidates will appreciate hearing the enthusiasm in your voice and getting the news directly from the hiring manager, who they spent the entire process getting to know. Plus, you have the opportunity to get a verbal yes.

When you send the letter, give them a sign-by date. This gives them some parameters, adds a bit of urgency to the decision, and helps you develop a contingency plan with other top candidates in case your top choice declines the offer.

Last, consider asking everyone involved in the interview process to send a personal note to the candidate, especially if the candidate is on the fence. The candidate will end up working with these people, so an authentic and personalized note expressing excitement could make the difference between an acceptance and a declined offer.

Choose a start date that works for candidates and your business

Throughout the interview process, you should clarify when the candidates hope to start. Once you make the offer, don’t be afraid to encourage them to take a week or two off before starting the new job — they’ll appreciate the time off, plus it’s a signal that your company takes preventative measures against employee burnout. And if you’ve moved away from reactive hiring, this shouldn’t be too big of a hassle for your team.

Last, if you’re hiring multiple agents, work to start them on the same day. This way, you can onboard in cohorts, giving each new hire a buddy for support and companionship. Plus, you’ll save time by giving each training session once instead of multiple times for each hire. 

Master Hiring Customer Service Agents with HelpFlow.com and Gorgias

The hiring process isn’t about filling seats, it’s about building a team that strengthens morale, tackles challenges, and ultimately drives your brand forward. While it’s definitely possible to hire agents more quickly, quicker isn’t always better. A single bad experience with a customer service agent can cost you customers and damage brand equity. A team of bad hires can kill the future of your entire company. 

If you rush the hiring process, problems during onboarding, new-hire retention plummets, and the top talent you had before these bad hires start to leave. It’s better to invest time upfront to ensure you only hire A-player team members. 

Want help scaling your customer support team with agents who can provide an amazing customer experience and work with larger company goals in mind? HelpFlow runs customer service teams for over 100 brands and can help you level up your customer service operation. Check out our Gorgias Premier Partner profile and contact us today to learn more.

And if you’re struggling to streamline the workflow of your team and turn customer service into a profit center, check out Gorgias — the customer service platform built for ecommerce. Sign up for a free trial today.

According to data from Kepios, there are a total of 4.62 billion social media users in the world as of January 2022 — accounting for well over half of the earth's population. In other words, if you want to go where your customers are as a Shopify store owner, social media platforms are mission-critical.

Social media may be a great opportunity but it isn't exactly low-hanging fruit. Social media is complex and time-consuming. Even seasoned digital marketing professionals can get bogged down by tedious tasks, low-return initiatives, and frustrating obstacles when it comes to marketing products to potential customers on social media.

The good news is that utilizing the right Shopify social media apps can go a long way toward making your social media marketing campaigns more efficient and effective. To help you choose the ideal apps for your social media marketing and social media customer service needs, let's take a look at the 10 most powerful social media apps currently available on the Shopify app store.

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1) Outfy - Automate Social Media by Outfy

With Outfy, store owners are able to automate much of the work that goes into managing social media profiles by curating, scheduling, and publishing posts automatically. In addition to its convenient automation features, Outfy also enables you to easily create high-quality collages, videos, and GIFs to promote your products and boost brand awareness on social media.

Shopify rating ⭐4.8 (1214)

Price: From $15/month

Key features

• Provides a range of customizable promotional post templates
• Auto-generates and publishes promotional posts based on a number of predefined settings
• Makes it easy to turn your product pictures into collages, videos, and animated GIFs
• Hashtag research for helping you select the most effective hashtags for your promotional posts to reach your target audience

What users think of this app

• Exceptional for auto-generating social media posts 
• Easy to set up and use 
• Hashtag research tools make it easy to select the ideal hashtags for promotional posts

Related: Our guide to customer service automation — set repeatable, low-impact tasks to autopilot.

2) Chatdesk - Email & FB Support by Chatdesk

According to data from Microsoft, 90% of Americans use customer service as a factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company. With Chatdesk, you are able to outsource your customer support responsibilities to a team of hand-chosen customer support agents who are already fans of your brand. In addition to providing 24/7 live chat and email support, Chatdesk customer support agents also respond to all social media comments, mentions, and direct messages in real-time.

Shopify rating ⭐5.0 (14)

Price: Free plan available

Key features

• Customer support agents are hired and trained on your behalf, and Chatdesk makes an effort to hire agents who are already "superfans" of your brand
• Social media integration for responding to comments, messages, and mentions across all major social media networks
• Provides 24/7 support options to your customers

What users think of this app

• Reliable U.S.-based customer support agents 
• Social media integrations are ideal for turning social media platforms into additional customer support channels. 
• Exceptional for driving conversions with pre-purchase chat conversations

For Gorgias customers, learn more about our Chatdesk integration here. 

3) Facebook Messenger Marketing by ShopMessage

Facebook Messenger Marketing is a Shopify app by ShopMessage that allows you to create automated Facebook Messenger marketing flows. These flows are triggered based on a wide range of customer actions, such as cart abandonment and first-time purchases from new customers. This app also offers customizable opt-in popups designed to help you grow your Facebook Messenger subscriber list and shareable links that will direct to a FB Messenger marketing flow when clicked.

Shopify rating ⭐4.3 (129)

Price: $9/month

Key features

• Messenger Menu feature provides customers with a concierge-like experience by giving them on-demand access to targeted product recommendations, support links, or interactive FAQs
• A guaranteed minimum ROI in your first paid month or you receive a full refund
• Create Facebook ads that direct to FB Messenger marketing flows

What users think of this app

• Excellent customer support 
• Targeted product recommendations boost conversion rates 
• Series for important revenue-driving initiatives like lowering cart abandonment and upselling at checkout

For Gorgias customers, learn more about our ShopMessage integration here. 

4) Octane AI: Quiz Growth Tools by Octane AI

According to data from DemandGen, interactive content elicits twice as much engagement as static content. Interactive content such as surveys and quizzes in particular can be especially useful for providing ecommerce store owners with zero-party data on their customers. 

With Octane AI, you can create customizable surveys for your Shopify store, which you can use to learn what your customers like and dislike about their experience with your brand and products. Octane AI also gives you the ability to create customizable quizzes that you can use to provide customers with targeted product information and recommend new products. Best of all, quizzes and surveys created using Octane AI are easily shareable across all social platforms.

Shopify rating ⭐4.8 (200)

Price: From $50/month

Key features

• Octane AI popup gives personalized product recommendations, which users can access and add to their carts
• Integrates with Klaviyo to target your SMS and email marketing campaigns based on data collected using Octane AI
• Dynamic quiz functionality lets you display different questions and Octane AI popup styles based on the demographics of the customer viewing them

What users think of this app

• Product recommendation quizzes lead to increased sales 
• Quizzes are customizable and easy to create 
• Collects valuable zero-party data 

For Gorgias customers, learn more about our Octane AI integration here. 

5) Recart: SMS & Messenger by Recart

Recart is an SMS, email, and FB Messenger marketing tool that lets you create popup opt-ins for growing your email list. It also offers a variety of automated flows and templates that you can use to make your FB Messenger marketing strategy more efficient. Additionally, Recart provides built-in SMS stats and a real-time dashboard for you to track your campaigns.

Source: Recart

Shopify rating ⭐4.8 (5506)

Price: Free plan available

Key features

• Edit templates with a no-code, drag-and-drop editor
• Personalize your campaigns with condition splits
• Integrate the tool with others, such as Klaviyo, Gorgias, and Drip

What users think of this app

• Excellent for growing subscriber lists 
• Abandoned cart recovery flows are highly effective 
• Lots of useful integrations 

For Gorgias customers, learn more about our Recart integration here. 

6) 20+ Promotional Sales Tools by Zotabox

Zotabox is a platform that offers over 20 different useful sales tools, including customizable banners, countdown timers, social sharing buttons, customizable forms, and push notifications. Whatever you might need to make your social media marketing efforts a success, there's a high likelihood that you'll find what you're looking for on Zotabox.

Shopify rating ⭐4.8 (469)

Price: From $12.99/month

Key features

• Embed videos on your website
• Add customizable forms and live chat windows to your site
• Source and display Facebook and Google reviews on your site

What users think of this app

• Excellent triggering options for popups 
• Lots of useful solutions in one package 
• All of the tools are highly customizable

Related: How to transform live chat into your a top sales tool.

7) Instafeed: Instagram Feed by Mintt Studio

Instafeed is an app that displays your Instagram feed on your website. Instafeed also enables you to tag products in your Instagram posts in order to create a shoppable Instagram feed.

Shopify rating ⭐4.9 (1183)

Price: Free plan available

Key features

• Display Instagram content in an on-site widget for social proof through user-generated content (UGC) 
• Expand the reach of your Instagram profile to your store visitors
• Turn your Instagram profile into a social commerce channel via the option to tag products in Instagram posts

What users think of this app

• Improves the visual appeal of a Shopify store 
• Great for converting Instagram into an additional sales channel 
• Easy to set up and customize 

Related: Our guide to Instagram for customer service.

8) Facebook Channel by Shopify

Facebook Channel is an app by Shopify that automatically syncs products from your store to your Facebook account, making it easy to sell and promote products on Facebook. Facebook Channel also allows you to easily create a variety of Facebook Ads campaigns, including audience-building campaigns and dynamic retargeting campaigns.

Shopify rating ⭐3.5 (3785)

Price: Free to install, additional charges apply

Key features

• Tag products in Facebook or Instagram posts
• Create a custom storefront for your Facebook Shop
• Access a variety of templates for setting up Facebook advertising campaigns

What users think of this app

• Seamless integration with Shopify  
• One of the easiest ways to get a Facebook store up and running 
• Makes it easier to set up effective Facebook advertising campaigns  

Related: Our guide to Facebook Messenger for customer service.

9) Minta Automated Social Videos by Minta Technology

With Minta Technology, Shopify store owners can construct professional social videos and design image posts using a variety of attractive pre-built templates. Minta Technology also gives you the option to schedule social media posts for automatic publishing.

Shopify rating ⭐4.8 (520)

Price: Free plan available

Key features

• Embed videos on your product pages
• Schedule posts up to two months in advance with the content scheduler
• Create fully-branded images and videos for social posts with ease

What users think of this app

• Saves a lot of time otherwise spent scheduling and publishing posts 
• Makes bland social media posts much more unique and eye-catching 
• An impressive variety of templates to choose from 

Related: Our guide to product photography to set customer expectations and boost sales.

10) Gorgias - Live Chat & Helpdesk

Gorgias is an all-in-one customer service helpdesk platform for Shopify stores. Gorgias offers a range of features designed to help you improve your online store’s quality of customer support, while simultaneously reducing your customer support team's workload. 

But what makes Gorgias such an excellent social media Shopify app is the fact that Gorgias integrates with Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This allows your customer support agents to respond to messages and mentions across all social media channels from a single, user-friendly dashboard.

Shopify rating ⭐4.4 (533)

Price: From $10/month

Using Shopify Inbox? Compare Gorgias vs. Shopify Inbox.

Key features

• Connect your social logins with your helpdesk: Generate a customer support ticket anytime someone messages your brand, replies to a post, or creates a post mentioning your brand on WhatsApp, Facebook, or Instagram
• Live chat windows that can be easily transitioned to an email 
• Automated Rules and templated Macros to improve your customer service quality and speed

What users think of this app

• One-click integrations with your social media accounts and other ecommerce tools (for marketing, shipping, customer reviews, referrals, and more)
• Automate tedious customer support tasks to save time for your customer support staff and maximize their impact
• Very helpful for prioritizing customer inquiries to ensure that the most important inquiries receive the fastest possible response
• Excellent customer support to help you set up the tool and optimize your Rules, Views, and Macros
• Convenient to have messages from all social channels (Facebook Messenger and comments, Instagram DMs and comments, and WhatsApp conversations) in one place

Related: The best customer service software on the market.

Gorgias lets you manage all of your Shopify social media apps, minus the headache

Choosing the right social media apps for your ecommerce tech stack can provide you with a number of powerful capabilities, from the ability to automatically publish posts across numerous social networks to the ability to turn your social media profiles into convenient customer support channels.

At Gorgias, we are committed to helping our clients make the most of their chosen social media apps by ensuring that Gorgias is capable of integrating with a variety of popular Shopify apps, including Recart, Octane AI, ShopMessage, ChatDesk, and beyond. To learn more about Gorgias's powerful integrations, be sure to check out our social media app integration page.

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Some customers will arrive on your website, place an order, and move on with their lives. But ideally, given the outsize returns of returning customers, your shoppers also have the option of joining a strong community where they can: 

• Provide feedback that guides product development
• See how other customers use your products
• Engage with relevant (non-sales) content 
• Stay up to date with your brand’s promotions and releases
• Become a fully-fledged brand advocates

Thanks to these customer engagement tactics, a community can lead to better word-of-mouth marketing, referrals, and repeat purchases. According to Gorgias research of over 10,000 ecommerce brands, community building can boost a brand’s revenue by an estimated 6%.

In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into all things customer community management: what it entails, the benefits of community marketing at your company, steps you can follow to create a community management strategy, and tips and tricks to use once you’re in the thick of community management. 

What is customer community management?

Customer community management is the ongoing process of building and maintaining an authentic social network among your customers, staff members, and partners. You can host communities in various places: your brand's social media channels, dedicated online forums, or in person at networking events or brand get-togethers. 

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Two examples of great community management from ecommerce brands include 310 Nutrition and Kitsch. 

310 Nutrition sells meal replacement shakes and has a significant member base through their private 310 Nutrition Community Facebook group. There are over 400,000 members that engage in discussions related to the brand but also discuss nutrition and weight loss. It’s a place for like-minded individuals who share a similar goal of becoming healthier:

Beauty accessory and hair care brand Kitsch utilizes a slightly different community management strategy through TikTok. Kitsch has over 45,000 followers on TikTok and focuses on educating about their products, debuting new products, and running giveaways for their loyal fans. The brand does a great job at keeping its TikTok videos authentic and educational, rather than feeling like a salesroom floor:

The many benefits of a sound customer community management strategy

In addition to boosting revenue, a community management strategy can increase customer engagement and happiness, serve as an additional channel for customer service, and provide a platform for your most loyal customers to share their thoughts. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

So, what other benefits can solid community management offer?

Increases customer engagement and customer satisfaction

If your brand can run an effective customer community management strategy, you’ll start to see an increase in customer engagement as well as customer satisfaction. The more your brand's presence overlaps with where your customers are — especially online — the more you can boost engagement. For example, if you provide valuable content on Instagram and engage with people in the comment section, your audience will see your brand as authentic and committed to customers. 

In turn, if customers engage with your brand, they will be more satisfied and will likely return as customers again and again. Even more, for 43% of customers, good customer service breeds more loyal repeat customers — and more brand champions ultimately means more revenue for your brand, thanks to the value of referrals, product reviews, and repeat purchases.

These benefits come at a much lower cost than paid customer acquisition strategies, which require huge investments for customers who might only place one order with your brand — if that.

 Related: Our guide to improving customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, one of the most important metrics for long-term brand growth.

Becomes another convenient and efficient customer service channel

Online community management can also open additional customer service channels for your customers that are more convenient than contacting a call center, using your site’s live chat support, or sending an email. In the community management realm, this could be chatting with a service rep via direct message (DM) on Instagram or troubleshooting an issue on a public Facebook group forum. 

Related: Our guide on customer support in ecommerce.

Provides quality feedback about products or services from your most loyal customers

Feedback is vital to your brand’s success, so additional spaces for customers to share feedback can be extremely valuable. You can even encourage customer feedback about products if your community management strategy includes online forums or social media pages like LinkedIn and Facebook. 

However, there is some risk in asking for feedback in such a public setting. If you'd rather ease into it, you could create a survey that only shows the results to you and your team. Offer something to customers for their time — such as a gift card or entry to a raffle — to incentivize them to participate.

Collecting customer feedback doesn't need to have a complicated format. For example, furniture brand Sabai uses Instagram polls to gauge customer interest in new product designs:

This kind of customer research is a great way to stoke community engagement and mitigate future customer complaints.

Creates more opportunities for upselling and cross-selling

Community management strategies can be effective sales or upselling channels because they give you the chance to educate customers (and let customers educate one another) about how different or additional products can help their needs. 

On top of straightforward product recommendations, you can practice upselling by sharing influencer or user-generated content marketing about new or premium products. Again, the goal isn’t to plug your products directly but incorporate them into content your community might like to see. 

A great example of this is Glamnetic’s TikTok about the do’s and don’ts of eyebrow makeup, which features numerous Glamnetic products:

Related: Our guide to ecommerce upselling and cross-selling for higher average order values (AOVs).

Encourages customers to become your best brand ambassadors

Lastly, a benefit of community management is the ability to create brand ambassadors. You can do this organically by engaging with customers with large followings on social media, but you can also do it more strategically through brand ambassador programs. 

Brand ambassadors provide a type of advocacy that no paid ads could ever achieve. They convince their friends and followers to try your brand, then those friends and followers convince their friends and followers to try your brand, and the cycle continues. This is also a great way to create social proof, or reviews and testimonials you can attach to product pages and your website.

One ecommerce brand that uses this tactic effectively is athleisure company Fabletics. The brand prides itself on being an inclusive, quality, affordable alternative to other high-end athleisure brands like Lululemon. Thus, Fabletics reflects this in their brand ambassador program, where they encourage real people to apply as influencers regardless of their status. In addition, they also work with celebrity influencers who have a passion for health and fitness, such as Kevin Hart and Maddie Ziegler.

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Jaxxon, another brand that creates a community around a niche — chain jewelry for main — capitalizes on brand ambassadors who share content on their own social networks.

A step-by-step guide for creating a customer community management strategy

So, now you have a better understanding of why customer community management has the potential to increase your brand's revenue. But how can you create a community that gets results? Here are six steps to building a customer community management strategy that works for your unique brand.

1) Research social media community management platforms

The first step in developing a community management strategy is to do your research.. Think about where your current customers frequent most when online and where your target audience is. For most brands, the easiest place to gather a group of people will be whichever social media platform you already use the most, whether that’s Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or another platform. However, if you’re trying to launch a more :

• Discord: A robust platform that lets you host channels, forums, private messages, multimedia sharing, and more
• Reddit: A platform known for authenticity and impressive crowd moderation — be wary of Reddit’s anti-marketing guidelines, though
• Slack: Mostly known for business teams, Slack can also host customer communities
• Thinkific: A community platform that also offers great functionality for educational courses
• Mighty Networks: The top-rated community marketing platform on G2
• Tribe Platform: A community platform best known for its high degree of customization
• A forum native to your website: If you want, you can also try and build community functionality directly on your website

2) Create goals regarding what kind of outcome you’re looking for with your brand community

Next, you’ll want to create goals that align with the outcomes you hope to see from the strategy. Your goals could be tied to revenue, customer service effectiveness, brand awareness, and public relations. Some example goals may include:

• Higher customer retention
• Lower contact rate for your customer service center due to customers finding answers themselves in your online communities
• Increased interest in a new product or renewed interest in an old product
• Better public perception of your brand

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3) Get to know your audience

Though you likely have a solid idea of who your audience is at this point, you’ll want to continue getting to know your audience on the platforms you identified in step 1. You may realize you need a slightly different approach when applying your community management plan to TikTok versus a Facebook forum, for example. Though your audience may be similar in both places, folks expect quick, educational, and entertaining videos on TikTok. In contrast, they may want longer-winded discussions with other customers about your brand’s products on a Facebook forum.

One way to stoke community engagement is to try and spark interactions. For National Baking Day, for example, chocolate brand Montezuma’s requested community members’ best recipes instead of just sharing recipes themselves:

Related: Learn how Montezuma’s saves five hours a week and answers customer questions faster with Gorgias.

4) Craft valuable and thought-provoking content

Building off step 3, you’ll want to set up a plan to create valuable and thought-provoking content to ensure your customers come back to the online communities you are building. The type of content you create for your community management strategy should align with your overall brand image, tone, and voice. 

For example, let's say you're an ecommerce brand that sells sustainable mid-century furniture. Your community-based digital marketing strategy should include educational content that gives insight into your brand's sustainability: Where your products are made, how you source your materials, what your labor practices are, etc. In addition, you also want to create beautiful imagery (photos and videos) that showcase your brand’s furniture in real peoples’ homes. 

For example, fashion brand Princess Polly (and their community members) create outfit inspiration videos that would be independently interesting, regardless of whether you bought the clothes through the brand. Of course, someone watching might also love a particular garment and head to the website:

Related: Learn how Princess Polly helps customers 95% faster with Gorgias.

5) Use tools to measure success and track customer insights

In addition to the actual content that makes up your customer community management strategy, you’ll want to identify ways to measure the success of your program and track insights from your customers. One way to streamline this step is to find a tool that does what you need automatically. We'll highlight a few awesome insight tools below. Keep in mind that a great tool may require more financial investment upfront, but it will save you tons of time in the long run and should eventually pay for itself. 

Powerful community management tools to explore

• Gorgias: As an all-in-one customer support solution, Gorgias can be an excellent choice for your customer service team to keep up with both current customers and future customers alike through email, social media, and chat. 
• Keyhole: Keeping an eye on what is being said about your brand at any given moment can be a whole job by itself. Using a social listening tool like Keyhole can simplify this process by aggregating all mentions of your brand on social media. You can even keep an eye on your competition this way, which can help keep your brand’s strategy fresh and engaging.
• Tweetdeck: If your brand has a Twitter-heavy strategy, Tweetdeck could assist your team with keeping an eye on specific feeds, hashtags, lists, and even managing your own tweets and messages. The tool also allows for data-driven insights.  
• Grytics: If part of your community management strategy relies on running a specific group or online community, such as a private Facebook group, Grytics could help organize your insights, engagement, and overall performance. 

6) Assign a community manager to help your community flourish

The last step in creating your customer community management strategy is assigning a community manager. A dedicated community manager on your team will help execute your strategy and ensure the communities you’re building are supported and continue to grow. 

A community manager is similar to a social media manager, but there is one major difference. A social media manager typically posts and supports a brand from the inside. This usually means posting from a brand’s social media accounts. On the other hand, a community manager posts as a brand ambassador under their own accounts, not the brand's. The community manager will develop the community as a part of the community. A community manager can also be seen as a brand advocate. 

A great community manager would manage your brand’s community with a seriousness that doesn’t jeopardize the brand but also a friendly and personable attitude to keep customers engaged. Specific tasks of a good community manager could include:

• Ensuring customers' questions are answered
• Moderating conflict within the community
• Enforcing terms of service (TOS) policies
• Keeping the community a positive place for customers to interact

Tips and tricks for community management

As you finalize your customer community management strategy and start executing it, here are some best practices to keep in mind to make it as successful as possible.

Always provide a link back to your website

A link to your brand’s website is never a bad idea because each link out there increases the chance of someone in the community going to your website, clicking around, and making a purchase. Even if your community manager can provide an answer with one sentence of text, try to find somewhere to link to on your website, such as an FAQ page. 

Check out how Branch’s Help Center links back to the US (and Canada) store at the top of the portal:

Stay consistent with the company branding tone while responding to customers

Customers and even to-be customers come to know certain brands based on their tone. And even if you are new to community management, you can quickly become known if you create a unique brand voice and tone in online spaces and stick to it. 

One great way to achieve this is with the help of template responses, which we at Gorgias call Macros. With Macros, you can create and maintain a library of templates for frequently asked questions. But unlike most templates, Macros include variables that automatically populate with information like [Customer name] or [Tracking number of last order]. These Macros accelerate your customer service representatives’s workflows without sacrificing personalization or quality:

Create community guidelines and enforce them

Nobody wants to be the Rule Police, but community guidelines in online spaces are vital for mature, inclusive, and productive discourse. Successful community guidelines will also protect your brand if someone on a forum, for example, starts to get out of hand. Additionally, share your brand’s privacy and data protection standards with community members. 52% of social media users rate their privacy and data protection as highly important, so be sure to let them know how you protect their data.

Ask questions, encourage users to share wins/questions, and find other ways to stoke engagement

Remember that the community isn’t just a place for you to make announcements and sell your own products. Find meaningful ways to get people to talk to one another, share insights, and participate in the discussion.

Always respond to community members in a reasonable time frame

As part of your strategy, be sure to decide on what you and the rest of your team believe to be a reasonable time frame to respond to community members. If a community manager doesn’t respond to a community member’s question for several days, the likelihood of that member using the forum again is unlikely. 

Keep content engaging

Even if you are on a forum that uses mostly blocks of text, think of ways to keep the content engaging, such as incorporating photos, videos, infographics, and even podcasts (if applicable). 

One company you can look to as a model for great content creation is Casper, an ecommerce brand specializing in mattresses and pillows. Beyond its diverse content on various social media platforms, the brand has the Sleep Channel on YouTube, which includes a 12-part series that features sleep meditations and bedtime stories.  

Give back to your community

Lastly, it’s vital to dedicate part of your brand’s community management strategy to give back to your community. This can ensure your brand keeps growing and supports brand loyalty among customers. Ways to give back could include things like hosting contests, giveaways, highlighting user-generated content, and providing other incentives to expand the community. 

3 great examples of customer communities

We’ve covered a few examples of great customer communities above, but here are three more that we see as the gold standard.

310 Nutrition’s Facebook Community focuses on education

Though we mentioned 310 Nutrition earlier, the brand is a perfect example of how to run a strong online community focused on education. The fitness and weight-loss brand provides tons of content in its private Facebook group from brand ambassadors who work for 310 nutrition and are experts in the industry, such as trainers and nutritionists. 

The brand shares high-quality videos and articles with tips and tricks to encourage community members to stay motivated on their health journey. 310 Nutrition’s Facebook community also provides members exclusive promotions. All of these strategies help 310 Nutrition’s Facebook group attract new members regularly.

Annmarie Skin Care encourages emotional connections

Skincare brand, Annmarie Skin Care, combines its loyalty program (called the Wild & Beautiful Collective) with an exclusive Facebook group only open to loyalty-program members. Connecting a loyalty program to a closed online community can be a great way to give an exclusive benefit to loyal customers without investing too much overhead. In the community, loyal customers get exclusive content, access to the Annmarie team, and promotions. 

Oracle offers multiple communities for its powerful software

Even outside of the ecommerce world, online customer communities can be extremely beneficial. Oracle, for example, has different communities to bring together peers who use Oracle products and experts to help navigate the brand’s complex offerings. 

Without this kind of interactive community, new and prospective Oracle customers might be confused about the company’s benefits and use cases. The community helps them learn those things without having to talk to a sales agent:

Build a smooth, profitable customer experience with Gorgias

Creating online communities for your customers can take your brand one step closer to improving the overall customer experience. Online community management gives customers a better shopping experience, more avenues to answer their questions, and boosts your company's revenue in the process.

Efficient, helpful customer service and self-service resources like those offered at Gorgias can help you further your community management goals. Sign up and see how our platform can help streamline customer service interactions, automate repetitive tasks so your team members can focus on connecting with customers, and provide customer data to keep you and your team on track. Book my demo.