Last updated: 2021-06-17

Source: https://support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/238006-proactive-outreach-for-shopify

For a long time now, customer support has been reactive. When your customers run into issues, they reach out to your helpdesk via email, chat or phone, and then your agents sort these issues out. It takes a while before the agents can understand the customer issue. By the time, they come up with a solution, resolution time shoots up and CSAT ratings goes down, leaving the customer frustrated.

With Proactive Outreach by Freshdesk, your support teams can identify, understand, and reach out proactively to customers the moment they run into trouble, in turn creating a memorable brand experience for them. This will also help your support team spot problems and get meaningful insights on improving your product. Admins can also save time and effort by informing customers upfront about any potential delays or changes. All of this will help resolve issues faster and result in good customer satisfaction.

At the moment, you can use proactive outreaches if you run a store on Shopify. You can reach out to your customers proactively for

  • Abandoned Cart
  • Feedback on fulfilled orders

    • Abandoned Cart:

    You can personalize and trigger emails when your store visitors abandon a cart and understand what is stopping them from making purchases. This feedback will help you improve the store experience. The customers will also feel valued, receiving a genuine email asking if they need help.

    Feedback on fulfilled orders:

    Once your customers receive their orders, you can have an email sent to them automatically, for feedback about the product you just delivered. You can then route this feedback to the appropriate teams to improve your product or service.

    Quick guide to setting up an outreach:

  • Log in to your Freshdesk account as an Administrator
  • Go to the ' Admin' tab and click on ' Proactive Outreach' under Workflows

  • Two triggers, one for abandoned cart and the other for fulfilled orders will be available

  • Based on when you’d like to reach out, click on ' Setup outreach' from one of the grids

    • In 5 simple steps, you will be able to set up the outreach:

  • Step 1 - Connect your store: Choose between the various Shopify stores you have connected your Freshdesk account with, from the dropdown and click ' Proceed'.

  • Step 2 - Pick customers: You can choose to send out the email to (i) All customers (who abandon cart or whose orders have been fulfilled) or (ii) Specific customers

    • If you’d like to reach out to only repeat buyers, or customers placing large orders, or visitors from a certain region, you can choose the ' Specific customers' option. Specify the necessary conditions - based on ' Entity' and its corresponding filters, such as order count, customer locale, currency and total price. You can choose to add multiple conditions and have the outreach actioned when ANY or ALL the conditions are met.

  • Step 3 - Compose email: Set up the email you want your customers to receive, on this page. This editor will let you format your emails and also add canned responses or solution articles. Use placeholders by clicking on the ' Placeholders' button to dynamically populate values and personalize your email for each customer.

    • You can also preview your email by clicking on ' Preview' and send yourself a test email to receive a sample by clicking on ' Send test email' on the following pop up window.

    These emails, after completion of the outreach, will be created as tickets. Scrolling down on this page will let you set the properties for these tickets.

  • Step 4 - Choose a time: Give your outreach a name so you can access/edit it later. Schedule the email to go out whenever required.

  • Step 5 - Confirmation: Review your outreach and click on ' Finish' to complete the set up.

  • You will be able to find the outreaches you have configured as a list.

    • Based on your conditions and schedule, when a customer abandons the cart or after their orders are fulfilled, the email will be triggered, creating a ticket in your Freshdesk account. The source of this ticket will be ' Outbound email'.