How to predict & prevent common customer complaints in ecommerce
Vaishali Ravi
·March 18, 2025
Want to build a brand that customers genuinely love? Then delivering a superlative customer experience from the very first interaction to the last is crucial.
Brands that deliver best-in-class experiences have staying power: 88% of customers are more likely to make repeat purchases from brands that offer excellent customer service.
On the other hand, failing to meet expectations can result in lost opportunities. Nearly three-quarters of shoppers said they’d switch to a competitor after more than one negative experience with a brand.
While it’s important to respond quickly to customers’ issues, by that point, you may have already lost their loyalty. First, focus on building proactive strategies to reduce customer complaints, ensuring that your shoppers have a seamless experience from start to finish.
Here’s how.
Get to know the most common complaints
To build a proactive approach to customer service, it’s important to understand the areas where ecommerce brands often fall short. Some common areas for concern include:
- Information is hard to find or inaccurate
- If your inventory isn’t accurate, or shoppers can’t determine whether a product will work for them, they’re far more likely to reach out for help—or worse, bounce without making a purchase.
- Shipping problems
- Customers often report issues to customer support if they’re anxious about their order status. Delivery delays, or lost or mishandled packages, can be major causes of dissatisfaction.
- Product doesn’t meet shopper’s needs
- The customer may be dissatisfied with the fit or quality, or may have simply found something else they preferred.
- Challenges with returns
- If your returns policy is hard to understand and the process is tough to follow, shoppers will be frustrated and alienated from coming back.
Proactively addressing concerns
All of these concerns are likely to lead to complaints and customer support tickets—but the trick is to address them before it gets to that point. By setting up streamlined processes for managing common pain points in the ecommerce experience, you’ll be able to reduce your support ticket volume and give your shoppers more confidence in your brand.
To do this:
- Use chatbots to help customers find answers fast
- By adding a chatbot to your site, you can empower customers to easily find the answers to their questions about product selection, fit, and inventory from relevant content on your site. They’ll be able to move from confusion to clarity without needing to speak to a human agent, and will be more likely to make a purchase.
- Add easy order tracking and proactive order management
- By using real-time tracking technology, you can ensure that your shoppers always have access to their orders’ status, so they can accurately predict their arrival. In the event that a carrier delays or loses a shipment, you can set up automated next steps, such as alerting the customer of the carrier issue, and immediately shipping a replacement order. Rather than waiting for the customer to notice and complain about a delayed or missing order, you’ll be able to proactively address the problem and build a great Plan B.
- Streamline your returns management
- Returns happen—so make sure you’re giving your shoppers a seamless experience when they need to send an order back. Make sure that your returns policy is easy to understand, and let shoppers initiate their own returns on eligible items through a self-service portal. They should be able to access instant exchange options, select store credit to apply to a future purchase, or get a hassle-free refund. And provide a customized return policy with multiple options for shipping back products: Some shoppers prefer to self-pack and label their returns, while others would rather drop them off to a nearby drop-off center or store. By ensuring a smooth and easy returns process, you’ll make it far more likely that your customers will consider your brand in the future, even if a specific purchase didn’t work out.
Better CX is in fashion for 2025
Curious what other trends brands are focusing on in 2025? Unlock them all in our recent report!
Get exclusive accessStreamline the customer experience with the right tools
Focus on embracing clear communication and transparency, and you’ll build a brand that customers can trust. Using the right technology to streamline the customer experience and provide visibility throughout the process is crucial for reducing complaints and ensuring customer satisfaction.
With a returns management solution like Loop, you’ll be able to provide your shoppers with real-time order tracking and streamlined, hassle-free returns—eliminating friction from the ecommerce experience and giving them confidence through all of their interactions with your brand.
Want to learn more?
Book a demo
Schedule a quick call to explore Loop
See how Loop works
Get a quick teaser of how Loop would work for you
In this article
Stay in the loop
Subscribe for product updates and Loop's biweekly newsletter.
Retain more revenue with Loop today
With Loop, your brand can offer everything from refunds to direct exchanges to shopper incentives and more. Even better? These exchanges build your business.