The 2021 holiday sales season is quickly approaching, and most eCommerce companies face it with a mix of excitement and dread. If anything, 2020 taught us that the threat of everything falling apart is always there, even if you’re having a banner year. That means now is the time to shore up operations and put protections into place to keep revenue secure and customers satisfied.

You want to grow and strengthen your company, but you can’t do that if all of your important data is buried in spreadsheets or held by dozens of different people across the organization. Uncover key information with an executive dashboard. This display provides an overview of your most essential company metrics on a single screen, so you can easily get the insights you need to make crucial decisions. No more wasting time digging through different reports.

There are several approaches to creating a dashboard for sharing your most important metrics - we covered the most common ones in this article. Often the decision over which approach to take boils down to building your own (or hiring someone to build one for you) or going with an off-the-shelf KPI dashboard solution like Geckoboard. Here we’re going to discuss the pros and cons of build versus buy to help you make an informed decision as to what’s the right approach for you.

It’s tough to keep any sales team motivated, but it’s especially difficult for remote teams. Reps can’t thrive off each other’s energy or engage in friendly competition, so you need an alternative for keeping everyone focused on your targets. A sales dashboard gives you an overview of your team’s performance and keeps everyone motivated by showing progress toward your targets – even if you’re not all in the same office.

You’re at a party nibbling on cheese when someone who looks vaguely familiar strikes up a conversation. You’re doing a good enough job faking your way through it, until your partner joins and asks for an introduction ... and you don’t know the person’s name. Sales and support conversations aren’t so different from chats at parties.

If you’ve ever found a solution online to an obscure tech problem you’ve had, then it’s very likely that you’ve interacted with an online community forum. Community forums allow people to connect and discuss shared interests. Especially now, where many people’s days are spent online, community forums represent a space of connection for many.

Customer support staffing is like a never-ending game of Jenga. If you’ve got a team of customer support reps who are all aligned on how best to help your customers and have experience doing just that, you’ve got an excellent foundation for resolving customer queries. But if you take out just a few of those reps – if they leave, get promoted, or are out sick for an extended period – then your support provision suddenly looks much less stable.

When surveyed, more than half of customer service agents said they usually have to switch between different systems to solve a customer request. Here’s why: When a customer reaches out for support, an agent typically needs a bit of context to fully understand the customer’s situation or problem.

The traditional way to measure customer service metrics is to track averages, such as average reply time or average resolution time. But Geckoboard’s Customer Support Experience Report found that some companies measure first response time as a service level agreement (SLA) metric rather than an average. SLA metrics are internal metrics used by customer support teams to set targets for the proportion of customers who will receive a predefined minimum level of service.

Imagine you’re in the market to buy a new dishwasher. You receive an email from Lowe’s claiming that a new LG model is a customer favorite. But then a few friends tell you their Frigidaire dishwashers are the best they’ve ever owned. Who are you more likely to believe? Probably your friends. SEMrush’s research shows that 88 percent of people have the highest level of trust in a brand when a friend or family member recommends it.