We’re conditioned to keep chasing after new customers to drive profits, when in fact, our attention should really be on our current customers. This is because the chances of selling to current customers is 60-70%, while the probability of selling to new ones is just 5-20%. Further, a simple 5% increase in customer retention can drive profits by 25-95%. If that’s not enough, gaining a new customer is a whopping 5x more costly than retaining an existing one.
The verdict is in—you need to double down on enhancing and optimizing your existing customer experience because that’s where business growth lies. And this all starts right after a customer makes their purchase. This phase is known as the post-purchase phase and includes everything from insuring their order and tracking their package to returning or exchanging their purchase post-delivery.
Retaining customers means facilitating an optimized post-purchase experience. With 79% of customers saying they won’t return to a business if they have a negative post-purchase experience, there’s no doubt that customers bank on their post-purchase experience to decide whether you’re a reliable online store worth their time and money.
It is critical at this juncture to spark trust and confidence to turn first-time shoppers into loyal fans of your brand for life. So, how do you ensure a winning post-purchase experience? With post-purchase experience software.
Post-purchase experience software is a tool that e-commerce businesses should be focusing on to streamline and optimize their customers’ post-purchase experience.
If you’re unfamiliar with this game-changing solution, worry not. Here, we give you a complete rundown of post-purchase experience software, discussing everything you need to know about it, along with a curated list of the top 10 best post-purchase software to help you narrow down your search.
What is Post-Purchase Experience Software?
Post-purchase experience software is a solution that helps you streamline and optimize your customers’ experience once they have completed their purchase. It enables you to manage your customer relationships with regular, personalized, and effective communication that helps you foster customer loyalty while giving you insight into your post-purchase performance.
Why should you give it a second look? The numbers speak for themselves.
- 93% of customers consider the post-purchase experience important (eMarketer)
- 90% of buyers say experience matters as much as offerings (Salesforce)
- 86% won’t return to a brand after just two poor experiences (Emplifi).
With a post-purchase experience platform, you can bring these numbers to your side. We’ll be discussing how in the next section.
Benefits of Using Post-Purchase Experience Software
If you’re still unconvinced about whether post-purchase experience software should make it to your tech stack, here are some benefits that will help make the decision easier:
Reduce WISMO calls with proactive communication
Post-purchase customer experience software leverages multiple messaging gateways such as email, SMS, and WhatsApp to ensure steady and prompt customer communication. Effective communication helps you reduce support claims and Where Is My Order (WISMO) inquiries by ensuring your customer is always in the know regarding the status of their order.
Reduce Delivery Exception Incidents
Post-purchase experience software helps you manage delivery exception incidents by taking appropriate steps such as sharing updated delivery details with the carrier, requesting delivery re-attempts, etc. via notifications and promptly minimizing customer discomfort.
Enhance Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) with better CX
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) refers to the total revenue a customer generates for a business throughout their relationship. Ascertaining this can help you calculate how much you need to invest in current customers vs. new ones.
Post-purchase experience software helps you drive CLV by facilitating a positive customer experience after the customer places the order. You can also consider loyalty programs, customized discounts, incentives, and other retention strategies in the post-purchase phase to improve your CLV.
Improve Delivery Experience by resolving delivery issues ahead of customer impact
You don’t want to know the house is on fire once the flames are visible. No, you want to know as soon as the sparks appear. That’s what post-purchase experience software facilitates. These solutions track your packages and raise support tickets by sharing shipping alerts in real-time, notifying you and the customer in case of delays.
This way, you know in case certain packages need your intervention to get back on track while also ensuring your customer’s package anxiety is addressed.
Gain Insight into Your Carrier Partners’ Performance
Post-purchase experience tool helps you gain insight into how efficiently your carrier partners are performing. It helps you review the delivery processes to understand where the bottlenecks lie, helping you alleviate them before they snowball into serious impediments that hamper your customer experience.
Build Shopper Trust and Confidence Through Easy Returns and Exchanges
Lastly, post-purchase experience software helps you streamline a very integral part of your customer experience- returns and exchanges. There will be instances when your product won’t hit the mark with your customers. And when this happens, you need to ensure that the disappointment is limited to the product, and doesn’t overflow to your brand. How? By ensuring your customer’s returns process is seamless.
Post-purchase experience software helps you create an on-brand returns portal, keeps your customers updated on their returns, helps enforce return policies, and more. In short, it enables you to streamline your returns process to ensure your customer experience doesn’t suffer.
Increase repeat purchase opportunities during order tracking
Post-purchase experience solutions help you drive repeat sales by allowing you to create branded order-tracking assets that you can leverage to drive cross-selling and up-selling efforts. Here’s how it works: you can populate these assets with hyper-personalized product recommendations to your customers based on their shopping data and double the chances.
Top 10 Post-Purchase Experience Software Providers
Now that you know what a post-purchase experience software is and why you should integrate it into your post-sale process, here are the top 10 post-purchase solutions to consider:
1. LateShipment.com
Key Benefits
Our all-in-one post-purchase automation platform comprises of:
- A Delivery Experience Management platform that offers customers visibility into their order status through automated shipping notifications, self-serve order lookup, smart incident alerts, and proactive issue resolution, reducing WISMO (Where Is My Order) inquiries by 72%.
- A Customer-first Returns Management solution that helps streamline e-commerce returns by empowering your customers to initiate returns through a self-guided branded return portal within stipulated return policies and along with instantly generated downloadable labels to ease the process, resulting in a positive post-purchase experience while helping you retain up to 40% of revenue from returns.
- An Automated Parcel Audit and Shipping Refund solution to determine accurate performance accountability with features such as automated shipping invoice audit, automated refund recovery, and expert claims redressal to ensure you get your money back, helping you reduce your shipping costs by 20%.
- A Shipping Insurance solution that offers comprehensive, fully customizable automated Shipping insurance to protect your parcels, facilitating a 99% claim success rate.
- Seamless Integration: LateShipment.com offers native integrations with 1200+ shipping carriers and tools such as FedEx, UPS, Canpar Express, Klaviyo, Gorgias, Attentive, Shippo, Salesforce, and others.
Pricing
LateShipment.com’s all-in-one suite has the following pricing:
- Delivery Experience Management: $0.05 per shipment with a 30-day free trial and unlimited shipment tracking.
- Returns Experience Management: $0.35 per return, with 50 free returns.
- Parcel Audit and Shipping Refunds: 35% of refunds are recovered with unlimited shipment audit, and you only pay when refunds are recovered.
- Shipping Insurance: $0.49 per $100 coverage per shipment.
G2 Rating: 5/5
Explore LateShipment.com by signing up for a free trial today!
2. ShipStation
ShipStation is a shipping management software that helps e-commerce businesses process, fulfill, and ship orders effortlessly. In addition to marketplaces, storefronts, and leading carriers, ShipStation also partners with payment processing businesses, accounting service application developers, and other e-commerce tool companies to optimize your customers’ post-purchase experience.
Key Benefits
- Helps streamline order management, branded post-shipping experience, shipping label creation, and inventory management.
- Allows you to monitor every order’s location and status.
- Provides a rate shopping feature that helps businesses choose the most economical shipping partner based on the order’s size and destination.
Pricing
- Starter: $9.99/month
- Growth: $29.99/month
- Scale: $99.99/month
- High Volume: $399.99/month
G2 Rating: 4.3/5
3. Narvar
Key Benefits
- Leverages multiple channels to reach and notify customers regarding their orders’ status.
- Empowers brands to create branded messages that help improve customer experience.
- Its advanced returns management system helps businesses create customized branded returns and exchange pages for a seamless customer experience.
Pricing: Contact sales.
G2 Rating: 4.3/5
4. MetaPack
Metapack is delivery management software that integrates with over 400 logistics companies and 4,900 delivery service providers globally. It maintains a significant network of partners and provides several services, such as next-day delivery, locker boxes, and click-and-collect services.
Key Benefits
- Offers real-time package tracking to customers to help build brand engagement while simultaneously reducing WISMO inquiries.
- Allows businesses to leverage an automated returns management system with set policies, regional carrier selection for managing returns, etc.
- Coordinates with over 350,000 pick-up and drop-off locations to help businesses easily store and dispatch orders.
Pricing: Contact sales.
G2 Rating: 3.8/5
5. AfterShip
Key Benefits
- Offers visibility into your shipment and tracking data to help you make informed decisions that drive ROI through customer engagement.
- Allows you to create a customized branded tracking page that supports cross-selling and upselling goals.
- The Estimated Delivery Date (EDD) feature helps reduce WISMO inquiries and predicts delivery dates accurately to build customer trust.
Pricing
AfterShip offers plans for every feature (tracking, returns, warranty, shipping, protection, EDD, etc.), ranging from $9/month to custom pricing.
G2 Rating: 4.7/5
6. Shippo
Shippo is a multi-carrier shipping software that helps e-commerce platforms compare rates, access discounts, schedule pick-ups, and create shipping labels—from a single solution. Further, it connects businesses with all its carrier partners for easier tracking and management of orders.
Key Benefits
- Helps e-commerce businesses create personalized branded order tracking pages that also helps further post-purchase marketing initiatives.
- Empowers e-commerce businesses to send branded shipment communication to customers through emails.
- Offers API integration process to help users connect with the platform quickly, minimizing delay.
Pricing
- Starter: Free
- Professional: $10/month
- Premier: Contact Sales
G2 Rating: 4.2/5
7. Easyship
Easyship is an e-commerce shipping software that manages your post-purchase customer experience with quick deliveries from over 50 warehouses across the world. It offers an end-to-end logistics solution that is free for growing businesses that have less than 100 monthly orders.
Key Benefits
- Provides multi-carrier shipment delivery for domestic as well as international orders through collaboration with local carriers. Further, Easyship’s shipping prices are transparent, which ensures you can view and calculate them easily through Easyship’s website.
- Offers round-the-clock customer support to help improve customer experience post-purchase.
- Offers easy integration with selling channels such as Magento, Shopify, ERP tools, and virtual storefronts such as eBay, Etsy, and Amazon.
Pricing
- Free: $0/month
- Plus: $23/month, billed annually
- Premier: $55/month, billed annually
- Scale: $79/month, billed annually
G2 Rating: 4/5
8. WeSupply Labs
WeSupply Labs is a cloud-based platform that helps enhance your customer’s post-purchase experience through advanced shipping strategies and an omnichannel approach. It markets itself as a 360 post-purchase solution that streamlines order tracking, returns and exchanges, parcel protection, fraud prevention, delivery estimation and more.
Key Benefits
- Offers in-store as well as curbside pickup that help facilitate an omnichannel approach.
- Improving returns management by empowering customers to initiate product returns through a robust Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) process that helps foster a positive customer experience.
- Allows e-commerce platforms to track orders in real-time to inform customers of delays before time.
- Provides e-commerce platforms with regular logistical feedback to enhance processes that affect post-purchase customer experience.
Pricing
- Growth: $40/month
- Advanced: $100/month
- Enterprise: Contact sales
G2 Rating: 4.5/5
9. ClickPost
ClickPost is a logistics intelligence platform that helps businesses create, manage, and monitor orders while managing multiple shipping partners—all on a single platform. It provides 24×7 customer support, user-friendly tracking, and a compliant registration portal.
Key Benefits
- Offers advanced order management capabilities with an intuitive dashboard that allows sellers to allocate, dispatch, and monitor orders from a single location.
- Enables e-commerce companies to set up orders with a shipping company, create the (Airway Bill) AWB, print labels, and pack as well as assign orders for pickup through a single API integration.
- Its NDR management platform ensures you receive timely notifications for non-deliveries along with non-delivery reports.
Pricing
ClickPost offers the following plans:
- Pre-dispatch
- Post-Dispatch
- ReturnsPro
- EDD
- Automated APIs
- B2B/MPS
Please contact sales for pricing details.
G2 Rating: 4.7/5
10. Parcel Perform
Parcel Perform is a data and delivery experience software that leverages AI to help e-commerce platforms optimize their post-purchase process. It automates shipping processes and communication with your customers to ensure their post-purchase experience remains positive.
Key Benefits
- Empowers online retailers to view order updates across multiple carriers from a single window and helps set up triggers for order delivery updates to customers. E-commerce retailers can also share customer-specific details to personalize order tracking for shoppers.
- Helps personalize your customers’ post-purchase experience with language customizations depending on location.
- Offers a scalable solution that can integrate seamlessly with over 700 carriers to help streamline global shipping.
Pricing: Contact sales
G2 Rating: 4.6/5
Key Features to Look for in a Post-Purchase Experience Software
Here are some core features of a purchase experience software:
- Delivery ETA: Post-purchase experience solutions provide customers with accurate and updated details regarding their packages’ delivery schedule. This is calculated based on factors such as the delivery location, warehouse location, traffic, delivery workload, weather conditions, etc.
- Order Tracking: Post-purchase experience tools help customers track their orders at their convenience and prevent frequent WISMO calls by offering detailed order status information such as estimated date of arrival, shipping carrier, tracking IDs, etc.
- Communication Capabilities: Post-purchase experience software helps e-commerce businesses share personalized messages with customers across channels such as SMS, email, etc. This ensures that customers remain informed, engaged, and updated about the status of their orders.
- Returns Portal: Post-purchase experience tools empower customers to easily raise and manage return requests. These platforms generate return labels, share regular updates regarding the status of the return, and promote exchanges over refunds.
- Analytics and Reporting: Probably the most significant feature of a post-purchase experience platform is its reporting capabilities. E-commerce businesses gain valuable insight into their order data and post-purchase processes to help fuel data-backed decision-making regarding budgets, product improvements, customer trends, etc.
How To Choose the Right Post-Purchase Experience Software?
We know that choosing which post-purchase experience software is not a walk in the park. It’s more like a swim in a misty lake. So, to help you glide through the water and alleviate the fog around you, here are some criteria to assess your options against:
Ability to send Omnichannel Notifications
The best post-purchase experience software will offer omnichannel communication capabilities to ensure all critical order-related updates reach the customer. Your chosen solution must allow you to control and establish triggers for every type of notification and give you the power to decide when your customers should receive updates and how often.
For instance, you could set triggers to send a push notification when the order is successfully shipped, an email once it has been delivered, or when the package is suspected to be lost in transit.
Seamless Integration with Your Tech Stack
You don’t want to onboard a post-purchase experience software only to have to realize it doesn’t work with your existing tech stack. And so, the next consideration when looking for the top post-purchase experience software for your e-commerce business is integration capabilities.
Make sure your chosen solution offers seamless integration with all your business systems. This will not only ensure smooth sailing but also help your team familiarize themselves with the new solution faster.
Should offer Package Protection/Shipping Insurance
Consider a post-purchase experience software that offers package protection. Insuring your packages can be extremely beneficial when it comes to protecting your bottom line and giving you peace of mind. This feature is especially important if your store offers high-ticket products that can be expensive to repair or replace.
Ability to Create Branded Tracking Experiences
Your chosen post-purchase experience software must empower you to create on-brand package tracking portals that reflect your unique brand voice. This is not only essential to facilitating a consistent and streamlined brand experience for your customers but also helps you further your upselling and cross-selling efforts.
Personalization Capabilities
Remember, your post-purchase experience is part of your customer experience. And so, it must be an extension of your brand. Your order tracking page must reflect your brand identity and messaging and just shout YOU.
It is also an excellent opportunity to increase customer engagement and repeat selling to your customers while they wait for their orders to get delivered.
Conclusion
The way you manage your customer’s journey after they make a purchase can make or break your chances of seeing them again. After all, they’ve taken a leap of faith in your platform. If you let them down now, you best believe they’re not coming back.
The only way to ensure every new customer becomes a repeat one is by onboarding robust post-purchase experience software that optimizes your customer’s experience and engagement with your brand. Now that you have a crisp list of the top 10 post-purchase experience tools, along with a list of criteria to judge each one against, you’re well on your way to onboarding the right solution for your business in no time.
But if time is of the essence, go with the best – Lateshipment.com. Take a product tour today!
FAQs
1. What is a post-purchase platform?
A post-purchase platform is a solution that empowers e-commerce platforms to manage and optimize their customer relationships through personalized and positive post-purchase experiences that foster customer loyalty and drive customer retention.
2. What are the leading post-purchase experience solutions?
The leading post-purchase experience solutions include Lateshipment.com, ShipStation, Narvar, MetaPack, and AfterShip.
3. What is the purpose of a post-purchase experience software?
Post-purchase experience software helps you drive customer satisfaction by optimizing shipping, gathering customer feedback, and offering personalized experiences that help foster customer loyalty.
4. How can I improve my post-purchase experience?
To improve your post-purchase experience, consider onboarding a post-purchase experience platform like Lateshipment.com. An all-in-one post-purchase automation platform, LateShipment.com offers advanced capabilities to streamline parcel audit and shipping refunds, shipping insurance, delivery experience management, and returns experience management.
