eCommerce Archives | Lateshipment.com

E-Commerce Holiday Shipping: Balancing Cost And Reliability

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 05:05:06 +0000

The truth of shipping becoming a defining factor in the customer experience, especially during the holidays, cannot be stressed enough.

This is because most of the orders during the holiday season are by customers who rely on timely gift-giving deliveries. These customers are so invested in them that a single instance of delay or any other delivery issue for that matter can lead to customer churn and lost costs.

Consumers expect holiday gifts to be delivered quickly, with 29% expecting delivery within 2–3 days.

While this is an issue that needs to be addressed, shippers are also put into face with rising shipping costs (due to shipping carriers straining capacity) during the peak season that can quickly eat into profit margins.

With an overwhelming surge in orders and inevitable delivery issues, success in terms of holiday shipping is dictated by balancing managing costs and ensuring reliability.

However, given today’s highly competitive marketplace, balancing these factors is no longer a luxury — it’s a necessity.

That said, there are several complexities that e-commerce businesses must navigate in holiday shipping to strike the perfect balance between cost and reliability and enjoy success. Let’s take a look at some of the major challenges and how you can address them.

Frequent Challenges of Holiday Shipping

1. Carrier capacity constraints

Customers tend to shop more during the holiday season, leading to high order volumes. This sudden influx of orders leaves carriers often struggling to meet demand, leading to delayed pickups, lost packages, and missed delivery deadlines. Customers who face the brunt of these issues are prone to hold you accountable and are more likely to churn.

2. Increased shipping costs

To manage the higher demand of order volumes, carriers typically impose surcharges on select services such as expedited shipping and oversized packages. The costs of these surcharges are borne by you, the e-commerce businesses as low-cost shipping has to be a standard offering for your customers. However, bearing these costs can result in your last-mile delivery skyrocketing and thereby squeezing your profit margins.

3. Lack of visibility and communication

Delays and disruptions are inevitable during the holiday season. However, customers are supportive of businesses that make the effort to let them know of the issue and preemptively resolve it. However, most e-commerce businesses lack real-time order tracking and proactive communication, thereby amplifying customer frustration, which leads to negative reviews and a loss of trust.

How to Balance Cost and Reliability During Holiday Shipping

While the challenges of holiday shipping are significant, businesses can take strategic steps to optimize both cost and reliability. Here’s how:

1. Understand carriers' shipping deadlines

In order to manage high shipping volumes without straining their capacity, shipping carriers come up with service deadlines (last days to ship) before important holiday season days. You can stay updated with these dates and communicate it with your customers to encourage last minute shoppers to plan their purchase accordingly.

2. Stay updated with carrier delay rates

Carriers strain their capacity during times like the holiday season. Understanding their delivery performance can help you choose the best carrier based on service types, locations, etc. Here’s an e-commerce report that delivers unbiased insights on UPS and FedEx on-time performance, highlighting delivery trends, operational challenges, and consumer expectations for speed and reliability for the upcoming 2024 holiday season.

3. Diversify carrier partnerships

Relying on a single carrier during the holidays is a risk. Diversify your carrier network to include regional and local couriers, which can often provide faster and more affordable last-mile delivery. This flexibility allows you to manage capacity constraints, negotiate better rates, and pick reliable shipping partners based on their strengths.

4. Offer smart shipping options

Not every customer requires overnight delivery. Provide multiple shipping options at checkout, such as economy, standard, and expedited shipping. This empowers customers to choose the shipping speed that suits their needs and budget, while also helping you manage costs.

5. Implement proactive communication

Customers are more forgiving of delays when they’re kept informed. Use automated notifications to alert customers of delivery updates, delays, or disruptions. Clear and proactive communication enhances the customer experience and reduces WISMO (“Where is My Order?”) inquiries.

6. Communicate delivery exceptions

Track your parcels in real time to monitor delivery performance, identify issues as they unfold, and automate resolution processes. This ensures reliable delivery while minimizing the cost of failed shipments or customer dissatisfaction.

7. Optimize packaging strategies

Carriers often base shipping costs on dimensional weight. Optimize your packaging to reduce unnecessary bulk and avoid oversized package fees. Additionally, well-secured packaging minimizes the risk of damage, improving reliability.

8. Plan for returns

The holiday season often brings a spike in returns, and a seamless return process is just as important as delivery. Offer pre-paid return labels and easy-to-navigate return portals to provide a hassle-free experience that builds trust and loyalty.

9. Audit your shipping invoices

While most carriers either suspend or extend their money-back guarantee for late deliveries, your invoice may still contain 50 other carrier errors (service failures and billing errors) that are eligible for refunds. Auditing your invoices gives you the opportunity to claim refunds for them. Remember, manual auditing can be a tedious process — make use of an automated parcel audit solution that does this on your behalf.

10. Make data-driven decisions with shipping intelligence

Regularly auditing your shipping invoices, among other things, gives you fulfillment insights such as on-time delivery performance, shipping spend analysis, etc. You can leverage these insights to make precise, data-driven decisions that enhance operational efficiency and reduce costs.

Prepare in Advance for the Holiday Rush

E-commerce holiday shipping is a delicate balance between managing rising costs and delivering a seamless, reliable experience to your customers. By diversifying carrier partnerships, leveraging automation, and communicating proactively, you can overcome the challenges of the holiday rush while delighting your customers and protecting your margins.

The holiday season presents both challenges and opportunities — those who master their shipping strategy will gain not just satisfied customers but also a competitive edge in the market.

Balancing cost and reliability isn’t just about reacting to challenges — it requires proactive planning. Less than a week to go until the holiday season to officially kick off — which means as an e-commerce retailer, you have to make use of the little prep time left to get better equipped to handle the holiday rush. Here are some tips categorized via different stages of the customer journey to help you get ahead of the curve.

The post E-Commerce Holiday Shipping: Balancing Cost And Reliability appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

6 Steps To Take When An E-commerce Delivery Goes Wrong

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 08:30:37 +0000

With heightened order volumes and tight shipping deadlines, it is natural for e-commerce businesses to expect high customer service inquiries and frustrations from delivery issues during the holiday season. But you can’t let these things slide as ensuring a seamless delivery experience is essential to keep customers happy and coming back.

While delays and other delivery issues cannot be prevented, you can definitely have a well-prepared customer service strategy to ensure a smooth post-purchase experience, no matter how busy the holiday season gets. To make things easier, we have come up with a “Customer Service Survival Kit” to help you handle post-purchase issues efficiently and preserve customer satisfaction.

Remember, 96.2% of customers will leave a business for poor customer service while 62% of customers will pay more for good customer service.

Holiday Survival Kit for E-Commerce Customer Service

Steps to Take When a Customer’s Delivery Goes Wrong

1. Protect Customer Confidence By Identifying And Tracking Issues Early

Imagine a customer eagerly awaiting their holiday purchase — only to discover their order has been delayed. Their excitement can quickly turn into frustration.

By tracking every order in real time, you can catch potential issues that deter customer satisfaction.

Here’s how it works: Real-time visibility allows you to stay in the know about your parcels and set up alerts when things go wrong. With delays identified early, you can address them even before your customers come to know of it.

2. Strengthen Customer Trust with Transparency by Notifying Customers Early and Often

As soon as an issue is detected, reach out with clear, real-time updates across email, SMS, or WhatsApp notifications rather than waiting for them to contact you. This way, you can proactively reach out to the customer and reassure them you’ll set things right. Remember, there’s no faster way to build trust than by keeping customers informed.

There’s also an additional benefit to notifying customers early: Not only does it reduce worry, but keeping customers in the loop about shipment issues also reduces frustration and eventual tarnishing of your brand’s reputation.

3. Make Help Hassle-Free with Easy Access to Support

Customers don’t just need assistance, they want it done fast and easy. Because no one wants to waste time searching for answers as they’re awaiting updates on their orders.

To counter these issues, you can set up multiple strategies like a 24/7 dedicated support team across channels, chatbots that handle basic queries backed by live chat, and a holiday-specific FAQ page addressing common issues — such as delays, returns, and replacement policies to ensure customers have all the information they need at their fingertips. This way, customers feel supported, less frustrated, and are more likely to return to your brand even if they encounter an issue.

Pro Tip: Place links to your FAQ or help center in your emails and order tracking pages to let. customers know exactly where to go for help without having to search.

4. Keep Customers Informed Effortlessly via Automated Shipping Notifications

Even when there’s no issue with your shipments, your customers can be prone to anxiety due to the lack of order updates. With automation in play, you can ensure that customers stay updated every step of the way without delay.

Here’s how it works: you can set up notifications for key stages (order shipped, in transit, delivered, or any issues such as suspected loss, in-transit with delay) to be sent automatically and proactively so that customers never have to wonder where their package is.

Why it Matters: Customers are reassured by timely updates. This proactive approach cuts down on WISMO inquiries and gives your customers peace of mind, no matter how busy the season gets.

5. Turn Setbacks into Opportunities for Loyalty by Promptly Offering Resolution

While handling delivery issues is a job almost done, you can make things even better by offering a fast and fair resolution, like a discount on their next purchase, refund, or replacement, you make customers feel prioritized and appreciated.

Even if you don’t have the budget to do this for all shipments, you can keep your focus on loyal customers or high-value orders.

Being proactive in your resolution approach shows customers that you value their experience and are committed to making things right. Small gestures, like discounts or a quick refund, can help you transform potential disappointments into positive brand experiences and thereby foster loyalty.

6. Continuously Improve the Customer Journey by Learning and Optimizing for Future Success

The best way to improve your customer service process is to get your hands on data. Compare the holiday season trends of previous years with this year’s regular period, take stock of what worked and what didn’t.

If you don’t know where to start, look for metrics like customer satisfaction scores and response times and recurring issues such as WISMO, unable to reach support, or particular carriers having more delays. These data give you valuable insights into how you can refine your customer service approach, address root problems, and prepare for a better experience for the holiday season.

With the what and the why sorted, here’s how you can do this — Implement a feedback loop after order delivery and returns to get satisfaction scores around the post-purchase and then make continuous operational improvements to enhance the experience and improve brand reputation.

How Lateshipment.com Can Help in Improving Your Post-Purchase Customer Support Efforts

1. Over-communicate and Reduce Customer Anxiety Post-Purchase

After customers place an order, anticipation and anxiety often kick in as they wait for their package to arrive. To alleviate this, you need to proactively communicate with them at every key stage of the delivery process via automated and personalized order status notifications via email or SMS. For customers facing critical delivery issues, such as significant delays or lost packages, proactive communication is key. Reaching out to affected customers before they have to inquire demonstrates empathy and commitment, turning what could be a negative experience into a positive one.

Even when things go right, you can still send shipping transactional notifications to keep customers informed throughout the delivery lifecycle. By keeping customers in the loop, especially during the holiday season, you reassure them that their purchase is on track or being handled with care, ultimately building trust and reducing WISMO (Where Is My Order?) inquiries.

2. Enable Order Tracking Self-Service for Your Customers

Customers appreciate the convenience of accessing information without waiting for assistance. Enable self-serve order tracking by adding a “Track My Order” widget directly on your website and emails. This allows them to quickly check their delivery’s progress whenever they want, without needing to contact customer support, which can reduce your team’s workload.

3. Keep Support Teams on Top of Order Deliveries, Particularly Those Facing Delivery Issues

Empowering your support team with the tools to manage delivery issues proactively is crucial for efficient service, especially during peak seasons. By auto-triggering tickets on your helpdesk for failed or delayed deliveries, you ensure that no critical issue falls through the cracks. This proactive approach enables support agents to address problems before customers even reach out, enhancing response times and customer satisfaction.

Equipping your agents with real-time tracking information within the helpdesk further speeds up resolution times. With immediate access to order statuses and delivery details, support teams can answer customer inquiries accurately and efficiently. This level of readiness enables them to manage delivery issues quickly, reduce handling times, and deliver a seamless post-purchase experience that keeps customers satisfied and confident in your brand.

Final Word

The holiday season brings both opportunity and pressure for e-commerce businesses.

In a time where delivery delays and other post-purchase issues can significantly strain customer relationships, having a well-equipped customer service survival kit is essential.

By identifying issues early, communicating proactively, and offering swift resolutions, you can not only handle delivery issues effectively but also build stronger relationships with customers.

With the right tools and strategies in place, a potential delivery issue becomes more than a service request; it’s an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction and build loyalty that lasts well beyond the holiday season.

The post 6 Steps To Take When An E-commerce Delivery Goes Wrong appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

2024 Holiday Shipping Guide: Deadlines, Surcharges, and Smart Strategies for E-commerce Businesses in the US and Canada

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 06:23:04 +0000

The holiday season is almost here, just T-23 days as we are writing this article away from things getting really hectic.

For e-commerce businesses, this means it’s time to prepare for the busiest time of the year. And remember, early preparation is key to ensuring a smooth holiday season.

So, in this blog, we’ve covered a comprehensive holiday schedule in the form of information on shipping deadlines and peak season surcharges for the 2024 season.

Why Early Preparation for the Holiday Season is Necessary

The holiday season is a time when shoppers are on a buying spree, looking to get the perfect gifts for their loved ones and deals for themselves. However, this great opportunity brings up a great challenge for businesses such as yours.

The holiday shopping rush can turn out to be overwhelming, leading to issues like shipping delays, inventory shortages, customer service overload, and so much more.
The holiday season is a time when shipping carriers are straining their capacity due to experiencing high volumes of packages, which often leads to delays. This means that you need to plan accordingly to get your products shipped out for timely delivery.
Customers are more likely to make impulse purchases during the holidays, especially towards the last minute. For such customers, we understand carriers’ shipping deadlines to avoid delays and holiday disappointments.

This is why starting your plans for the holiday season early is crucial:

Now that we understand the importance of early preparation, let’s get started.

Before we get into the details, here’s a little heads-up: shipping carriers exceed their capacity to deliver on-time during the peak season. To help you evade delays successfully, we are planning a Q/A session, where our CEO Sri shares insights from the 7th annual edition of our e-commerce holiday shipping report, focusing on on-time carrier reliability and logistics challenges to support your holiday retail coverage.

Join our briefing session and get:

FedEx and UPS On-time Performance Insights: A detailed on-time performance analysis covering Ground and Express services, key U.S. cities, states and retail categories
2024 Holiday Forecast: Get an expert outlook on carrier reliability, factors impacting on-time performance, shipping costs, and consumer expectations for the holiday season.
Interactive Q&A Session: Engage with our host, ask questions, and gain an insider’s perspective on the 2024 peak season logistics; and its impact on retailers and holiday shoppers.

You can register for the session here.

Key Holiday Shipping Deadlines in 2024

Getting your customers to spend with you is just halfway to the finish line. Getting their products into customers’ hands is a bigger challenge for e-commerce businesses during this busy season.

On the one hand, carriers are straining their capacity to ship out huge volumes of packages during the holiday rush. So know what steps you must take to get on the right track this holiday season.

To make things simpler for you, we’ve noted important holiday-season dates for carriers in the US and Canada and have presented them to you.

US Shipping Deadlines

To help shippers plan their deliveries for the holidays accordingly, carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and USPS release their schedule, i.e., a calendar with information on when services will not be operated, special restrictions for certain services, and geographical locations, etc.

Staying updated on this schedule can help e-commerce businesses such as yours follow shipping deadlines and send out deliveries on time.

Here’s a breakdown of key shipping deadlines (the last shipping dates for select services to help ensure your package is scheduled to arrive by December 24, 2024 unless otherwise mentioned specifically) by major carriers in the U.S., including FedEx, UPS, and USPS:

FedEx

FedEx SameDay – 12/24
FedEx First Overnight, FedEx Priority Overnight, FedEx Standard Overnight, Extra Hours – 12/23
FedEx 2Day & FedEx 2Day AM – 12/20 (With an optional Saturday pickup (a $16 per package surcharge), the last day to ship for FedEx 2Day and FedEx 2Day AM can be extended to Saturday, Dec. 21st)
FedEx Express Saver – 12/19
FedEx Home Delivery
- 12/17 (5-day shipping)
- 12/18 (4-day shipping)
- 12/19 (3-day shipping)
- 12/20 (2-day shipping)
- 12/23 (1-day shipping)

FedEx Home Delivery
- 12/17 (5-day shipping)
- 12/18 (4-day shipping)
- 12/19 (3-day shipping)
- 12/20 (2-day shipping)
- 12/23 (1-day shipping)

FedEx Ground Economy – 12/13

Read FedEx’s 2024 shipping deadlines for holiday packages in detail

UPS

UPS Ground – Check ups.com/ctc for details
UPS 3 Day Select – Dec. 19
UPS 2nd Day Air – Dec. 20
UPS Next Day Air – Dec. 23

Read UPS’ 2024 Year-End Holiday Schedule

USPS

USPS recommends the following mailing and shipping deadlines for expected delivery by Dec. 25 to domestic addresses

USPS Ground Advantage Service – DEC 18
First-Class Mail Service (including greeting cards) – DEC 18
Priority Mail Service – DEC 19
Priority Mail Express Service – DEC 21

Read USPS’ 2024 shipping deadlines for holiday packages in detail

Deadlines for Canadian Carriers

Similar to the US, carriers from Canada also announce their holiday service schedule YoY to help businesses that ship plan their dates accordingly and avoid shipping delays.

Canada Post

Priority – December 23
Xpresspost – December 23
Expedited Parcel or flat rate box – December 20
Regular Parcel – December 19

Read Canada Post’s 2024 shipping deadlines for holiday packages in detail

FedEx Canada

FedEx First Overnight – Monday, December 23
FedEx Priority Overnight – Monday, December 23
FedEx Standard Overnight – Monday, December 23
FedEx 2Day – Friday, December 20
FedEx Economy – Thursday, December 19

Read FedEx Canada 2024 shipping deadlines for holiday packages in detail

UPS Canada

December 16th – Last day to ship by Ground for delivery to US & Extended Areas.
December 16th – Last day to ship by Ground for delivery across Canada (domestic).
December 20th – Last day to ship by Air for International delivery.
December 23rd – Last day to ship by Air for delivery across Canada and the US.

Read UPS Canada’s Holiday Shipping Dates 2024

Peak Season Surcharges and How They Affect Holiday Shipping Costs

Carriers strain their capacity during the peak season to meet the increasing delivery demand. They’re hiring additional temporary resources, ensuring all things go well, yes. To manage these operational challenges and additional costs, carriers implement peak season/demand surcharges (applied to specific services and vary based on package weight, size, and destination).

These charges can significantly impact e-commerce shipping budgets, particularly for large or bulky items.

FedEx

FedEx delivery commitment times will be extended by 90 minutes starting Dec 19-24

Domestic surcharges – FedEx will charge a $1–$2 fee per package for express services and $0.30–$0.55 per package for ground residential shipments during the peak season. Large-scale shippers who see a spike in volume during the peak season will also be charged a fee.
International surcharges – For exports, FedEx will charge $0.10–$0.35 per pound for parcels and freight, with a minimum charge of $1–$20 per shipment. For imports, FedEx will charge $0.25 per pound for parcels and freight in Zones F and N, with a minimum charge of $1 per shipment for parcels and $0.50 for freight.
Additional handling and oversize charges – FedEx will charge $3.45 per package for additional handling and $39.50 per package for oversize from February 5–September 29, 2024.

Read FedEx’s demand surcharges for 2024 in detail

UPS (from November 24–December 28, 2024)

Additional handling – $9.95 per package
Large package – $99.00 per package
Over maximum limits – $495.00 per package
Demand surcharge (for UPS Ground Residential, Air, and SurePost packages) – $0.25–$2 per package

In the list of services that are eligible for the UPS Service Guarantee, the guaranteed delivery time for UPS Next Day Air Saver deliveries has been extended to end-of-day (11:59 p.m. on the guaranteed day of delivery).

Read UPS’ demand surcharges for 2024 in detail

USPS

Priority Mail – For packages weighing 0–3 lbs, there is a $0.90 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 4–10 lbs, there is a $1.45 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 11–25 lbs, there is a $3.25 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 26–70 lbs, there is an $8.50 increase in Zones 5–9.
USPS Ground Advantage – For packages weighing 0–3 lbs, there is a $0.50 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 4–10 lbs, there is a $1.00 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 11–25 lbs, there is a $2.00 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 26–70 lbs, there is a $5.85 increase in Zones 5–9.
Priority Mail Express- For packages weighing 0–3 lbs, there is a $1.10 increase in Zones 1–4. For packages weighing 4–10 lbs, there is a $2.00 increase in Zones 1–4. For packages weighing 11–25 lbs, there is a $3.90 increase in Zones 1–4. For packages weighing 26–70 lbs, there is a $9.75 increase in Zones 1–4.

Read USPS’ peak season surcharges for 2024 in detail

UPS (Canada)

The following surcharges are applicable between September 8, 2024, to January 18, 2025 unless mentioned otherwise.

Additional Handling – CAD $7.70 per package (all service levels)
Large Package – CAD $77.00 per package (all service levels)
Over Maximum Limits – CAD $495.00 per package (all service levels)
UPS Canada Domestic Air and Ground Services – CAD $0.55 per package (applicable from September 15, 2024, to January 18, 2025)

Read UPS’ demand surcharges in Canada for 2024 in detail

Canada Post

Oversize and unpackaged items: $30, up from $21 in 2023
Out-of-spec items: $400, up from $300 in 2023

Also, for items mailed between November 24, 2024 (Monday) till January 12, 2025 (Sunday), Canada Post will only honor late delivery claims if the item is delivered two or more days after the delivery standard.

Read Canada Post’s peak season surcharges for 2024 in detail

Impact of Carrier Delays on E-commerce Businesses and Customer Satisfaction

The holiday season brings not only high volumes of orders but also increased pressure on shipping carriers to deliver on time. Despite all best efforts, the surge in holiday shipments can lead to delays that disrupt delivery timelines and create ripple effects for e-commerce businesses. Delayed shipments are more than an operational inconvenience; they come with hidden costs that affect customer retention and brand reputation.

Late deliveries can result in an average customer churn rate increase of up to 15%

Customer Dissatisfaction and Lost Loyalty: Late deliveries lead to dissatisfied customers, with many choosing to abandon the brand after just one poor delivery experience. This is especially true during the holiday season, when customers are anxiously awaiting their orders for time-sensitive gifting.
Increased Support Costs: Each late delivery typically results in additional customer support inquiries. For instance, a delayed package leads to “Where Is My Order?” (WISMO) questions, increasing customer support volume. This can lead to longer wait times, strained support teams, and higher overall operational costs.
Potential Revenue Losses: Customers who experience delayed shipments are more likely to abandon their carts or cancel future purchases. For an e-commerce business, this translates to direct revenue losses as well as the cost associated with trying to re-acquire lost customers.

Strategies to Circumnavigate Surcharges and Avoid Delays

During the holiday season, increased demand often results in higher shipping surcharges and more frequent delays, both of which can disrupt a business’s operations and impact the customer experience. For e-commerce businesses, minimizing these additional costs and ensuring on-time delivery are key to maintaining customer trust and satisfaction. But how can businesses avoid the pitfalls of peak-season shipping while still providing a seamless experience?

Here are some effective strategies.

1. Plan and Ship Early

Encourage customers to shop early by running holiday promotions well ahead of time. This gives your business ample time to process and ship orders before the peak season rush. Shipping early not only helps you avoid the higher surcharges that carriers may impose closer to the holidays, but it also allows for a buffer period in case of unexpected delays.

2. Set Clear Expectations

Consider creating early-bird sales or “holiday countdown” campaigns, offering slight discounts or free shipping incentives to encourage early purchases. Display shipping deadlines prominently on product pages, checkout pages, and in email confirmations. You can also implement a shipping countdown timer to increase a sense of urgency and motivate shoppers to complete their purchases ASAP if they want an earlier delivery slot.

3. Use Regional and Hybrid Shipping Solutions

Partnering with regional carriers or hybrid solutions can be a smart alternative to traditional carriers during the holiday season. Regional carriers may offer lower rates for certain delivery zones, while hybrid solutions, such as UPS SurePost or FedEx SmartPost, utilize major carriers in tandem with local delivery networks to reduce costs.

4. Optimize Shipping Zones with Distributed Fulfillment Centers

Distributed fulfillment enables orders to stay within specific shipping zones, avoiding the higher fees associated with long-distance deliveries.

For instance, if your e-commerce business has a high volume of orders from the East Coast, partnering with a fulfillment center in that region.

You can also offer a local pickup option that can be a valuable alternative during the holiday season in reducing shipping costs and avoiding surcharges but also gives customers a reliable option for securing their items quickly.

5. Consolidate Orders and Encourage Bulk Buying

Encourage customers to buy more in a single transaction by offering bundled products or “buy more, save more” incentives. Consolidating multiple orders into one shipment reduces per-package costs, decreases the frequency of surcharge fees, and can improve efficiency on the operational side.

While these strategies work out for areas in your control, they also lay the foundation for a more positive post-purchase experience.This is where LateShipment.com comes in to ensure that even during the busiest times, customers feel valued and well-informed, creating lasting loyalty and reducing the risk of post-purchase dissonance.

How LateShipment.com can Help E-commerce Businesses During the Peak Season

A key driver of customer dissatisfaction during the holiday season is feeling uninformed or blindsided by delays and extra fees. Proactive communication can mitigate this dissonance by keeping customers informed every step of the way. Here’s how:

Send Real-Time Updates: Use real-time tracking notifications to keep customers in the loop about any potential delays or changes in delivery times. This prevents WISMO (Where Is My Order?) inquiries, reducing the burden on customer support teams.
Communicate Potential Delays and Delivery Options: Regularly update customers on order status, especially if there’s a delay,. Consider using SMS or push notifications for critical updates close to delivery dates. Use clear messaging that conveys empathy and proactive support, improving the customer experience despite delays
Leverage Predictive Alerts for High-Volume Days: Proactively prepare for peak holiday days, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, by using predictive analytics to anticipate surges in delivery times and customer inquiries. LateShipment.com’s predictive insights can help you notify customers in advance, ensuring they have realistic expectations and reducing post-purchase dissonance.

By implementing these strategies, e-commerce businesses can effectively navigate the holiday season’s unique challenges. Reduced surcharges and delays mean fewer surprises for customers, and proactive communication helps prevent the negative impact of post-purchase dissonance, creating a smoother, more enjoyable shopping experience during the busiest time of year.

Get Started With Your Holiday Season Plans

Following the schedule of services and operations and understanding the surcharges from shipping carriers like FedEx and UPS can help you plan your shipping game in advance and not succumb to sky-rocketing surcharges.

That’s not all! Planning for the holiday season is a huge task that requires you to tick all the boxes and have everything ready in place to manage the upcoming rush and whatnot.

One area that most businesses unwillingly ignore is the post-purchase phase, which holds incredible value in boosting retention rates and revenue. To help you tick that box as well, we’ve come up with our annual shipping report that highlights delivery trends, operational challenges, and consumer expectations for speed and reliability for the upcoming 2024 holiday season.

Download the report to gain unbiased insights on UPS and FedEx on-time performance.

The post 2024 Holiday Shipping Guide: Deadlines, Surcharges, and Smart Strategies for E-commerce Businesses in the US and Canada appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Tracking Pages And Shipping Notifications To Get Inspired This Holiday Season

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 12:11:11 +0000

The holiday season is a time when the e-commerce and retail space is busier than usual with customers looking to get their list of items at the best rates possible.

But there are hundreds of brands out there and the competition only gets fierce year-on-year.

As an e-commerce merchant, if you’re looking to get into a better position than your competitors, then the holiday season is the perfect opportunity to do that.

We’re not going to beat the bush, here’s the trick — create memorable experiences that turn one-time holiday shoppers into lifetime customers.

One of the best ways to do that is to keep customers engaged about their orders through branded tracking pages and notifications. Let’s explore some inspiring examples, along with templates you can customize to create the ultimate branded tracking experience this holiday season.

The Importance of Branded Tracking Pages and Notifications

Shipping notifications are not the same as marketing emails. In fact, they have an open rate of more than 3.2x. This is because the post-purchase stage is when customers are anxious about their orders and can’t wait to see updates and track them periodically.

You can get your A-game here by sending shipping transactional notifications to customers at various stages of the order fulfillment process without being asked for and following up with ‘branded’ tracking pages with real-time order updates.

While we’ll look in-depth into tracking pages and notifications, let’s start with the impact of these post-purchase assets, serving multiple purposes, and how all of these are particularly valuable during times like the holiday season.

Enhanced Customer Experience

Keeping your customers informed through shipping notifications and tracking pages, allows you to leverage additional touchpoints to enhance customer experience, which usually consists of just “order confirmed” and “order delivered” in traditional methods. Not just benefits for you, customers also appreciate your efforts to provide real-time updates on their orders, especially during the holiday season.

Brand Recognition

Customers are highly anxious in the post-purchase phase. Sending your customers to the carrier’s tracking page and not sharing order status updates, creates a disconnected brand experience, where your carrier’s brand is the last thing your customers will remember about your brand. On the other hand, through effective post-purchase engagement, you can leverage every touchpoint to reinforce your brand identity and build a stronger connection with your customers.

Opportunities for Upselling

Customers track their orders 6-8 times during order delivery and 6-8 additional marketing touchpoints with customers post-checkout. Boost repeat sales with product recommendations on order tracking pages, while also providing relevant product usage information to reduce returns.

Thus, it is clear what role branded tracking pages and shipping notifications play in the growth of your business. To make things easier, here are some guidelines that you can follow while creating these branded tracking assets.

Best Practices for Creating Branded Order Tracking Pages and Shipping Notifications

A branded tracking page is not just a tracking page hosted on your domain instead of the carrier’s. Multiple elements make it unique and beneficial for your post-purchase, in terms of CX and marketing efforts. Here are some of the ‘must-haves’, if you’re looking to build a customized tracking page for your e-commerce brand.

Elements of a branded tracking page

1. Provide complete delivery information

Customers often visit tracking pages to stay updated on their orders, especially during peak seasons or after big sales. Providing clear, accurate, and detailed delivery information reduces anxiety and minimizes customer service (WISMO) inquiries.

What to Include:

Order summary: List items ordered, quantities, and relevant details (e.g., color, size)
Detailed tracking info: Clear order history with details such as shipment date and location updates
Live order status timeline: Show the package journey (e.g., Ordered, In Transit, Out for Delivery, Delivered) with a timeline or progress bar for visual clarity
Expected Delivery Date (EDD): Set realistic expectations with accurate delivery dates. If there are delays, update this information promptly to maintain transparency

2. Replicate brand identity

Consistency reinforces brand recognition and loyalty. When the tracking page matches the brand’s aesthetic (colors, logo, typography), it feels like a seamless part of the brand experience rather than being boring, generic, dull, etc.

What to Include:

Logo: Place your logo prominently at the top to remind customers they’re still within your brand ecosystem.
Brand Colors and Fonts: Use the same fonts and colors from your main website to create a cohesive look and feel.

3. Feature relevant support channels

Even with detailed order tracking, issues can arise and customers can have queries. Providing easy access to customer support channels directly on the tracking page reassures customers that help is just a click away if they need it.

What to Include:

Contact Options: Display multiple ways for customers to reach you (e.g., live chat, email, phone). Some brands even offer a “track or modify my order” button that leads directly to support.
FAQ Links: Include links to common questions related to shipping, returns, or delays. This can save customers time by addressing their concerns immediately.

P.S. Ensure that these support channels and contact information are strategically positioned in an easy-to-find spot on the page.

4.Get customer feedback around the delivery experience and take appropriate actions

Collecting customer feedback on the delivery process provides valuable insights to improve logistics and fulfillment. It also shows customers that their opinions matter, enhancing brand loyalty.

What to Include:

Simple Rating System: A 5-star rating or thumbs-up/thumbs-down option lets customers quickly share their experience.
Optional Comments Section: Allow customers to leave specific feedback about what they liked or disliked about the delivery, such as packaging, speed, or condition of items.

5. Include product recommendations and promotions

Tracking pages are an often-overlooked opportunity to engage customers post-purchase. Suggesting related products or upcoming promotions can drive repeat visits and boost sales.

What to Include:

Personalized Product Recommendations: Use data from past purchases to suggest relevant items or complementary products. For example, if the customer purchased a camera, you can suggest accessories such as a lens, tripod, etc.
Special Offers and Discounts: Show exclusive discounts for returning customers or advertise upcoming sales. You could even offer a discount on their next purchase if they refer a friend.
New Arrivals or Best Sellers: Showcase popular products or new collections, encouraging customers to explore other offerings in your store.

6. BONUS: Capture the spirit of the season

Create a holiday-themed tracking page. Use festive colors, seasonal icons, and a joyful design that reflects the season’s magic. Add playful touches, like snowfall animations or holiday-themed order milestones, deadlines until the holiday offer gets over, etc, to make the page feel interactive.
Include a holiday-specific ‘updates’ section mentioning holiday order deadlines, extended holiday shipping timelines, and changes to your holiday return policy.

Engaging shipping transactional notifications that you can send

Shipping notifications are nothing but the transactional updates of the customers’ orders getting shared with them via email, SMS, or in-app push notifications.

The purpose of a shipping notification is really simple.

Customers are frequently engaged up until the purchase to ensure that they hit that ‘buy’ button. But as they’re awaiting their parcels, the communication between the two parties becomes almost non-existent.

Due to this ‘post-purchase communication gap’, all your efforts to keep your customers engaged get lost along with any chance of retention.

This is where proactive communication with customers about their order delivery status in the form of shipping notifications comes into play to offer customers a memorable post-purchase experience.

Here’s how it works. There are multiple shipping events that occur throughout the post-purchase phase, particularly in the order delivery lifecycle. Each of these events can be leveraged to ensure that your brand remains on the top of the customers’ minds even after delivery. Additionally, times like the holiday season also make room for new and uncommon events as well.

1. Setting Expectations: Your order might get delivered late

In the spirit of transparency, start by sharing potentially less joyful news—some orders may arrive later than expected.

The holiday season is a time when shipping carriers are straining capacity to deliver huge volumes of shipments on time. This often creates a situation where delivery issues such as delays are common in occurrence.

By proactively communicating this possibility during the holiday shopping rush, you help customers adjust their delivery expectations, ensuring their holiday celebrations go off without a hitch.

2. The Exciting Beginning: Your order is shipped

The ‘Order Shipped’ notification during the holiday season takes on a special significance. It’s the first glimmer of hope for customers eagerly awaiting their holiday surprises.

Along with the tracking number, you can include an estimated delivery date and important order-related information such as contents of the package, delivery address, etc. to avoid last-minute confusion.

‘Order shipped’ or the shipping confirmation notification is one of the most anticipated ones as this sets up the conversation towards all the other touchpoints of the post-purchase journey. Therefore, make sure this is sent at the earliest in order to ensure the customer that you take the onus of keeping them informed about their order delivery status.

3. On the Way: Your order is out for delivery

Following the ‘Order Shipped’ notification, the ‘Out for Delivery’ update becomes an eagerly anticipated message. It signifies that the holiday magic is en route to the customer’s doorstep.

Enhance this notification by attaching a link to a branded order tracking page, empowering customers to monitor them on their own. This self-service approach drastically reduces frequent order status inquiries and thereby allows your support teams to focus on priority tasks at hand.

Also, unlike the carrier’s tracking page, sending your customers to your own branded order tracking page, opens new opportunities like improving brand recall and doubling your chances at driving repeat sales through marketing campaigns on your tracking page’s real estate.

4. Mission Accomplished: Your order has been delivered

When the holiday order arrives on time, it’s a moment to celebrate.

Send a ‘Delivery Confirmation’ notification with a heartfelt thank you for choosing your brand for their holiday shopping.

Encourage them to make future holiday purchases and continue building joyful memories with your products.

5. Unexpected Delays: Your order is predicted to face delays

As mentioned, delivery issues such as shipping delays are inevitable and frequent during the holiday season.

But the real issue stands at customers finding that their parcels have been delayed and you not informing them about it.

To avoid this scenario, you can make use of a real-time tracking solution and send ‘Predicted Delay’ notifications for individual packages facing potential delays. This proactive step reassures customers that you’re on close watch of their orders and thereby makes them less prone to frustration.

6. Handling Delays Gracefully: Your order is in-transit with delays

If the predicted delay (or your customers’ worst fears) doesn’t get resolved automatically, then the follow-up shipping notification from your end comes in the form of ‘In-Transit with Delays’.

These notifications should be sent promptly to stay empathetic to your customers, as well as to take their decision on how they want the issue to be resolved.

You can consider sending replacements via expedited shipping options or offer them special coupons for their next purchase.

7. Acknowledging Hiccups: Your order was delivered with delays

Despite all your efforts and fixes, when the package is delivered late, it’s vital to acknowledge the issue, as the chances of customers forgiving you are higher when you do that.

To make it even better, you can add a heartfelt apology note along with a discount coupon for their next holiday purchase, so that they feel less impacted by the issue and may choose to shop with you once again.

8. Addressing Delivery Challenges: There was a failed delivery attempt

A ‘Failed Delivery Attempt’ notification is sent when the order is marked ‘failed delivery’ by the shipping carrier.

This usually happens when the delivery is not being made for reasons such as “no one at home to receive the package”, “wrong delivery address”, “package requiring adult signature”, etc.

In your failed delivery attempt notification, you can include details such as the date, time, and reason for the failure, along with clear instructions on how they can reschedule delivery or pick up their holiday package.

9. In Search of Lost Packages: Your holiday order is suspected to be lost

When a holiday package is suspected to be lost, you must waste no time and promptly send a ‘Suspected Lost’ notification.

Just like delays, customers can be under severe stress when their important orders are on the verge of getting lost, therefore you can offer multiple solutions to let them know that the issue can be resolved.

Keep customers informed about the situation, you can also offer solutions such as locating the package, refunding the cost, or sending a free replacement to mitigate their frustration greatly.

10. Handling the Unfortunate: Your holiday order is lost/damaged in transit

In the unfortunate event of a lost or damaged holiday package, send a ‘Lost/Damaged in Transit’ notification immediately.

Apart from just notifying, the best ploy is to take full responsibility, offer cost-free returns and replacements, and provide discounts or coupons for future holiday orders.

11. Rerouting Solutions: Your holiday order is returned

For holiday orders that are marked returned by the shipping carrier, use the ‘Order Returned’ notification to re-engage with customers.

This notification is primarily sent to let your customers know that their order is now in your possession after a failed delivery attempt.

Additionally, you can enable your customer support team to acquire accurate information from customers such as the address and the date & time of rescheduling etc and effectively follow up with them. This way, you can save on additional shipping costs.

Create Branded Tracking Experiences with LateShipment.com

As the holiday season approaches, use branded tracking experiences to create unforgettable holiday moments and make your customers’ celebrations truly magical.

With LateShipment.com’s you can create branded order tracking pages and send automated shipping notifications via email and SMS to reduce your customers’ anxiety, improve repeat purchases, and ensure that the CX you provide is on-brand. During times like the holiday season when each one-time shopper can be converted to a repeat customer, amplify the chances by offering a great experience via meaningful engagement.

That’s all from us for now. It’s now your turn to create customer experiences that delight with LateShipment.com.

We’re ready when you are.

Or still have questions? We’re all ears.

The post Tracking Pages And Shipping Notifications To Get Inspired This Holiday Season appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Package Delivery (and Returns) Satisfaction Ratings: Driving Customer Retention and Revenue Growth

Sashank Ravindranath — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 09:44:09 +0000

Today’s consumers have more choices than ever when it comes to their shopping needs.

With customer experience (CX) being a cornerstone of customers choosing brands to shop with, you need to go above and beyond to provide a positive delivery and returns experience in order to keep customers coming back.

Here’s what the stats have to say:

95% of customers share negative experiences online, compared to 47% who share positive experiences online
93% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase.
74% of consumers say they would stop doing business if they had a bad experience.
86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.

Fierce competition and a low threshold for customer tolerance. There’s only one way to counter both. Raise the bar with your CX and spread the word out to attract other potential shoppers. The best way to do both — simply ask them.

Satisfaction Ratings: A Metric to Measure Delivery Experience Quality

At its heart, the Satisfaction rating (SAT score) is a surprisingly simple system that allows your customers to rate their delivery experiences on a scale of 1–5.

After each successful delivery or return, these ratings give you a clear and unbiased view of customer sentiment about the quality of the experience you offer. They act as a window into the world of customer experience, allowing businesses to gauge how well they’re meeting their customers’ expectations.

These unprecedented insights stand to benefit your e-commerce business by helping you:

Measure Post-Purchase Customer Experience on Par with Pre-Checkout Customer Experience – While most businesses place a great deal of emphasis on the onsite experience they offer their customers, the post-purchase phase is inevitably neglected. While CSAT and NPS provide an idea of customer sentiment in the pre-checkout stage, DSAT and RSAT can help shine a light on the quality of your post-purchase phase

Identify Which Areas of Your Logistics Operation Need Attention – The feedback mechanism that the DSAT or RSAT system provides allows you to unambiguously identify which areas of your logistics operation need attention in order to allay customer concerns. By identifying areas of improvement and taking appropriate action, you can now address issues, rectify mistakes, and streamline your delivery and returns processes. In the long run, this leads to operational efficiency, cost savings, and improved customer experiences.

Understanding customer satisfaction levels in the order delivery or returns phase is just one part of things, the important challenge remains in the form of amplifying customer satisfaction, as it translates to increased retention and profits.

The Importance of Positive Customer Feedback Around Delivery and Returns Satisfaction Ratings

Satisfaction Ratings: A Window into Customer Retention

DSAT (Delivery Satisfaction) ratings provide a detailed assessment of customers’ delivery experiences by measuring key factors such as delivery timeliness, tracking accuracy, and the quality of communication throughout the shipping process.

RSAT (Returns Satisfaction) ratings provide e-commerce businesses with a comprehensive measure of their customers’ returns experience. Customers can rate their experiences based on factors such as ease of returns processing, clarity of returns policies, returns status communication, and speed of refunds.

These ratings provide customers with a platform to voice their opinions and share their experiences. By giving regular feedback, customers now feel heard and will more likely continue their association with your brand.

That’s not all! Each time a negative review is taken seriously and improvements are made, customers will begin to trust the brand with their choices. As this becomes a routine, happy customers become loyal patrons and will return time and again.

On the other hand, for your business, these ratings offer valuable insights into how satisfied customers are with the delivery and return process, helps you identify areas for improvement.

The Domino Effect: Revenue Growth

Customer retention is closely linked to revenue growth.

Satisfied customers not only come back for more, but they also become brand advocates. They recommend the brand to friends, family, and even share their positive experiences on social media.

Moreover, satisfied customers are more likely to explore other offerings from the same brand. Cross-selling and upselling opportunities increase as customers gain confidence in your efforts to improve the delivery experience. This translates directly into higher average order values and increased revenue per customer.

How E-Commerce Businesses Can Improve Delivery Satisfaction Ratings

Here are some ways your retail business can boost customer satisfaction in the last mile:

Improve on-time deliveries: One of the top-most expectations of customers when it comes to delivery satisfaction is their packages being delivered on time or even earlier. On the other hand, each time there’s an unannounced delay, there’s a possibility of a negative review that can affect your overall satisfaction scores.
Improve returns processes: Offer a seamless, self-service returns experience to customers where they can easily initiate returns, print return labels, and track the status of their refunds.
Ensure proactive communication: Delays are inevitable and almost all customers understand this. This is why, despite the underlying disappointment, they will appreciate your efforts to keep them informed about the status of their orders.
Focus on proper packaging: Ensure that the contents of your customer’s purchase are well-protected from damage during the shipping process via proper packaging techniques such as using the right box, sufficient protective measures, and fragile stickers (if necessary). During times like the holiday season, customers also appreciate receiving their packages in themed and personalized packaging.
Bring in efficiency to your customer support: The chances of all your customers’ parcels facing issues while it’s on its way to reaching their doorstep are low but never zero. In such cases, customers expect to be able to get the help they deserve from your customer support representative. By empowering your customer support team to step in before customer impact and proactively address issues, you can boost your customers’ confidence to keep shopping with you.
Invest in technology: There are a number of technologies that can help businesses improve their delivery processes, such as real-time and self-serve tracking, predictive analytics, automated ticket creation, proactive notifications, etc. These technologies can help businesses to improve on-time deliveries and to provide customers with more information about the status of their orders (delivery and returns).

In the quest for constant enhancement of delivery and return satisfaction ratings, you can adopt these data-driven strategies to take a proactive approach that not only prevents future disappointments but also showcases the brand’s commitment to providing your customers with a great post-purchase experience.

Decode customer actions in the post-purchase order delivery phase with LateShipment.com

LateShipment.com doesn’t just help you deliver phenomenal experiences but also helps you understand whether all that money, time and effort spent is working in your favor or not.

By capturing customers’ delivery and returns experience ratings, you can now learn from your customers about the experience your brand delivered. All you have to do now is to consistently direct efforts and get those 5-star ratings that promote brand credibility.

That’s not all! LateShipment.com also helps you gain insights on:

User engagement metrics – To measure how your customers are engaging with your brand post-purchase via your tracking page, emails, and SMS notifications and to know what your most effective channels are
Carrier Performance Scores – To review your carrier choices based on a detailed assessment of how your carrier’s delivery performance fares against service-specific delivery standards.

Conclusion

In the ever-evolving landscape of e-commerce, package delivery and return satisfaction ratings emerge as a critical factor in driving customer retention and revenue growth. They offer customers a voice, allowing them to shape the way brands operate. By paying attention to these ratings, businesses can build trust, enhance customer experiences, and pave the way for long-term success. After all, a satisfied customer today is an ambassador for the brand tomorrow.

The post Package Delivery (and Returns) Satisfaction Ratings: Driving Customer Retention and Revenue Growth appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How to Choose the Right Shipping Insurance For Your Business

Sashank Ravindranath — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 05:34:42 +0000

Despite state-of-the-art tracking systems and parcel protection strategies, there’s always the possibility of your customers’ packages getting lost, damaged in transit or stolen.

This is where shipping insurance comes in — to protect your bottom line from unexpected losses. But with so many options out there, how do you choose the right insurance that suits your e-commerce business?

That’s where we come in — to guide you through the essential factors to consider when choosing a shipping insurance provider.

1. Understand Your Shipping Risks

Shipping insurance is never unnecessary. However, there may be cases where the cumulative cost of insurance might be higher than the occasional loss you experience as a business.

In such cases, before choosing a shipping insurance provider, you need to evaluate the specific risks your business faces. For instance, if you’re shipping electronics, luxury goods, or fragile items — you are at a higher risk for damage and loss and thereby need insurance more than ever.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What kind of items am I shipping (Fragile or high-value)?
How often do I experience lost or damaged shipments (Frequency of issues)?

Understanding these factors will help you choose an insurance provider that offers the right level of protection based on the risks you face.

2. Compare Shipping Insurance Options (Carrier-Provided vs Third-Party)

Many e-commerce businesses rely on carrier-provided insurance, which can be convenient but may not always offer the best value or coverage. To put it into comparison:

Carrier-Provided Insurance: Shipping carriers like UPS, FedEx, and USPS often offer insurance as part of their shipping services. While this is convenient, the coverage limits can be restrictive
Third-Party Shipping Insurance: A third-party insurance provider offers more flexibility and often provides broader coverage options than carrier-provided insurance. They may also be cost-effective for businesses with high shipment volumes.

3. Determine Coverage Options

Not all shipping insurance policies are equal. Different providers offer varying levels of coverage depending on the type of goods, shipment destinations, and the specific needs of your business.

Here are some factors to consider:

Comprehensive Coverage: Protects against a wide range of risks, including loss, damage, and theft.
Maximum Coverage Limit: Sufficient coverage for your most valuable items
Exclusions:Specific items or scenarios that the insurance won’t cover, such as high-risk international shipments, perishable goods, partial coverage (loss but not damage or certain shipping methods), etc
International Coverage: Ensure your provider covers international shipments if you sell globally.

Make sure you choose insurance that aligns with your shipping habits and the level of protection you require. If your products are high-value or shipped to locations with higher risk, you’ll want more comprehensive coverage. Choose an insurance provider that offers flexibility in coverage limits, allowing you to adjust based on the value of each shipment.

4. Consider Rule-Based Shipping Insurance

One of the latest innovations in shipping insurance is rule-based insurance, which allows e-commerce businesses to automatically apply insurance based on specific conditions.

For example, you can set pre-set rules to:

Automatically insure orders above a certain value.
Set insurance rules for fragile or high-risk items.
Customize policies based on customer location or shipping methods.

This flexibility not only saves time but ensures that you’re only paying for insurance when necessary, avoiding the cost of insuring low-risk shipments while fully protecting high-value orders.

5. Evaluate the claims process

A key aspect of shipping insurance is how easy and fast it is to file and resolve claims. When evaluating shipping insurance providers, pay close attention to:

Claims Filing Process: Is the process straightforward, or does it involve complicated paperwork?
Claims Resolution Time: How long does it take to process and approve claims?

Filing claims manually can be time-consuming and often results in delays in receiving reimbursement.

When choosing a shipping insurance provider, look for those that offer automated claims management. With LateShipment.com, all things insurance happen inside a unified portal, giving you access to a centralized view of submitting claims, tracking statuses, and everything else, thereby helping you save time and improve accountability.

Final Word

Choosing the right shipping insurance for your e-commerce business is an important decision that can save you time, money, and headaches in the long run.

By understanding your shipping risks, comparing options, automating insurance for high-value shipments, and evaluating the claims process, you can find the insurance solution that best fits your business needs.

Platforms like LateShipment.com make it even easier by integrating automated, rule-based shipping insurance into your workflow, giving you peace of mind with every shipment.

Investing in the right shipping insurance not only protects your business but also ensures a smoother experience for your customers, leading to higher satisfaction and loyalty.

The post How to Choose the Right Shipping Insurance For Your Business appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

What is E-Commerce Automation And How It Works For Your Business

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 09:22:56 +0000

Did you know that e-commerce sales are expected to grow to $6.3 trillion in 2024 and $7.9 trillion by 2027?

Verdict: E-commerce is growing. And the result — competing businesses, especially market leaders are keen to lean on innovation in order to stay relevant and at the top. If you’d like to be a part of these succeeding businesses, all you have to do is two things: streamline your operations and exceed your customers’ expectations.

If your goal is to achieve that and thrive in this highly competitive market, you don’t have to do anything new. The framework is already set. E-commerce is already undergoing a transformation trend through automation. All you need to do is to keep up. But what exactly is e-commerce automation, and how can it transform your business?

Understanding E-Commerce Automation

E-commerce automation refers to the use of technology to automate repetitive tasks of an e-commerce business. It works via APIs and plugins to sync with your store to automate tasks based on triggers or specific workflows.

In simple terms, as a small business, you might have the provision to manually handle tasks such as handling inventory or processing orders. However, as the business scales and order volumes go up, these tasks can become cumbersome and error-prone. This is where automation comes in — to take care of these time-consuming processes and allow merchants and respective teams to focus on more strategic aspects of the business.

Since e-commerce is a broad spectrum of activities, experts generally classify automating tasks into front-end automation (customer-front tasks such as email marketing and chatbots for customer support) and back-end automation (tasks to streamline operations such as inventory management).

Now that we’re clear on the basics, let’s move on to the other focus of this article, how does automation work for your e-commerce business?

How E-Commerce Automation Works For Your Business

A key component of e-commerce automation software is that it should integrate with your existing e-commerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, or any other). This is because your e-commerce store launched on a particular platform serves as the central hub for your business operations and contains data on customer orders, inventory levels, product catalogs, shipping details, and more.

If e-commerce automation has a purpose, it is to ensure that the business aligns with its goals more effectively — bring in additional revenue and keep existing revenue from getting lost. To achieve that, let’s take a look at some of the most important ways to enable automation in your e-commerce business.

Key processes that can be automated

1. Inventory Management

Issue: Running out of popular products, especially during peak seasons, can result in lost sales and missed opportunities. This can lead to a negative customer experience, lost revenue, and a permanently damaged brand reputation.

Task: Preventing stockouts

Actions:

Continuously monitor stock levels across multiple sales channels and provide a unified view of your inventory, ensuring that stock levels are always up to date in real time.
Set predefined inventory thresholds for each product. When stock levels fall below a certain point, the system triggers an automatic alert, notifying you that it’s time to restock.
Automatically place restock orders with your suppliers.
Forecast future inventory needs based on historical sales data and trends.
Provide detailed reporting and analytics on your inventory performance to easily track which products are selling the fastest, which are slow-moving, and where bottlenecks might occur.

Benefits:

This proactive approach ensures you never run out of best-selling products, allowing you to fulfill customer demand without interruptions.
For instance, items that have not sold for a long period — can be flagged, allowing you to take corrective action, such as discontinuing the product.

TLDR: Effective inventory management is crucial for e-commerce businesses to meet customer demand without overstocking or running into shortages. Automation tools can significantly streamline this process and can help you transform your e-commerce operations.

2. Order Management

Issue: Manually processing orders is a time-consuming task

Task:

Instantly generate shipping labels as soon as an order is ready for fulfillment.
Once the order is shipped, automation can intelligently route orders to the closest or most appropriate fulfillment center based on factors like customer location and shipping costs.
Eliminate manual record-keeping by beginning the fulfillment process as soon as orders are placed

Benefit: Ensures faster delivery times, reduces shipping costs, eliminates complexities, frees up time for your employees to focus on other tasks, and minimizes human error.

TLDR: Order management is an area that is best suited to be automated in e-commerce. As your business grows and orders pour in, automating order fulfillment-related tasks ensures reduced human errors and speeds up the fulfillment process.

3. Customer Support

Issue: Customers today want instant gratification and have very little patience and a low threshold for errors in the order tracking phase.

Task:

By integrating helpdesk software or using chatbots, businesses can respond to customer inquiries instantly
Automate email responses for common issues, further reducing customer wait times
Automated chatbots are programmed to handle frequently asked questions (FAQs) that customers often have, such as checking order status, delivery dates, return policies, or shipping costs. Rather than waiting for a customer service representative to respond, chatbots provide immediate answers 24/7, even outside of business hours
There will always be complex issues that require human intervention. In these cases, chatbots and helpdesk systems can be programmed to collect relevant information (such as order details or the nature of the problem) and escalate the issue to the support team, ensuring that the human agent is fully prepared to assist the customer.
Automated customer support tools can also be personalized based on customer data. For example, chatbots and automated email systems can greet customers by name, reference their order history, and offer relevant solutions based on previous interactions.

Benefit:

Especially useful for handling common questions like order status (WISMO – “Where is my order?”) or return policies.
Significantly reduces the customer service team’s workload and customer wait times, especially during high-volume periods like the holiday season.
A personalized touch makes customers feel valued and ensures that their issues are addressed more efficiently.

TLDR: Automation works across multiple channels, including website chat, email, social media, and SMS. Many businesses use omnichannel customer support strategies, and integrating automated chatbots and helpdesk software ensures that no matter where the customer reaches out from, they receive a consistent and immediate response.

4. Marketing Automation

Issue: On average, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before a purchase is completed.

Task:

Automated marketing tools can detect when a customer leaves the site without completing their purchase and trigger a series of follow-up emails to encourage them to return and complete their transaction.
Personalization is key to successful marketing. By analyzing customer behavior, such as browsing history, past purchases, and interactions with your site, these platforms can generate automated emails that suggest products tailored to the individual’s preferences. For instance, if a customer frequently purchases skincare products, the system can automatically send personalized recommendations for complementary products, such as moisturizers or serums
Send triggered email sequences based on specific customer actions or milestones. These actions might include signing up for a newsletter, making a first purchase, or leaving a review.

Benefits:

This increases the likelihood of repeat purchases by enhancing the customer experience by providing value through relevant product suggestions.
Engage customers at every stage of their journey, providing timely and relevant communication that keeps them connected to your brand
Fosters emotional connections with your brand, leading to long-term loyalty

TLDR: Automated marketing campaigns are essential for e-commerce businesses looking to nurture customer relationships, increase engagement, and drive sales by setting up highly targeted, data-driven campaigns that are triggered by specific customer actions or behaviors.

5. Post-Purchase Experience

Issue: The post-purchase experience is a critical, yet often overlooked, phase in the customer journey.

Task:

One of the biggest concerns for customers after making a purchase is knowing when their order will arrive. Automated delivery notifications can keep customers informed every step of the way. From the moment the order is shipped to when it’s out for delivery and finally delivered, automated tools can send timely updates via email, SMS, or even in-app notifications.
By monitoring shipment statuses and tracking potential issues like late deliveries, automation tools can trigger proactive responses to affected customers. For example, if a customer’s order is delayed, the system can automatically send an apology email along with an updated delivery estimate, a discount for future purchases, or free shipping on the next order as a goodwill gesture.
When a customer decides to return an item, the system can generate a return label automatically and send it to the customer via email or set up a portal to provide step-by-step instructions on how to return the product. Automation tools can also track the returned item with real-time updates on their refund status.

Benefit:

Reduce customer anxiety and minimize the volume of WISMO (Where Is My Order) inquiries, common during the post-purchase phase to make sure that customers no longer need to reach out to ask for updates.
Resolve delivery issues such as late deliveries and lost and damaged packages before they escalate into customer complaints.
Make the returns processes can be made effortless, transparent, and customer-friendly.

TLDR: While most businesses unwittingly miss out on their efforts, providing exceptional post-purchase experiences can help build long-term loyalty, encourage repeat business, and improve customer satisfaction. Automation plays a vital role in enhancing the post-purchase experience by ensuring that every aspect—delivery notifications, customer feedback collection, and returns — is handled efficiently and seamlessly.

Benefits of E-Commerce Automation for Your Business

Increased Efficiency and Productivity – By automating repetitive tasks, businesses can free up valuable time that can be spent on more strategic areas like product development or marketing. Automation reduces the need for manual intervention, allowing employees to focus on growth initiatives.

Cost Savings – Automation reduces the need for large teams handling manual tasks like order management, inventory tracking, or customer support. This translates into significant cost savings in labor and resources, allowing businesses to scale without proportionally increasing operational costs.

Improved Customer Experience – Via proactive order status updates and issue resolution, automation helps businesses deliver a better CX, particularly in the post-purchase phase. Automation also ensures faster response times and personalized customer support experiences.

Scalability – As your business grows, manual processes can become bottlenecks. Automation ensures that your e-commerce operations can scale seamlessly to handle more orders, customers, and queries without needing additional resources.
Error Reduction – Human errors, such as incorrect order fulfillment or missed inventory restocks, can cost businesses both time and money. Automation minimizes the chances of these mistakes, leading to more accurate operations and happier customers.

Time To Automate Your E-Commerce Business’ Processes

As sales increase and operations scale, e-commerce businesses must keep up with the pace of change.

Maintaining high customer satisfaction can sometimes seem nearly impossible. However, by implementing well-designed automation strategies, merchants can reduce the burden of manual processes while prioritizing the customer experience.

Automation can consolidate sales channels, manage inventory across those channels, and coordinate shipping. Automation is the key to connecting your business to customers where they already spend their time, in a way that provides them a seamless experience, so that they will return again and again.

The post What is E-Commerce Automation And How It Works For Your Business appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

BFCM 2024: How E-commerce Businesses Can Prepare for Success

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 14:01:38 +0000

Just like how the Super Bowl is a day for sports enthusiasts or the re-release of a famous franchise movie is a treat for the fans, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) is a tailor-made event for e-commerce businesses to boost revenue, attract new customers, and build brand loyalty.

As BFCM 2024 approaches in less than two months, it’s time for you to be well-prepared to capitalize on the opportunities and stand out from the competition. To help you do that, we’ve come up with this BFCM special where we’ll explore preparation strategies and provide tips for a successful 2024 season, using insights from previous years and evolving trends.

What is BFCM and Why is it Special for E-commerce Businesses?

BFCM is a two–way street, customers have been following the tradition of shopping more than usual for Thanksgiving gifts from the brick-and-mortar days, and with the rise of e-commerce, customers who wanted to get their shopping done ASAP to prevent their favorite products from going out of stock, began shopping for Christmas right at the end of Thanksgiving. Businesses too saw this as an opportunity to spur them to spend more via sweet deals.

Technically BFCM is just Black Friday and Cyber Monday (the Friday and Monday following Thursday’s Thanksgiving). However, in the recent past, due to increased shopping sprees and businesses’ efforts to capture more sales, BFCM has become much more than just two days of deals and is now Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Businesses Saturday, and Cyber Monday, also dubbed as the Thanksgiving Weekend or Cyber Five.

There’s usually high demand for items such as toys, home furnishings, mattresses, and apparel on Black Friday. At the same time, Cyber Monday is known for low prices on tech-related merchandise, like smartphones, laptops, TVs, gaming consoles, and VR devices.

BFCM also marks the unofficial start of the peak holiday shopping season, where you have to come up with effective strategies to increase sales and prevent issues that might affect your goals.

Why BFCM stands out for e-commerce businesses

Largest shopping event of the year – BFCM has evolved into the biggest shopping event, generating billions of dollars in sales over a few days. Consumers actively seek deals, and businesses see record-breaking sales, often surpassing the entire quarter.
High customer acquisition potential – BFCM is synonymous with deep discounts and exclusive offers. Shoppers expect lucrative deals and are prepared to make more and more purchases during this time. For you, this is a prime time to reach a broader audience and acquire new customers.
Increase sales revenue – For many e-commerce businesses, BFCM accounts for a large portion of their annual sales. Some businesses say as much as 20-30% of their annual sales volume is generated during this short period. This makes it a crucial event for you to maximize revenue and meet your sales goals.
Boost brand awareness – With customers actively looking for deals, BFCM creates the opportunity for you to dramatically boost your brand’s visibility by running well-targeted marketing campaigns and increasing your share of voice in a competitive market.
Increased customer retention opportunities – If your retention game is as strong as your acquisition, then BFCM is the best time to build long-term relationships (through exceptional post-purchase experiences) and convert one-time holiday shoppers into repeat customers.

In summary, BFCM is special because it is a short window of opportunity to access a large pool of potential customers and set the tone for long-term business growth. It’s a crucial moment, where you need to capitalize on consumer demand and cement your presence in a crowded marketplace.

Key Preparation Strategies for BFCM 2024

Here are some tips and tricks for you to make the best out of BFCM 2024:

1. Start early: create buzz and build anticipation

The BFCM hype doesn’t start on the day — it builds over weeks or even months. Most customers have their top pick of purchase in mind as early as July while looking for the best deal to get them. If you’d like to make the most of this, you should begin teasing deals and promotions to build excitement. For starters, you can offer early access deals to create a sense of urgency or exclusive offers for loyal customers.

64% of consumers surveyed plan to take advantage of early promotions and discounts.

2. Optimize your website for traffic surges

BFCM attracts a massive influx of visitors, so it’s essential to ensure your website can handle the increased traffic without crashing or slowing down. Test your website’s performance and optimize page speed. Also, make sure that your store offers the same level of seamless experience on both desktop and mobile, as a large portion of BFCM shopping happens on mobile devices.

In 2023, a record 79% of Cyber Week e-commerce traffic originated from mobile phones.

3. Fine-tune your inventory and delivery processes

One of the worst things that can happen during BFCM is running out of stock or delayed orders. To avoid this, plan your inventory well in advance by analyzing data such as last year’s sales data and anticipated demand or predictions based on carrier delay rates. You can also consider strengthening your supply chain by coordinating with suppliers to have an accurate inventory or shipping with multiple carriers to ensure on-time deliveries.

4. Offer competitive promotions and deals

Discounts are the main attraction during BFCM, everybody’s doing it. So, how can you do things differently to beat the competition? The answer: think beyond basic percentage cuts. Offer bundles, free shipping, and limited-time flash sales to entice customers. A good ploy is to implement tiered discounts to increase the average order value, such as “Spend $100, save 20%.”

With the checklist or ‘must-haves’ for BFCM covered, we’ll move on to the next section: the list of items that will be the ‘talk of the town’ for this year’s BFCM.

E-commerce Trends for BFCM 2024

As mentioned, for e-commerce businesses, BFCM is a golden opportunity to boost sales and acquire new customers. It’s that time of the year when people have their wallets readily open.

Over the years, there’s been a lot of innovative trends and campaigns driving sales. Let’s look at some unique strategies that e-commerce brands must incorporate to stand out during BFCM 2024.

1. Personalization will be at the forefront

In 2024, customers expect more personalized shopping experiences. AI-powered personalization tools have become more accessible, allowing e-commerce businesses to tailor product recommendations and promotions based on individual customer behavior. By using data from previous interactions based on customer preferences or shopping history, you can create highly targeted email campaigns, show personalized offers on their website, and offer custom discount codes.

2. Omnichannel shopping experience

With shoppers engaging across multiple platforms (websites, apps, social media, and even physical stores), providing a seamless omnichannel experience is paramount. You need to leverage tools that unify customer data across channels and allow you to offer consistent and personalized experiences, regardless of how customers engage. For instance, promotions or items added to a cart on social media should sync with the e-commerce website or app for a smoother shopping journey.

3. Video commerce and live-streaming shopping

Video commerce has been on the rise, with platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube enabling brands to showcase their products through short-form videos or live shopping events. Integrating shoppable video content or hosting livestream events with exclusive BFCM deals and real-time discounts can help create a sense of urgency.

4. Social commerce

Social commerce has continued to grow in 2024, with platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook offering native shopping features. Brands should focus on creating direct shopping experiences within social platforms, making it easier for customers to purchase products without leaving the app. Using BFCM-specific hashtags, promoting exclusive deals, and leveraging user-generated content are some strategies that can enhance your reach and boost conversions.

Over 73% of people actively shop on social media for Black Friday in 2024.

5. Influencer and affiliate partnerships

In 2024, influencer and affiliate marketing remain powerful channels for BFCM promotions. Partnering with influencers who align with your brand allows you to tap into their engaged audiences, while affiliate programs can amplify your reach. Both approaches can help you reach new customers who might not have discovered your brand through traditional advertising.

Most businesses who give their all to implement the aforementioned strategies miss out on putting the same effort to optimize their post-purchase. One of the primary reasons behind this disparity is that businesses often assume that a BFCM sale ends with the customer’s purchase. While that’s partly true, your after-sale efforts such as offering a seamless post-purchase experience can improve repeat purchases and turn one-time BFCM shoppers into regular customers.

Here are some strategies to optimize your post-purchase right on time for this year’s BFCM.

Post-Purchase Strategies for BFCM 2024 Success

1.Handle WISMO (Where Is My Order) inquiries in advance

The surge in orders during BFCM inevitably leads to an increase in customer inquiries around order status. Implementing proactive communication with customers about their order status can drastically reduce these WISMO inquiries and improve customer satisfaction. For starters, you can automate shipping updates through email or SMS by using real-time tracking tools to keep customers informed of their orders at all times.

2. Automate post-purchase customer service for delivery issues

Delivery issues are frequent during times like BFCM due to high shipping volumes. In order to minimize their effect, you need to stay on top of them instead of relying on the carrier to take action. You can make use of automation to enable proactive customer service — such as notifying customers of potential delays. This can help prevent your support reps from getting overwhelmed while reducing frustrations by providing your customers with immediate assistance.

3. Ensure a seamless returns process

With higher order volumes comes the likelihood of more returns. Offering a clear, easy-to-navigate returns process can encourage hesitant customers to buy with confidence, knowing they can return or exchange items if necessary. Also, customers might already feel frustrated having to return their holiday purchases. So, make returns as easy as possible to mitigate their dissonance. Here’s how you can do it — provide a self-service returns portal that automates the entire process to streamline the experience.

4. Create loyalty programs and VIP access

Customer loyalty has become a top priority in 2024, and leveraging exclusive VIP programs or early access for your most loyal customers can significantly boost sales during BFCM. Offering special deals to existing customers before BFCM begins, along with reward points or exclusive perks, helps strengthen customer relationships and encourages repeat purchases. Additionally, VIP access can create a sense of exclusivity, driving early sales.

Think you’ve got it all figured out? We’ve got more. Here are some last-minute tips and tricks that can help you with your whole BFCM strategy.

Last-Minute Tips to Maximize BFCM 2024 Sales

Leverage Social Proof: Showcase customer reviews, testimonials, and user-generated content across your website and social platforms to build trust with new shoppers.
Ramp Up Customer Support: Prepare your customer support team for increased inquiries by adding extra hands or using automated tools to handle common questions. Ensure live chat options are readily available for quick assistance.
Abandoned Cart Recovery: Set up email reminders or retargeting ads for customers who leave items in their carts. Use incentives like free shipping or additional discounts to encourage them to complete their purchase.
Use Countdown Timers: Add urgency to your offers with countdown timers for flash sales, limited-time deals, or when stock is running low. This drives conversions and reduces cart abandonment.

BFCM can be one of the most profitable weekends you can have if you have the proper strategies in place. If the customer is impressed with your BFCM, if the customer is comfortable with the BFCM experience, they might revisit your website to buy something else for the holidays.

In the moments leading up to BFCM 2024, take a deep breath and trust in your thorough preparation. The potential for growth and success is significant, and your dedication to serving your customers and delivering value will be the foundation of your achievements.

Here’s to a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday, filled with joy, growth, and memorable customer experiences.

Happy Holidays!

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What Does “In Transit” Really Mean?

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 12:30:14 +0000

Most of us who are unaware of a package’s delivery journey, assume that a package gets shipped out from the warehouse and then gets delivered to the customer, right?

Having this assumption is not wrong. After all, this is what we’ve seen happening on that front. But on the back end, there are a lot of things that happen between “shipped” and “delivered”.

As an e-commerce merchant, understanding these different delivery lifecycles of the package journey helps you communicate better with the customer and use these touchpoints to improve repeat sales.

One such touchpoint is the “In transit” order, which we must’ve witnessed on multiple occasions. But what does In transit really mean?

What Does In Transit Mean?

In transit is usually the stage when the order makes its way after being picked up by the carrier to the first stage of the delivery lifecycle, i.e. the warehouse.

Now, the order marked as in transit doesn’t mean that the order is in movement. There are cases when the order is idly sitting in the warehouse before being out for delivery and yet the order is marked as in transit (with a description, of course).

For international or long-distance packages, multiple warehouses or checkpoints can be between the place of origin and the destination. In this case, both the stops before the order is out for delivery are marked as in transit.

In short, any package that is on its way or in a carrier sorting facility waiting to be dispatched for delivery is marked as in transit.

FedEx, in their definition of in transit, mentions that unless there’s an in transit or customs delay, the package would be delivered on the scheduled delivery date. Now, you might be wondering what causes a package that is in transit to get delayed. We’ll take a look at them in the upcoming section.

How Long Does In Transit Take?

As customers, we can’t wait to hold our joy when the order is shipped or marked out for delivery. But in transit? That’s boring. Trust me, this is not because of the stages left in the delivery cycle or the issues the package is prone to face (an order in transit faces fewer issues than an order that is out for delivery). So, what is the reason?

Without taking factors like shipping method, delivery option, and carrier choices from your end, a package in transit can take anywhere between 1-5 business days. It is understandable that from your customer’s PoV, In transit is one of the longest stages of a regular package (the one where all things go smoothly and conveniently).

Let’s decode them further.

What are the factors that affect transit times?

Here are several factors that can influence how long your package stays “in transit”:

Shipping method: Unless there are rare instances where replacements are sent, the preferred shipping method is selected by the customer placing the order. If they’ve selected a faster shipping option than standard shipping, then there is a low in transit time on their orders
Distance: It’s a no-brainer. Longer distances naturally take more time. Picture this: you’ve ordered from your favorite brand, which is based out of San Francisco and you’re living in Atlanta. The package, shipped out by the e-commerce brand, would reach the carrier’s facility in Frisco first, make its way to their facility in Atlanta, and only then be ready for delivery
Carrier efficiency: Different carriers have varying levels of speed and reliability. For instance, a carrier who is known for their speed advertises their in transit times between the standard 1-5 days. While some carriers would focus on realistic timelines and highlight their in transit times of 3-7 days
Unexpected delays: Bad weather, the package being held at customs, or unforeseen circumstances like labels found to be damaged in the sorting facility or the package getting lost in transit, can all lead to an increase in transit times

What You Can Do When A Package Gets Stuck In Transit

The longer a package is stuck in transit and the longer you’re doing nothing about it, it’s going to frustrate your customers. All those reasons don’t matter to them. What matters to them is their package getting to their hands on time and if not, at least some proper communication on it.

But again, you can’t wait for your customers to bring up a query or an issue about their package in transit as the damage has already been done. This is where you get proactive and follow a series of steps that mitigate the impact on them.

1. Share the estimated delivery date with your customers

When customers place their orders and select their preferred shipping method, you can share an estimated delivery date on the product and checkout pages to let them know when their order will be arriving and thereby how long it will take in transit. You can also get information from carriers and display the latest service alerts and weather disruptions at the top of your website/app and information pages.

2. Share proactive updates about the status of the package

Don’t let the customer wait for 2 days and then contact you with a WISMO request. Instead, reach out proactively with the order’s current status (held up at customs, etc). Keeping them in the loop of their orders, even before they feel the need ensures that their anticipation is kept in check and thereby, they are less prone to get frustrated with the delivery experience. Aside from providing information on why the package is delayed in transit, you can also offer solutions on what the customer can do in the meantime.

3. File a claim for packages confirmed lost

Real-time tracking of your packages will give you insights and predictive alerts on packages that are suspected to be lost. For such packages, you can make use of a parcel audit system that files a claim on your behalf and ensures that the carrier refunds you for the lost shipping cost. In the same line, you can also make use of shipping insurance options to recover the product costs as well. A complete post-purchase solution like LateShipment.com can help you out on all the necessary fronts.

Bottom Line

While “in transit” is not the most specific status update, it’s a sign that your package is out for delivery next and is set for a lot of challenges and actions from your end to offer a seamless delivery experience to your customers. Also, in transit itself is a stage that can be capitalized to keep your customers informed and manage delivery expectations.

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Do You Ship Fragile Items Frequently? Here’s What You Need To Know

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 14:51:34 +0000

Are you an e-commerce merchant that deals with fragile items such as glassware, ceramics, electronics, musical instruments, etc? Then you are in the company of businesses that are ever under threat of shipments getting damaged.

While damage is a constant worry for all e-commerce merchants, those who are frequently dealing with shipments that are fragile and tend to break easily must certainly make extra efforts to ensure that products reach customers safely without any damage.

Why Do You Need To Worry About Damaged Goods

Damaged goods are a serious issue that takes up one of the top 3 spots for delivery issues that tend to drive your customers away. Research shows that around 15% of all shipments are damaged in a year, with costs accounting for $1 billion.

These costs account for multiple areas such as the original product, shipping, and returns along with replacement and operational costs. It’s not just valuable money, each damaged shipment also comes with the risk of the customer experience taking a hit, further leading to frustration and ultimately customer churn.

These customers who defect from your business won’t stop at that and are prone to share their negative reviews that hurt your business’s reputation and demotivate other potential shoppers, ultimately hurting your profit margin.

Not to forget the existing troubles for all your teams in handling returns and replacements, issuing refunds, and managing customer complaints, all of which consume valuable time and resources.

The ‘damage’ from damaged goods is evident. So, what you need to do is safeguard your shipments during shipping to ensure that damages don’t happen and that the items safely make their way to the customer.

How To Ship Fragile Items?

Here’s a step by step guide for e-commerce merchants shipping fragile items:

1. Choose the Right Packaging Materials

The guide to prevent damage to your fragile items begins with packaging — at your warehouse. Think of packaging as the first line of defense. If this works out perfectly, then the chances of breakage are cut down to half or even much lower.

Sturdy, corrugated boxes should be your go-to. Remember, your box should be slightly larger than your product to accommodate ample cushioning
If your package’s contents are multiple items, use custom inserts for dividers or wrap each item individually — paying particular attention to corners and edges, so that they don’t stick out
For exceptionally fragile items like glassware, consider multiple layers of packaging
Secure the product firmly within the box without any movements within through bubble wrap, foam, air pillows, etc,
Reinforce the cushioning around the product by packing peanuts or crumpled paper to prevent movement within the box
Tape the box securely, ensuring the lid is firmly closed

2. Label your box clearly

Damages are mostly accidents, sometimes due to man-made incidents although unintentional. Workers at carrier sorting facilities deal with a huge volume of shipments on a day-to-day basis.

So, mishandling is a common occurrence that can be less of a concern for a retailer who sells teddy bears. But as someone shipping out fragile items, you can’t afford these chances. This is where you bring in clear and informative labeling.

Labels that say “Fragile” and “Handle with Care” labels are your product’s advocates. These labels let the handlers know of the contents and ensure your package(s) are treated with extra care.

3. Know your carriers

Major carriers such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, and USPS all have their list of suggestions and deadlines for retailers shipping fragile items.

FedEx – For fairly new merchants, FedEx provides the option to purchase standard and specialized boxes based on the item and charges an extra amount for packaging fragile items
UPS – Similar to FedEx, UPS also helps merchants with packaging fragile items such as lamps, furniture, pianos, artwork, mirrors,and vases
DHL – Apart from guidelines, DHL also offers shippers, options such as faster delivery options, special handling, and shipping insurance, all of which are charged an additional fee
USPS – Unlike other carriers, USPS has a particular service for shipping fragile items called Special Handling-Fragile that can be availed at $12.15 and works with multiple USPS services, including Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, First-Class Package Service-Commercial, and more

Final word

As a frequent shipper of fragile items, following these steps might be extremely handy to minimize the chances of damage.

However, damage like all delivery issues is inevitable, even with the best of the packaging carriers. In such cases, proactive customer communication is your best option. Be empathetic about the incident and offer a solution to mitigate their frustration.

Even if damaged shipments cannot be avoided, you still have a shot at redemption. Shipping carriers offer the option for retailers to claim refunds for shipments that have been damaged in transit. Instead of filing these claims manually, you can make use of a parcel audit solution that automates the process.

Apart from taking the hassle, an automated solution also helps you keep track of reports that enable you to continuously monitor your damage rates and identify areas for improvement (changing carriers or service types).

If you’re a business that particularly deals with fragile items, then a recommended solution would be to consider third-party shipping insurance that offers peace of mind while shipping. Here’s a guide to shipping insurance where we have covered the basics, the different options, and how to get the most out of protecting your package.

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How To Keep Your E-Commerce Store’s Return Rate In Check

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 07:17:29 +0000

Here’s the thing — returns are a great benefactor to your CX but that’s only when they’re handled right.

However, if they are left unchecked and run rampant, they can have serious consequences for your business across multiple areas.

Therefore, it is important to address a high return rate to ensure you handle returns effectively.

What Happens When Your Return Rate Is High?

To start with the most pressing issue up front, frequent returns lead to several operational challenges like increased workload and complexities for the staff from restocking inventory that is already time-consuming and expensive.

To add more trouble, a lengthy and difficult return process also has the power to hurt customer relationships and can erode your customer’s trust in your brand. These dissatisfied customers are prone to share their negative experiences, thereby hurting your reputation.

Ultimately, both these occurrences represent a loss in revenue, directly impacting profit margins. Not to forget the increase in the risk of fraudulent returns and refunds that come with them.

But there’s got to be a logical explanation behind everything right? Return rates being high is a phenomenon but why do they happen? Why do customers return their purchases, for which they’ve waited for long enough?

Why Do Customers Return Items?

According to NRF, The average return rate for e-commerce stands at around 18% — almost double the rate of returns at a physical store. When you see this and your first assumption is customers returning their purchases because they looked different online, congratulations, You’re correct!

Remember, understanding why customers return products is crucial in cutting return rates. Hence, we’ll go further on the most common reasons:

Product issues: Mismatches in sizing/color/style, faulty products, or products not simply living up to the customer’s expectations — you name it. All of the above are immediate return triggers. Customers at physical stores touch and feel the product they’re about to purchase, but since the room for this is eliminated in e-commerce, there’s a high chance that the product doesn’t live up to their expectations in terms of quality or performance.
Order issues: On the same lines as product issues, these are cases when the wrong item or quantity is shipped out, when the customers change their minds or make an impulsive purchase, or when the order gets delayed or damaged to the extent that the customer no longer needs it.
Customer issues: Hate to say it but not all returns are valid. Some customers wear items and then return them for a refund in an act called ‘wardrobing’. These customers are serial returners who don’t really intend to keep their purchase.

As we touched upon earlier, analyzing common return reasons can be a great start in implementing tailor-made strategies to address these issues and reduce return rates. But before we get to the ‘how’, there’s something more important to take note of. The stakes in a story, the motive in a crime, the science in sci-fi — why do e-commerce merchants need to cut down return rates in the first place?

Why Does Reducing Product Returns Matter?

Apart from preventing all the stuff that we covered in the part that talked about the things that happen when your returns rate is high, reducing the number of products being returned, also has other great deal of benefits for your business.

Despite manual processes, lower return rates translate to a reduction in return processing time for your customer support and operations teams
Understanding the true cost of returns helps you make cost-cutting decisions that impact your bottom line and help you save on returns-related revenue
With streamlined international operations (less time taken for returns), there is a huge opportunity to provide an enhanced return experience for your shoppers
Customers satisfied with their returns experience are more likely to return, thereby leading to an increase in repeat purchases

What – check, why – check, and that brings us to the final question — how. How can return rates be reduced to ensure the long-term success of your e-commerce business? Here are some strategies to do exactly that.

How To Keep Return Rates In Check?

Product-related improvements

Make sure you try as much to replicate the shopping experience of a physical store. This can be achieved through:

Detailed information about the extensive features, the exact dimensions, the materials it is made up of, and care instructions, if any.
High-quality images and videos that showcase the product in 360 degrees across multiple angles
Accurate sizing information and recommendations (70% of all e-commerce returns are size-and-fit related)
Encouraging customers to share their experiences on a particular product to motivate others to make a decision
Major brands such as Gucci, Burrow, and Allbirds have been integrating with Augmented Reality (AR) solutions to display how the product would look at the customer’s place or how they would look in a particular outfit

Such comprehensive information about the product gives the shopper even more knowledge on what they’re getting into and prevents returns arising from impulsive decisions.

Optimizing the post-purchase CX

Did we mention that returns are a necessary evil? If not, here’s it. Returns might seem like a headache when you see them coming in initially but with the right CX efforts, you can not just minimize returns but can also ensure that your customers don’t consider returns as a ‘bad thing’ and still choose to shop with you.

Might seem like a domino effect but delivering products promptly and safely holds the power to reduce the likelihood of returns due to delayed or damaged shipments. For delays, ensure that there is transparent communication via regular shipping updates so that your customers don’t blame you for the delay in the first place. To prevent damaged goods and thereby reduce the return rate, you need to protect the package’s contents with high-quality packaging.

In the event such incidents happen despite strict measures and the return is initiated, proper and proactive support from your end can mitigate frustration and ensure that your customers give you another chance. For instance, you can start by acknowledging the mistake, ensuring that an action has been taken (refund, replacement, or offering discounts on upcoming purchases as compensation), etc.

Not just shipping and delivery but even return experiences play a significant role in optimizing your post-purchase CX. While this may seem like a long game, making improvements to your returns process indeed has the power to cut down returns.

This starts with a clear and concise returns policy that highlights return windows, non-returnable items, and more; moves to a seamless returns experience that removes any kind of hassle and makes the whole process stress-free thereby improving customer satisfaction, fostering trust and loyalty; and ultimately ends with the opportunity to collect customer feedback and gain insights into returns data that can help pinpoint issues and lead to improvements that prevents return in the future.

Promote exchange or store credits over refunds

“How is making the customer opt for an exchange or store credit over refunds/chargebacks going to help me cut down returns?” is a valid question to ask. And to answer that question, no it doesn’t. At least not directly.

While exchanges don’t reduce return rates per se, they help cut down the impact of frequent returns and make sure you’re spending much less than what you were going to.

Here’s how it works.

An exchange instead of a refund on product returns means you still have to pay for all the return-associated costs such as processing, replacements, and labor costs.

However, here’s where things get different. In cases of returns like a damaged product, a late delivery, or one from a wardrobing customer, there’s a possibility that a refund might be the last time you hear from the customer. By simply replacing money with another product, you now have an opportunity to not just keep the sale but you can also provide an even better CX to delight and build loyalty.

P.S. This doesn’t mean you simply eliminate offering refunds altogether as it can put the customer in a spot, i.e., force them to keep purchasing and result in a bad return experience. Instead, you can get creative and encourage exchanges or store credits over refunds via incentives.

What's Next?

Returns are not just inevitable but are absolutely necessary for every business. Cutting down return rates doesn’t mean you simply avoid allowing returns at all (that can do more harm than good). Instead, you can try to cut down unwanted returns wherever possible to reduce workload, costs, etc.

The steps that we’ve covered in this article should give you insights into how you can proceed with reducing your returns. Instead of manually implementing them (the hard way), you can easily take control of all your returns from a returns center that makes the initiation self-service, automates the process, provides intelligence, and retains revenue.

LateShipment.com’s Returns Experience Management helps you do just that. LateShipment.com is an incredibly simple way of managing e-commerce returns — fully self-serve and automated for you and your shoppers alike.

Learn more about how LateShipment.com’s Returns Experience Management can work for you, help you reduce your store’s return rates, and offer return experiences that your customers truly love — talk to us today.

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What Does “Out for Delivery” Really Mean?

Sashank Ravindranath — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 06:31:54 +0000

“Get ready to jump with joy as your order is out for delivery”.

A message that all online shoppers can’t wait to see on their device, as this is a sign that their package is nearing them and is about to be delivered soon.

From your (the merchant’s) perspective, while the emotions might differ, seeing the message on the carrier’s page and sharing these notifications with your customers holds the same importance because,

The package has successfully evaded almost 80% of all delivery issues (barring cases of delivery exceptions, order returns, or package theft) and
This is the only thing between your customers and their most exciting orders, the time when you are rewarded for your product and service via customer satisfaction and loyalty

This makes the out for delivery notification special compared to other transactional shipping notifications sent during the post-purchase, order delivery phase of e-commerce.

But what makes this delivery stage so special? To know that we’ll start with what being out for delivery means and where it sits in the e-commerce last-mile order delivery process.

What Does Out for Delivery Mean?

Let’s split ‘out for delivery’ into two perspectives where you stand between. From the shipping carrier’s perspective, this indicates that the package has left the shipping facility and is in transit to the customer’s address. From the customer’s perspective, on the other hand, this implies that the package’s arrival on the specified delivery date is almost confirmed.

Packages that are marked “out for delivery”, will reach their destination on the same day or the next day, given the distance and situation between the carrier’s transportation hub or fulfillment center and the customer’s doorstep.

To get a better context, let’s look at where it sits in the e-commerce order delivery process

a) Where out for delivery sits in the e-commerce delivery process

The traditional last-mile delivery process usually consists of 4 simple events or transactional notifications that are sent to the customer whenever there is an update on their orders.

Shipped – When the order is “shipped”, it implies that the carrier has picked up the package.
In transit – The order is in transit when it leaves the first hub and is on its way to reaching the carrier’s hub at the delivery city.
Out of delivery – Out for delivery indicates the order is now in its final stretch. The package has left the carrier facility and is on its way to the customer.
Delivered – The order is marked “delivered” when the order sits on the customer’s doorstep

Apart from these frequent transactional notifications front, there can also be several uncommon instances such as delivery attempts, in-transit with delays, loss/damage, etc. E-commerce brands such as yours can leverage these events to send shipping notifications that alleviate your customers’ worries and also come with a great deal of benefits for you.

Going back to the context, there can still be some questions like what to do when the package has been out for delivery for 3 or more days? or where is my package that is out for delivery but has not been delivered yet?

In your mind, you need clear answers before you can communicate the same with your customers. And that brings us to dissect out for delivery as an event further.

b) Why does an out for delivery event matter to an e-commerce merchant?

The “out for delivery” event is a critical touchpoint in the e-commerce customer journey. It holds significant importance for merchants due to several reasons.

Apart from minimizing customer support inquiries and improving customer satisfaction by reducing anxiety and uncertainty, this event also comes up with a great scope for marketing opportunities.

Instead of sending your customers to the carrier’s tracking page, you can create your own branded order tracking pages that can be used to promote complementary products or services.

You can also use real estate on your tracking pages to collect customer feedback on their post-purchase purchase experience, thereby gaining valuable insights into identifying areas for improvement.

c) What happens when a package out for delivery doesn’t get delivered

In most cases, a package marked as “out for delivery,” is expected to be delivered on the same day. However, there can be instances where it takes forever to arrive and there can be multiple reasons for such delivery exceptions.

Location – The distance between the distribution center and the delivery address (i.e. the delivery address’s proximity to the distribution center)
Delivery Schedule – Carriers have specific delivery routes and schedules that they target in a day. Multiple delivery locations (stops) and complex routes can impact the delivery timeline of the other packages
Traffic Conditions – Traffic congestion, accidents, or adverse weather conditions on a particular can delay the delivery process
Volume – High shipping volume is a rare instance but probable scenario where the package volume handled by the delivery person gets too much for a single day

Out for delivery vs delivered: The final hurdle

In most cases, when an out for delivery doesn’t get updated to delivered, it means your carrier, be it FedEx, UPS, USPS, or Amazon is attempting re-delivery, dropping off the package at a nearby pickup point, etc.

However, unlike you, customers who shop with you don’t have the patience to uncover all of this. What matters to them is their package reaching on time and when they get slightly anxious about that happening, their actions can go a long way, complicating the problem further.

1. Support reps are bombarded with a huge volume of WISMO inquiries

Even when there are no issues regarding customers’ parcels, their anxiety at the last mile stage leads them to bombard support reps with order status notifications (WISMO inquiries).

Such calls negatively impact your customer satisfaction metrics by consuming all of the support reps’ time and preventing them from dealing with other important queries.

Over 30% of customer support tickets created are SHIPPING and DELIVERY-related

2. Disgruntled customers negatively impact your brand’s online reputation

Delivery issues must be resolved proactively and addressed at the earliest because the first thing irate customers do is take such issues to social media and tarnish the brand’s reputation online.

During such events, every negative review from your customers causes irreversible damage to the brand image and far worse, demotivates their close ones from shopping with the said brand.

93% of the customers say that they read online reviews before buying a product.

3. Higher costs associated with returns and customer acquisition

E-commerce businesses run the risk of losing even their most loyal customer to a competitor after just one bad delivery experience.

Trying to replace these existing customers may not be the best idea because it is 5x more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.

Over 55% of customers won’t return to a brand or retailer after one bad experience, indicating that today’s consumer has nearly zero thresholds for delivery failures.

Even if they choose to stick with you, they can simply refuse to collect their orders, leading to unwanted returns and related expenses.

The saying prevention is better than cure might sound cliche but it holds true in this context. While these issues, the reasons they happen, and how to approach them depend on the shipping carrier and the circumstances — there are actions that you can take to mitigate this from becoming a serious problem.

What to Do if Your Package is "Out for Delivery" for an Extended Period

When a package has been marked as “out for delivery” for three or more days without arriving, it’s understandable to be concerned.

First things first, customers are often anxious regarding the status of orders during the last mile. So, constantly stay in touch by keeping them in the loop of their orders

Integrate your existing email and SMS marketing tools with your delivery management system and send ‘out for delivery’ notifications in the last mile. This way, the customer can stay at the location to collect the delivery or request a change to avoid last-minute delivery exceptions.

Second, it’s better to be the bearer of bad news than to be confronted by the customer on hiding things

In case you see things going wrong, proactively reach out to the customer to inform them of the delay and assure them that you’re investigating the issue.

Tracking your customers’ parcels in real-time gives you complete visibility of your shipments in transit but foresight as well for shipments that are likely to face delays.

Once you gain control over your in-transit shipments facing issues, you can step in before they impact your customers and resolve them. In cases with uncommon issues such as weather delays and roadblocks, a simple preemptive acknowledgment can work in your favor as equal as resolving issues.

Keeping a close eye on the package’s tracking information for progress can help you see if the situation gets better. If not, be prepared to offer solutions like discounts or store credits to compensate for the inconvenience. P.S. Be empathetic and offer sincere apologies (even when the issue is not your fault).

Thirdly, there can be a worst-case scenario with the package getting lost or the customer simply refusing to accept the package owing to the delay

In such cases, you need to be prepared to offer solutions like reshipping or refunds. Don’t worry about these costs because you no longer have to bear the blame and shell out dollars for failures and billing errors by carriers. If the reason for the delayed delivery is due to a carrier error, then you can easily recover refunds from shipping carriers.

You don’t have to do it manually. Make use of an automated parcel audit system like LateShipment.com that identifies 50+ carrier failures including late deliveries and lost packages, thus helping you save up to 20% on shipping costs. Also, regularly claiming shipping refunds can in turn enable your shipping carriers to perform better and prevent such incidents from occurring in the first place.

Bottom Line

Implementing all these last mile best practices by yourself can be difficult. To make it easier, you can make use of a post-purchase solution such as LateShipment.com that does all the heavy lifting on your behalf.

LateShipment.com is specifically built for ecommerce retailers such as yourself to deliver phenomenal post-purchase CX and measurable results, all while effortlessly recovering refund claims from your shipping carriers.

Interested? We at LateShipment.com can’t wait to help you grow your fanbase, savings, and business.

Get in touch with our expert or write to us.

The post What Does “Out for Delivery” Really Mean? appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

What is a Delivery Exception and How E-commerce Business Can Handle It?

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 08:10:32 +0000

You don’t need major issues such as packages getting lost or damaged, even small incidents like a ‘delivery exception’ can create unexpected roadblocks that disrupt the smooth journey of a package to its destination and pose a challenge for your e-commerce businesses.

With the excitement of sales and fixation on issues like late deliveries and lost packages, delivery exceptions tend to be often overlooked. However, their impact on customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and overall business reputation is profound as they have the power to hurt your customer relationships and lead to increased costs.

To better handle the delivery exception, we’ve come up with this article that starts with the basics: what do they mean, why do they happen, and what can you do about it?

What Does a Delivery Exception Mean?

A delivery exception occurs when a package deviates from its planned delivery route due to unforeseen circumstances. These disruptions can range from minor delays to complete delivery failures.

A package in transit is exempted from delivery, i.e., marked as a ‘delivery exception’ at the hands of the shipping carrier when it faces any hindrance that makes it take longer than expected to reach your customers’ doorstep.

In simple terms, this indicates to the recipient that:

The package has crossed its intended delivery timeline
This is not a case of a delay at the hands of the carrier
The courier will deliver the package soon (based on the reason for the exception).

We’ll break down delivery exceptions further to get a better context.

Why do delivery exceptions occur?

We discussed how exceptions are predictable and happen due to external influence in most cases. But how exactly? Here’s how.

Failed delivery attempts – Also known as missed drop-off. Deliveries are marked incomplete due to the recipient’s or an adult’s (in case of special deliveries) unavailability at the drop-off location to sign and receive the package
Address-related issues – Incorrect, incomplete, or ambiguous addresses can also lead to failed delivery attempts and subsequent delays. For instance, when the address on the label is unrecognized or is at an undeliverable location, etc
Man-made causes – Packages are prone to be damaged at sorting facilities and at times, the carrier would abstain from making the delivery citing this
Customs delays – International shipments are subject to customs clearance procedures, which can be time-consuming and prone to unexpected delays
Natural disasters – Severe weather conditions such as earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, blizzards, or heavy rain can disrupt transportation networks and cause the package to be held back at the facility to safeguard
Carrier-related problems – Issues with the shipping carrier, including lost or misplaced packages, vehicle breakdowns, or labor shortages
Federal holidays – When carriers refrain from making deliveries on particular days due to federal holidays in the country of origin or destination.
Peak season challenges – Increased order volume during holiday periods or promotional events can strain shipping resources, leading to longer delivery times

These are some of the most frequent reasons behind the carriers getting an exemption from fulfilling the delivery. They are valid and in many cases, you can choose to ignore them with so much as a “It’s just one day, the delivery will be made tomorrow“.

However, can you afford to do that? is the question. And that question is what led e-commerce businesses to take the initiative to address delivery exceptions for more reasons than one.

Why is it Important For E-Commerce Businesses To Address A Delivery Exception?

The consequences of delivery exceptions extend beyond mere inconvenience for the customer. They can have a ripple effect on various aspects of an e-commerce business:

Increased WISMO inquiries – Even when the delivery exception is minor, the customer who isn’t aware of it constantly bombards your support reps with WISMO calls that consume all of their time
Customer dissatisfaction – Frequent delays or failed deliveries that come along with delivery exceptions also come with the potential to erode customer trust and loyalty, leading to negative reviews and social media backlash. In the long term, this can lead to a drop in customer satisfaction metrics such as retention rate and lifetime value
Return processing challenge – When delivery exceptions are due to damages or undeliverable packages necessitates a possibility for the customer to opt for a return that can complicate inventory management
Operational inefficiencies – Delivery exceptions result in frequent re-deliveries from warehouses or returns that can disrupt shipping schedules and operations
Financial losses – Ultimately, returns-related costs (processing costs and refunds), unwanted support tickets, increased labor costs, and acquisition costs due to delivery issues can significantly impact a business’s bottom line

The cost of delivery exceptions for your business is evident. Therefore, it is important to handle them effectively. To make things easier for you, we’ve also come up with some of the best ways for you to handle delivery exceptions.

How To Handle Delivery Exceptions?

Most e-commerce businesses take this myopic approach of resolving delivery exceptions only when your customers are impacted by them. However, given the high expectations of today’s customers, it doesn’t matter how quickly you solve it because the damage is already done. Therefore, all you have to do is comply with your customers’ expectations — solve delivery exceptions even before they become an issue.

Through integrated solutions and metrics, you can be proactive when it comes to handling delivery exceptions and thereby set them up for a great delivery experience.

Handling delivery exceptions: The aftermath

Let’s assume the delivery exception happens, what now?

First, promptly acknowledge the exception by informing your customer about it. You can then follow up with clear and transparent communication regarding the nature of the exception by rerouting or rescheduling deliveries based on convenience to manage customer expectations.
Have a strategy early in place for delivery exceptions, i.e., develop clear guidelines for customer support and operational teams to make adjustments and handle things as effectively as possible.
If the exception is major, possibly due to packages that are lost or damaged, then you need to consider implementing shipping insurance into your existing business practices.

Preventing delivery exceptions from occurring in the first place

Delivery exceptions can happen due to external causes and at times inevitable. But that doesn’t mean you do nothing about it. As an e-commerce merchant, you have the power to cut down exceptions in occurrence.

By implementing proactive issue resolution strategies, you can not only reduce delivery exceptions but also unlock new opportunities to reduce costs and improve customer experiences.

Start by informing potential delivery exception-causing incidents such as carrier strikes, federal holidays, weather-related issues, etc. on your homepage and product page to let customers know that their orders might face issues and avoid disappointments.
Leverage data and evaluate the performance of different shipping carriers to select reliable partners with fewer cases of delivery exceptions and a strong track record of on-time deliveries.
The next step involves making use of real-time tracking to identify potential issues even before they happen and take proactive measures to rectify them.
Extend the capabilities of real-time tracking data by keeping customers informed about shipment status and potential exceptions.
In times like peak periods like the holiday season, you need to anticipate an increase in order volume and adjust staffing, inventory levels, and shipping capacity accordingly.

Bottom Line

While delivery exceptions are inevitable occurrences, addressing them promptly is not only possible but also essential for ensuring a positive delivery experience. By acknowledging and resolving issues quickly, you can effectively minimize customer frustration, maintain trust, and uphold their reputation for reliability and customer-centricity.

Also, don’t forget to prioritize proactive communication through shipping notifications and branded tracking pages to turn delivery exceptions into opportunities that strengthen customer relationships and foster long-term loyalty.

The post What is a Delivery Exception and How E-commerce Business Can Handle It? appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Pre-Parcel Anxiety And The Problems It Brings To Your E-Commerce Business

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 06:55:13 +0000

We’re all worried about things at times. How is this day going to turn out? How is my business going to thrive with the rising competition? Will the Chiefs win this year’s Super Bowl? What is going to be my costume for Halloween? Or Where is my order?

Now each of these questions has a reason to exist. The last question — that’s because of this relatively new condition called pre-parcel anxiety that is affecting several online shoppers today.

What is Pre-Parcel Anxiety?

The concept of ‘pre-parcel anxiety’ comes with the understanding of the ‘post-purchase’ phase.

To bring this into more context, let’s picture this scenario: We’ve all placed orders in online stores, right?

That means we’ve all wondered where our orders were at some point. So, this anxiety is normal or that’s what we think. But pre-parcel anxiety isn’t that. It’s what happens later — when customers cannot determine the status of their orders with the business they shopped with.

When such things happen and customers are left in the dark regarding their orders, they tend to get anxious, assuming the worst, leading to increased support inquiries or WISMO requests.

Pre-parcel anxiety is the psychological condition a customer undergoes while awaiting their parcels that they have no direction about. It keeps customers impatient about their orders, often checking the carrier’s tracking page and bombarding the brand’s support teams with WISMO calls.

While frequent order status inquiries mean anxiety for the customer, they mean something entirely different for the merchant.

The Effects of Pre-Parcel Anxiety on Your E-Commerce Business

Let’s take a look back — pre-parcel anxiety is a feeling of unease and impatience while waiting for an online order to arrive, and can be a significant hurdle for e-commerce businesses.

As we mentioned earlier, the first sign of frustration from pre-parcel anxiety is increased support inquiries.

Repeated inquiries like WISMO can be frustrating for both customers and support staff. For instance, customers waiting anxiously for their orders are prone to leave negative reviews and complaints on social media, leading to a decreased brand reputation.

On the other hand, customers experiencing pre-parcel anxiety are more likely to contact your support team with questions about their order status. This can strain your resources and lead to longer wait times for genuine inquiries.

Support tickets with a longer resolution time can cause customer frustration and negative experiences. Ultimately, customers who have a negative experience with waiting for a previous order may be less likely to purchase from your store again.

TLDR: Here’s how pre-parcel anxiety affects your business:

Increased support inquiries
Lower brand reputation
Reduced customer satisfaction
Lost opportunities to drive repeat purchases

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to address pre-parcel anxiety and improve the customer experience you offer.

How E-Commerce Businesses Can Mitigate Pre-Parcel Anxiety And Its Impact

1. Transparency in communication

First and foremost, letting your customers know that their orders are in safe hands is a great start in your attempt to mitigate their anxiety. There are multiple actions that you can take to achieve that.

For starters, you can provide clear and accurate information about estimated delivery times on product pages and during checkout to make sure that your customers don’t feel the urgency to contact your support team with the need to get tracking information.

You can then double it down by offering real-time tracking information with detailed and regular updates to keep your customers in the loop of their orders.

P.S. You don’t have to wait for customers to hit your support reps with WISMO calls, instead, you can send proactive email or SMS notifications about their delivery status.

2. Setting Realistic Expectations

Second and most importantly, don’t over-promise on delivery times.

Be realistic about timeframes, especially during peak seasons. I.e. Delivery during peak season times like the holidays can take longer than usual, in such cases you can let the customers know about these updated delivery timelines and reasons for delays.

Setting delivery expectations right by showing order arrival dates on your website like product, cart, and checkout pages helps you improve conversions, reduce cart abandonment, and ultimately works towards building trust and boosting conversions.

Of course, you can always put these steps into action on your own but your shipping partner might not be straightforward with delays, given to not project themselves in a bad light.

On the other hand, implementing these steps is relatively simple — when you have an efficient package tracking system in place that works on your behalf.

How a last-mile tracking solution like lateshipment.com can help

LateShipment.com’s Delivery Experience Management (DEM) is the perfect solution for you to craft order tracking experiences that boost engagement and repeat purchases — all while reducing customer service costs.

DEM can help you reduce WISMO calls by 72% by sending delivery status updates in the form of:

Automated shipping notifications proactively sent on channels like email, SMS or WhatsApp based on triggers for every step of the package journey from order ‘shipped’ to ‘delivered’ to ‘delayed’ and
Self-serve order lookup that enables customers to track their orders without any help, embed an order lookup widget on your website or chat.

Like Jane Norman of Nola Skinsentials says, “Many brands think their relationship stops after shipping the package, which is not true”. Thus, the need to make the post-purchase phase customer-friendly is a must if you plan to stay ahead of the curve.

By addressing detractors like pre-parcel anxiety, you can create a smoother and more positive post-purchase CX that leads to increased customer satisfaction, improved brand loyalty, and ultimately, higher sales for your e-commerce business.

Also, while you’re there, try LateShipment.com for not just seamless delivery experiences but all your post-purchase needs. Curious about how we might work for your business? Talk to us.

The post Pre-Parcel Anxiety And The Problems It Brings To Your E-Commerce Business appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

The Importance of Product Returns Intelligence For E-commerce

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 24 May 2024 09:52:59 +0000

Not all e-commerce orders are successful with the delivery being made. Some products have issues that are revealed only when the package is opened, some customers often end up becoming unhappy with the product or delivery, etc.

Mind you, these are not isolated incidents, 30% of all e-commerce orders are returned by consumers (2x -3x more than brick-and-mortar rates).

Product returns are an inevitable and frequent part of e-commerce. But not all merchants see them the same way. Some merchants feel returns as a cost-center, a logistical nightmare, and detrimental to shopper experience and customer loyalty.

However, the truth is far. Easier said than done, but when handled correctly, returns offer great scope to improve the overall CX and increase repeat purchase rates. One of the best and simplest ways to optimize your return experience is to understand why things happen the way they do. In short, gain returns intelligence around your product returns.

What is Return Intelligence?

Product returns intelligence refers to the systematic analysis and utilization of data related to product returns to gain insights that can improve business operations, customer satisfaction, and profitability.

To give you better context, product returns intelligence is nothing but tracking returns for an extended period and understanding the reasons behind customer returns, the patterns and trends in return behavior, and the impact of returns on the e-commerce business.

On the surface level, tracking returns inside out is the way to gain product returns intelligence, but when you go in-depth, the question of “what exactly are you looking for?” comes into the picture.

This is where specific valuable return metrics or return KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) like return rate, reason for return, frequently returned products, etc, come in to help you measure the success of your e-commerce business’s returns experience.

Just tracking these KPIs would let you know whether your strategies have been successful, in terms of both competitive advantage and profitability.

The Importance of Product Returns Intelligence For Your E-commerce Business

Gaining intelligence around product returns is one half of that, the other and the most important half involves leveraging insights from the findings to streamline operations, optimize customer experience, and reduce costs.

Here are some key things that your business can achieve by employing intelligence in your returns strategy.

Reduce return-related costs

Although returns are not a cost-center as many believe, returns are expensive. In fact, US retailers spend over $100 billion each year on return-related logistics.

While these costs come from very valid reasons such as inventory, processing, and damaged products, returns intelligence can come in handy here to identify the root causes of returns.

With the most common reasons for returns identified, you can make your returns processing more efficient and thereby reduce labor and operational costs. Example: If the reason for return is said to be poor product quality, you can negotiate with suppliers to improve product designs or even discontinue problematic items.

Also, returns intelligence helps businesses better understand which products are returned frequently and why. This can guide better-informed decisions regarding inventory levels, reducing the costs associated with manufacturing and overstocking.

Reduce unwanted returns

Returns are a major issue in the apparel industry and 70% of these returns are considered size and fit-related.

Returns intelligence can help you understand why customers return their products and if they’re because of reasons such as wrong size, product not living up to expectations, etc — they don’t have to be reasons to initiate a return anymore.

With mismatches between product descriptions and customer expectations highlighted, you can take actions to fix them such as offering better product descriptions and sizing guides, etc, you can improve accuracy and clarity in product listings, and significantly reduce return rates.

Optimizing Customer Experience (CX)

A smooth returns process is crucial for customer satisfaction.

One key to a smooth returns process is collecting customer feedback on their returns experiences with your brand. Returns data provides direct feedback from customers about what works and what doesn’t. By addressing their concerns at the source, you can make returns easier and turn a potentially negative experience into a positive one.

For instance, return methods. If more customers are picking exchanges and store credits over refunds, it means they’re willing to give you an additional chance to set things right. For these customers, you can come up with more personalized marketing strategies, such as offers and products better suited to their needs.

Returns feedback can also suggest whether your post-purchase customer support can be improved. Here, you can make efforts such as providing clear return instructions and keeping customers updated on the status of their return to enhance their return journey.

How Lateshipment.com Can Help You Gain Intelligence Around Product Returns

Returns intelligence is a powerful tool that can help businesses save money, improve customer satisfaction, and gain a competitive edge.

By investing in a system that helps you gather and analyze returns data, businesses can achieve greater operational efficiency, and enhance customer satisfaction, all of which contribute to a stronger, more resilient business model.

Meet LateShipment.com’s Returns Experience Management platform with the Returns Analytics Dashboard, a.k.a the solution.

The Returns Analytics Dashboard breaks down returns into simple, actionable metrics that you can keep track of, see if these return-related metrics work in your favor, and ultimately spell out the success of your e-commerce business via better business strategies.

Apart from specific return-related metrics, Returns Experience Management also helps you make returns easy and profitable by increasing important CX metrics:

Conversion rate by extending a frictionless returns experience
Repeat purchases with easy returns and status tracking
Revenue retained with flexible return methods (seamless exchanges and store credit options).

Also, you can considerably reduce the time spent per return by making returns status tracking self-service.

The post The Importance of Product Returns Intelligence For E-commerce appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How To Automate E-Commerce Customer Service

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 01 May 2024 14:08:44 +0000

Customer service is an important aspect of running a successful business. Whether you are selling products through your e-commerce website or a marketplace, effective customer service that is 24*7 is beneficial can be beneficial to boost sales and acquire loyal customers.

96% of customers admitted that customer service is an important factor in determining their loyalty towards a brand.

For starters, leveraging automation in customer service helps you solve your customers’ queries without any involvement of support agents. It also creates opportunities for you to deliver personalized shopping experiences.

In this post, we will explore the best ways to automate e-commerce customer service and delight your customers.

But first,

What is E-commerce Customer Service Automation?

E-commerce customer service automation is the process of integrating customer service with technology to streamline operations and provide quick and consistent responses to customer queries. The focus of automating customer service is to tend to customer requests as efficiently as possible without the need for human intervention or time consumption.

E-commerce customer service automation is a must if –

Your support team spends a lot of time working on repetitive support tasks
Your support inbox is always full of hundreds of requests and queries

Before we take a look at the different ways to bring in automation into your support processes, let us explore some of the benefits of leveraging this strategy for simplifying customer interactions.

Benefits of E-commerce Customer Service Automation

Automated customer service offers a multitude of benefits for e-commerce businesses because:

24*7 Availability – It offers 24*7 support to your customers irrespective of the time zone or location they are situated at. You can resolve customer queries even when your team is offline.
Increased Productivity – With automation, you can respond to more support tickets in less time. This speeds up the entire query resolution process, allowing your support agents more time to spend on priority tickets.
Real-time & Quick Responses – Automation lowers the ticket resolution time for your customers as you deliver quicker responses to their queries. It also reduces the amount of human errors in the responses.
Reduced Costs & Overheads – It brings together multiple support channels under a centralized platform allowing you to switch between various channels with ease. You do not have to invest in multiple tools to manage customer queries. As automation takes over manual repetitive tasks, you do not need to hire and train additional support representatives to handle large volumes of customer queries.
Empowered Customers – This allows customers to utilize self-service solutions like a customer portal, knowledge base, chatbots, and more to find quick resolutions to their problems. They do not have to contact human agents or rely on them to get their doubts solved.

5 Ways to Automate E-commerce Customer Service

E-commerce customer service automation offers proactive support to customers with what they need without having to contact any human agent. Here are a few ways you can automate your e-commerce customer service.

1. Automated Ticketing Management

The next aspect of customer service that you can automate is streamlining the process of customer service ticket assignment. No support agent would be happy sorting through dozens of support tickets to find the ones that are relevant to their department.

By using an automated ticket management system, you can categorize customer queries based on the problem type or department and automatically assign them to the correct team. The system also checks for the number of open tickets, availability of support agents, and a host of other factors before assignment. This ensures that your support agents have a balanced queue of support tickets and enough time to resolve them successfully.

You can also configure auto-responders or triggers to send acknowledgment emails to customers that their request has been received by the concerned team and is being currently processed.

2. Chatbots

AI-powered chatbots have become an indispensable part of E-commerce websites these days. They help customers at every step of their shopping journey by addressing their queries around the clock. They can also handle large volumes of queries simultaneously which is impossible for human agents. From providing answers to basic questions to addressing complex queries, chatbots take your customer service to the next level by helping you forge stronger customer relationships.

Investing in AI-powered chatbots can automate your query resolution process and offer personalized assistance to customers as well. Based on the customer queries, the AI engine can detect the ones that might require human intervention and forward them to the relevant support department. It can seamlessly conduct this agent handover without disrupting the customer experience.

3. Centralized Inbox

The first effective automation you can utilize is to have a centralized inbox for managing all your customer queries. This includes incoming questions from various channels like live chats, email, social media, WhatsApp, and so on. A unified inbox gathers all these queries and presents them in a single platform for easy access and timely resolution.

As customers today look for seamless omnichannel support, it is advisable to consolidate their inquiries from various channels into a single dashboard. This enables quicker and more organized responses. Furthermore, a shared inbox will automatically alert your team about the new messages. This will ensure that no customer query goes unnoticed. Any customer queries, regardless of which channel they are received on, will have minimal response times.

Jason Mueller from a1autotransport.com states: “Having a central inbox can be handy for any type of business. As we deal with many types of car shipments coming in from a variety of different sources and emails, having it in one inbox makes customer support a breeze, and it leaves you better organized as well.”

4. Hands-free Responses

Most of the time, e-commerce customers have similar inquiries like order-related updates, returns process, refund status, and so on. Hence, instead of spending time crafting individual responses, you can automate this process by creating templates. You can import the template into your messages in just a few clicks and send responses to your customers in no time.

Templates are pre-written messages that are automatically sent to the customers as a response to their standard questions. You can personalize the messages by adding desired dynamic content fields, such as customer name, shipment tracking link, order ID, and so on.

5. Self-serve Customer Portal

Last but not least, you can set up a self-service portal that allows customers to discover solutions to their queries on their own. In fact, 70% of customers expect brand websites to include a self-service application.

A self-service portal like document360 provides customers with all the necessary information to resolve simple and repetitive issues themselves. This portal is usually connected to a knowledge base that offers the right information to customers thereby reducing the need to rely on a human support agent. This reduces the number of customer inquiries being sent to your support team.

For example, Amazon offers an intuitive self-service portal that allows customers to directly contact the team or figure out things on their own. Check out the screenshot below that allows customers to track their orders, receive assistance with respect to their Prime membership, manage their payment information, and more.

Wrapping Up

E-commerce customer service automation helps you deliver high-quality customer service at all times. It refines and streamlines customer interactions using various tools like AI-powered chatbots, self-service portals, messaging templates, and more. This reduces the workload on your support team and enables them to cater to other important tasks.

Customer service automation when done in the right manner can make every customer interaction a delightful experience. It will show your customers that you care and boost loyalty. Leverage automation to simplify your e-commerce customer service and amp up your overall customer experience.

This is a guest post by Kruti Shah

Kruti Shah is a content writer and marketer at The Marketing Drama. She loves to write about insights on current trends in Technology, Business, and Marketing. In her free time, she loves baking and watching Netflix. You can connect with her on Linkedin.

The post How To Automate E-Commerce Customer Service appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How Has Customer Experience Been Transforming and What Value It Holds In The Future?

Sashank Ravindranath — Sun, 28 Apr 2024 13:07:08 +0000

From brick-and-mortar to e-commerce, businesses have been running successfully all these years by building their foundation on just a question — “What do customers want?”

In the case of physical stores, products of good quality, stores with sufficient inventory, convenient locations, interactions from the staff, etc, were some of the primary things customers considered as a reason to frequent.

All of this with the addition of faster deliveries, efficient returns, effective post-purchase engagement, etc, started as a special feature or USP of brands as the gradual shift to e-commerce took place but since then has become a necessity in customer expectations.

So, coming back to the question, “What do customers want?” Stands for the increasing and ever-changing customer expectations with your business and the answer of meeting or rather exceeding these expectations stands for what one would call ‘a great customer experience’.

The Need To Focus On CX In Today's Business Landscape

Customer demands are never the same. However, what’s been the same in the recent past is businesses increasingly prioritizing CX to facilitate repeat purchases.

45.9% business professionals rated CX as their priority and thereby are consistently investing more in improving it.

That brings us to the #1 reason — To stay in the competition.

While product quality might have been the criteria two-three years ago, it’s no longer the reason why customers choose to do business with you. Today, it’s all about who offers the best customer experience. So, if you’d like to stay noticed by your prospective customers, you have no option but to put your focus to improving customer experience.

Not just your peers, but even customers will agree with it. CX makes or breaks customer loyalty.

According to PwC, 1-in-3 customers will leave a brand after just one bad experience, making reason #2 — CX acts as the key differentiator between today’s brands and when done right, can become a competitive advantage.

Well, if customers want something and your competitors are adhering to it then, there must surely be something beneficial for both parties. And that’s reason #3 Improved CX = Increased loyalty and revenue.

Think about it. It’s not rocket science! You give your customers something they want and that impresses them to the extent that they want to keep shopping with you. With loyal customers at hand, you can create opportunities to improve revenue by making them spend more and cut down costs by lowering acquisition rates.

Just like E-commerce, CX is also transforming while still being an integral part of the shopping channel and innovations can’t be left out. Why? Because of the scale at which customers are shopping online, you need to keep innovating to stay ahead of the curve, and not to forget, customer demands are ever-increasing!

The Evolution of Customer Experience and Key Drivers of this Transformation

As an e-commerce merchant, understanding the evolution of e-commerce and the key drivers behind it can be crucial for you in remaining competitive and thereby seeking success in the modern marketplace. So, let’s delve into the evolution of customer experience (CX) and the key drivers of this transformation:

Traditional customer experience vs. modern CX – The primary difference between traditional and modern approaches to customer experience is embracing digital transformation and prioritizing customer-centricity. Businesses that do that can differentiate themselves and build stronger relationships with their customers.
Changing consumer expectations and behaviors – Understanding and adapting to changing consumer expectations and behaviors is essential for businesses seeking to deliver exceptional customer experiences.
Shift from transactional to relationship-based interactions – The shift from transactional to relationship-based interactions reflects a strategic evolution in how businesses approach customer engagement. By prioritizing it, businesses can cultivate loyal customers who become advocates for their brand and drive sustained growth.

Understanding the evolution of CX to its current state or ‘trend’ helps you stay relevant and survive among a multitude of competing businesses. But knowing what’s going to come in the future gives you a head start in the rat race with your competitors.

To gain that head start and thereby get enough time to optimize things, here are some insights on what the future of customer experience will look like and how you can adapt to it.

Future Trends in Customer Experience

Hyper-personalization and predictive analytics

We’ll start with a trend that is slowly moving away from being called a ‘trend’ to becoming a standard that all e-commerce businesses would like to get hold of in the coming months, particularly before peak season times as a resort to improve their sales numbers.

If you look at it, hyper-personalization is just an advanced way of doing personalization using technologies that keep taking e-commerce by storm to create highly relevant experiences by understanding customer behavior in real-time.

Currently and in the future, hyper-personalization is about using AI, data analytics, and automation

Here’s an in-depth look at how it works:

Make use of marketing automation tools that not only provide you with a goldmine of data in the form of browsing and purchase behavior, shopper demographics, and preferences (search queries) but also help you with predictive analytics in the form of real-time reports and insights in the form of predicting which products a customer is likely to purchase, forecasting trends, identifying potential churn risks, etc. With these actionable insights, you can identify distinct customer personas and understand exactly how you can cater to them.
With personas identified, the next step is to customize the direction of personalization based on the stage of repeat purchase funnel they’re in. For instance, personalized product recommendations for customers if they are still on the lookout, targeted campaigns and personalized discounts if they have items added to their cart, proactively addressing issues during order tracking, etc.
As businesses strive to deliver personalized experiences, they must also navigate complexities in the form of transparent data collection, secure privacy regulations, and most importantly, maintain customer trust while delivering personalized experiences.

TLDR: The future of CX with hyper-personalization is promising, thanks to continuous advancements in technology. Businesses that can navigate and take hyper-personalization initiatives while upholding ethical standards are the ones that are poised to thrive.

Integration with AI and automation

The idea of integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation into an e-commerce system is already in the talks and the basic opinion has been that these technologies promise to bring unprecedented efficiency and innovation and that businesses must adapt to these changes.

Automation AI represents the blend of automation tools with AI to create a system that can not only automate tasks but also learn and improve over time. Here are some ways in which this integration or ‘intelligence automation’ can potentially help transform the CX:

Chatbots and Virtual Assistants: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants will play an inevitable role in providing instant support and assistance to customers throughout their shopping journey. These chatbots will automate routine customer service tasks such as order status inquiries, return processing, facilitating transactions, etc., and free up human agents to focus on more complex issues that require human intervention.
Supply Chain Optimization: AI and automation will play a critical role in optimizing e-commerce supply chains, from inventory management and demand forecasting to order fulfillment and logistics. With the help of predictive analytics, you can anticipate demand fluctuations, optimize inventory levels, and orchestrate fulfillment operations to ensure timely delivery and minimize costs as a bonus.

TLDR: In a rapidly evolving marketplace, stagnation is not an option. Businesses that fail to adapt to technological advancements risk falling behind. Therefore, you MUST make use of intelligent automation to improve efficiency, accuracy, and offer more personalized experiences.

Final Word

The evolution of customer experience (CX) has been nothing short of transformative, shaping the way businesses engage with their customers and driving new standards of excellence in the digital age.

As we look to the future, the value of CX will only continue to grow, with hyper-personalization, seamless omnichannel integration, and relentless innovation at the forefront of delivering exceptional customer experiences.

By embracing these trends and prioritizing customer-centricity in all aspects of their operations, businesses can forge deeper connections, foster loyalty, and unlock new opportunities for growth and success in the dynamic landscape of tomorrow’s e-commerce marketplace.

An important phase of the CX that is also the most difficult is the post-purchase. This is because it represents the final touchpoint in the customer journey and any incident that happens during this phase can be the last thing your customers remember about your brand. Therefore, the impact of it on your satisfaction levels and repeat purchase rates is imminent.

For businesses that have been looking to optimize their post-purchase CX, it is time to invest in post-purchase technology that comes with ways to foster meaningful connections and ultimately drive loyalty (and revenue).

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