As a shipper, does the following situation ever happen to you?
You entrust your carrier to deliver your package to your consumer on time and when it arrives late, you get blamed for it. Let’s analyze the aftermath and how it can affect you.
How customers react when they get a late package
When your customers are frustrated with a bad delivery experience, there’s a multitude of ways they can react. In some instances, they’ll pick up the phone and call you to complain. Even though they may not be in the best mood, at least you’ll be able to communicate with them and explain what’s going on with their package. Nonetheless, it’s not ideal.
They could also bypass contacting a person from your team entirely and file a return, a chargeback claim, and/or write a bad review. The bad review is especially damaging because it’s public facing and can bring some reputational risk.
There’s also the possibility that they won’t say anything but will never buy from you again, in turn not recommending (or negatively recommending) your product/service.
The domino effect on your customer service and shipping teams
In addition, it’s also a pain in the behind for the merchants. Customer service has to monitor each of the orders, find the tracking number of the shipment, and review the status of each delivery, seeing if there are any delays or issues that may affect the timing of the delivery.
In turn, your team loses efficiency having to deal with each order on a case by case basis. Tensions build between your customer service and shipping management teams if the problem is not addressed and accurately communicated.
How being proactive on your customer’s delivery experience can help mitigate problems
One of the ways you can prevent issues from manifesting is by taking a proactive approach (as opposed to reactive). Being proactive requires you to have foresight, be informed, and take action when you see a problem developing. For example, instead of waiting for your customer to call you about a late package, reach out to them first to address that their package may be potentially delayed.
The benefits to this are plentiful. Not only is the customer less likely to be upset with you, you may also strengthen the bond by showing care and concern over their order. That type of outreach can help foster a stronger relationship between a business and customer because it’s built on trust and communication. After all, the top reason people will switch brands is feeling underappreciated so what better way to show appreciation than by contacting them before you “need” to contact them?
One of the other advantages is that your team will run smoother. When you’re the one doing the initiating, your team won’t be caught off guard. Less “unpleasant” surprises means less messes to clean, which will lead to better camaraderie and efficiency amongst your team.
With that said, it will require some legwork to create a system that will allow your team to easily access tracking order information and/or be alerted when there’s an issue. But once it’s in place, it will work like clockwork. And you’ll emerge as a leader in your industry because most companies won’t be doing what you’re doing: leading.
71lbs can advise you on how to enhance your customer delivery experience
Contact us to see how 71lbs helps other leading merchants/brands become more proactive with their customer’s post-purchase/delivery.
