Customer service is an extremely critical function for any business and Zoho Desk is a powerful tool to help you orchestrate customer support flows of the highest quality to ensure standout customer experiences that inspire fierce loyalty.

If you’re familiar with LateShipment.com’s Delivery Experience Management and Returns Experience Management platforms you might be aware of our commitment to helping leading e-commerce brands like Princess Polly, SlumberPod, 1st Phorm, and much more to craft superior order delivery and returns experiences (all, while optimizing shipping costs with our Parcel Audit and Shipping Refunds solution) during the most critical part of the customer journey — the post-purchase phase. 

Now, here’s the deal. While you might be using Zoho Desk and LateShipment.com separately, together they are a powerful combination of tools to elevate post-purchase customer experience, at scale. 

If you’re wondering what can be achieved when both tools come together, here’s a gist of it. 

• Improve customer satisfaction: Resolve order delivery issues at 3x faster speed
• Offer proactive post-purchase support: Proactively reach out and mitigate the impact of delivery issues
• Reduce customer support costs: Automate tasks such as order status and delivery exception notifications
• Increase customer loyalty: Provide seamless post-purchase customer experience

But First, Why Should You Focus On Your Post-Purchase?

While many things contribute to improving customer experiences, the one area that deserves to be under the spotlight is the “post-purchase” phase. 

The post-purchase phase is something that has been unwillingly neglected by most e-commerce businesses, as they consider the package to be the onus of third-party shipping carriers, once the order is marked “shipped”. 

If you too are someone with the same stance, you might want to change that as not tending to your post-purchase can do more harm than good.

This is because there is a high possibility of errors that can occur post-order dispatch, which has the power to put your customer experience efforts at risk. 

For instance, here are some issues that every business with a lack of effective post-purchase strategy is prone to face: 

1. 1-in-5 parcels face delivery issues such as late shipments, order status queries, failed deliveries, lost or damaged shipments, etc.
2. Over 40% of customer support inquiries are shipping or delivery related, indicating the extent of post-purchase issues customers face with their orders.
3. Shipping and delivery issues can potentially cause high customer frustration, the spread of negative reviews on social media, and ultimately customer churn. 

Not to worry. While post-purchase issues may be inevitable, there are actions you can perform to mitigate customer frustrations and let them enjoy a positive experience despite facing an issue. 

To help you do just that, we have come up with this guide where we will explore the different actions (use cases) that you can undertake with LateShipment.com, in conjunction with Zoho Desk to empower your support team to handle post-purchase automations efficiently, provide an exceptional customer experience, and ultimately ensure higher retention rates. 

[LateShipment.com x Zoho Desk]: 5 Use Cases And Tips On How To Creative Effective Post-Purchase Experiences

Use Case 1: Dealing with Delivery Delays or Errors on High-Value Customer Orders

The Problem: Delivery issues are frequent and have the potential to drive your customers away — over 90% of the users say they will not shop again after just one bad delivery incident.

The Fix: Resolve critical shipping incidents before they happen.

While you do not have control over delivery issues, you can step in before your customers become aware of them and raise their complaints by proactively addressing them. Here’s how the integration helps you do that: 

• LateShipment.com tracks your shipments and automatically flags potential delays or delivery issues such as misrouted packages and customs clearance problems.
• Each time an issue is flagged, tickets are automatically triggered to Zoho Desk in real time. 
• This provides the customer support team with all relevant information about the order and the identified issue and enables them to act proactively.

Proactive delivery exception alerts for high-order value shipments

The integration is designed to recognize high-value orders and customers. These orders are given priority in terms of support and resolution, thereby ensuring that the most valuable customers receive special attention and prompt assistance in case of delivery delays or errors.

In cases where delivery delays or errors are detected, the integration enables proactive actions to be taken in two main approaches:

1. Rush Replacements: If a high-value order is at risk of being delayed, the support team can initiate a rush replacement process to send a new shipment as quickly as possible. This helps in minimizing the impact of the delay on the customer.
2. Offer Compensation: For cases where the delay has already occurred, the integration allows the support team to offer compensation or concessions to the customer. This gesture can help mitigate the negative experience caused by the delay and maintain customer satisfaction.

Use Case 2: Reducing Ticket Volumes Pertaining to Order Status Requests (WISMO Queries)

The Problem: Nearly 25% of Zoho Desk tickets are related to customers asking for updates on their shipments. These tickets consume time and attention, preventing your team from addressing more critical issues.

The Fix: Reduce delivery inquiries by 70% with real-time updates.

Customers appreciate accurate and up-to-date information regarding the status and location of their orders. Here’s what you can do to keep them in the loop about their orders, allowing them to easily find the information they need without unnecessary hassle, and ultimately exceed their expectations: 

• Instead of waiting for customers to inquire about their order status, you can set up automation rules that address common WISMO queries and send out proactive alerts in the form of automated notifications at various stages of the shipping process (order shipped, out for delivery, delayed, etc.)
• This approach keeps customers informed at all times and reduces the likelihood of WISMO-related inquiries. 
• With reduced need to contact customer support for order status inquiries, your customers’ satisfaction levels are largely improved, leading to greater loyalty and repeat purchases.

Use Case 3: Managing Failed Deliveries and Avoiding Returned Shipments

The Problem: Failed deliveries resulting in returns can cost your business significantly in terms of negative customer experience and lower profit margins.

The Fix: Empower support reps to easily spot and resolve failed deliveries.

Promptly recognize failed deliveries and take proactive steps to address the issue and prevent unnecessary return shipments. Here’s what happens: 

• LateShipment.com’s real-time tracking capabilities allow businesses to quickly identify failed delivery attempts that usually occur due to various reasons such as incorrect addresses, missed delivery windows, or customer unavailability. 
• When a failed delivery is detected, the automation triggers the creation of support tickets in Zoho Desk (these tickets contain comprehensive information about the failed delivery, enabling the support team to understand the situation without any delay).
• The support team can now leverage the information provided in the support tickets to swiftly address the failed delivery issue, whether it’s correcting an address, rescheduling the delivery, or communicating with the carrier for resolution. 

Use Case 4: Avoiding Low Customer Satisfaction Scores on Late Order Deliveries

The Problem: Data suggests that delivery issues or delays lead to an average CSAT score of only 30%, despite your efforts to improve CX in the pre-purchase and purchase phases.

The Fix: Proactively address delivery issues before customer impact and revive customers’ trust in the brand.

By reaching out with the possibility of delays proactively, businesses can manage customers’ expectations of on-time deliveries and minimize the negative impact on CSAT scores. Here’s how the integration comes to help: 

• LateShipment.com employs data analysis (of historical shipping data, carrier performance, etc) and extends it to predictive algorithms that identify potential delays and empower businesses to take preventive measures and communicate proactively with customers.
• The integration between LateShipment.com and Zoho Desk ensures that when a potential delay is detected, a support ticket is automatically generated — allowing the support team to intervene before customers become aware of the delay in the first place. 
• In cases where a delay does occur despite these proactive measures, the support team can offer apologies and demonstrate care through compensatory gestures that involve offering a sincere apology for the inconvenience caused by the late delivery. 
• Additionally, you can consider providing a discount on a future purchase, showcasing their commitment to customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Use Case 5: Handling Lost and Damaged Shipments Inside Zoho Desk

The Problem: Lost and damaged incidents lead to dissatisfaction and erode customers’ trust in your brand, as they fail to meet customers’ primary expectation of timely and intact deliveries. 

The Fix: Identify shipments facing issues at a glance and initiate contextual communication.

Occasional package losses or damage are inevitable, but having a proactive response can make a significant difference to your customers. Here’s how you can do that: 

• LateShipment.com’s tracking capabilities allow for the proactive identification of potential shipment losses. 
• By closely monitoring shipment progress and comparing it to expected delivery milestones, you can constantly stay on alert for shipments that may be at risk of being lost.
• The integration between LateShipment.com and Zoho Desk ensures that if a potential loss or damage is detected, a support ticket is generated and given priority in the support queue, thus recognizing the urgency of addressing lost or damaged shipments.
• This empowers your support team to report instances of lost or damaged orders directly within Zoho Desk and eliminates the need to switch between platforms, ensuring that all relevant information is captured accurately in the support ticket.

That’s not all! To help support teams better at resolving common post-purchase issues with LateShipment.com and Zoho Desk, we have come up with a downloadable cheat sheet filled with different scenarios and the appropriate action that support agents need to take in order to deal with the scenarios.

How You Can Set Up LateShipment.com and Zoho Desk Integration

Getting started with connecting LateShipment.com – Zoho Desk can be done in just three simple steps. 

1. Login to your Zoho Desk Account
2. Accept consent to give OneAuth Scopes to access API’s.
3. After accepting the consent box, login to LateShipment.com to map your credentials to the corresponding account. 

Also, what makes the integration really special are the added benefits that come along with it. 

• Seamless integration: The integration between Zoho Desk and LateShipment.com is seamless and easy to use. Once you have integrated the two systems, you can start using them together without any hassle in the form of complicated setups or manual data transfers.
• Implementation: The integration is easy to implement. You can integrate Zoho Desk and LateShipment.com in just a few minutes.

Flexibility/control: The integration is flexible and gives you control over how you use it. You have the control to decide which post Purchase events you’d like tickets created within Zoho Desk.

Conclusion

By leveraging the power of LateShipment.com and the integration with Zoho Desk, you can transform your post-purchase support process and create exceptional customer experiences. 

Proactive actions, timely updates, and efficient issue resolution will lead to higher customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and ultimately, business growth. 

Remember, investing in your post-purchase journey is key to winning lifelong relationships with your customers.

The post The Ultimate Handbook to Achieve Post-purchase Success with LateShipment.com and Zoho Desk appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

You can define the mobile conversion rate as the number of visitors who visit the website on their mobile devices and the number of visitors who convert during these sessions.. So, it can be calculated with the below formula. A mobile conversion rate is a very important factor since most of the customers now browse products through your mobile. Mobile commerce has risen so much over the years.

People now use mobile a lot. They order food, they order groceries, and they order from Amazon. There are a million apps which have emerged in this bustling digital world. 

Mobile conversion rate vs Desktop conversion rate

It is a fact that the mobile conversion rate always lags behind the desktop conversion rate.  

The mobile conversion rate according to Salescycle is said to be 45% which lags behind desktop conversion which is up to 55 percent.

A survey found that most people browse through their phones but complete their transactions on desktop computers. In 2020, the mobile conversion rate reached 67%, but in 2022, it fell to 55.25%.

Do you experience this? Do you experience a drop in mobile conversion rates? Imagine 6.7 billion smartphone users regularly using their mobile to browse through products but they often abandon carts and just don’t convert at all. Imagine how much you can earn by converting those customers. Here are seven proven tips to help you convert customers through the mobile experience.

7 tips to increase mobile conversion rate

1. Optimize your site speed

Your mobile site speed plays a very important role in determining whether a customer stays and browses on your website or just leaves. Site speed can be defined as how quickly your web pages load when a particular page on your website is clicked or redirected. In a world where human attention has shortened less compared to a goldfish. Social media platforms like Instagram and Tiktok understood this behavior in humans and designed bite-sized content to keep them engaged.  As an e-commerce business, it is your job to always take care of your site speed and get it optimized. Faster site speeds always support keeping the customers browsing through the website for a really long time.

And on top of that, site speed is also very important to get ranked on Google. This ensures good user experience. More like slaying two birds with one stone, of course.

Here’s how you can test your site speed

Need insights on more free tools like these? Click here 

2. Optimize your site search

Users being able to navigate around your website is an important part of the conversion process. The churn rate appears to be very high if not for the search option and the navigational elements present in your website. Help your customers find products through a variety of options like breadcrumbs, menu bars, hamburger menus, filtering options, sorting options, and such. 

Did you know that search contributes to at least 50% of the mobile conversion rates experienced in a website? (Contlo)

It is quite important that you include all the typo corrections in a search bar. People tend to search for particular things and if they, by mistake type a wrong spelling and if you’re able to give suggestions around what they’re looking for, then it’d be better for the conversion rate.

3. Use e-wallet payment methods

Surveys show that 53% of Americans now use digital wallets more than ever. This is a very drastic shift towards greater digitalization in the economy, according to Forbes. Enabling e-wallet payments like Apple Pay or Google Wallet allows customers to complete transactions in a single click, which is very convenient. The whole point of e-commerce being convenient is the main unique selling point behind its success. Be sure to include convenient payment methods for a better mobile conversion rate. 

In fact, 19 percent of customers abandon their carts because of security concerns over giving out their payment information.

Ease this problem out for your customers.

4. On-page product recommendations

The mobile device is a very small device so that the information that you provide or the images that you place while displaying a product, is very crucial and plays a very important role. Make sure that it’s optimized for a very great mobile experience . It is vital that you provide very short and precise information that is needed and when you display on-page product recommendations. This would in turn, make it easy for the customers who are browsing to skip to similar products or related products that they are browsing for. Since the amount of content being displayed on product pages is really, really minimum, it is essential that you display social proof like customer reviews, in order to build trust and credibility among your customers.

5. Provide autofill forms

A lengthy checkout process can often overwhelm customers and lead to cart abandonment. If convenience is the key point driving mobile commerce, don’t you think auto-fill forms are the way to do so? Enable customers to automatically fill their names, addresses, contact numbers, and email address. This would be the most useful tool that can help ease conversion in a mobile website. 

This feature streamlines the whole checkout process 

Anatomy of a Product Page

We rely on product pages for conversion. On one hand, it is hard to design a one-size-fits-all product page, but on the other, there are key website features and functionalities that are always relevant, no matter how attribute-rich a product is, whether it has variants or plenty of configuration and customization.

A product page should always have the following information  

• Product name
• Product description
• Product attributes and specifications
• Product variants
• Product recommendations
• Breadcrumb path
• High-quality product images and video
• Documentation
• Wishlists
• Chatbot and FAQ

Final Word

There is a rise in social commerce, voice commerce [it is the voice search people use to buy products], VR and AR replacing the traditional discovery methods. It is vital that you focus on mobile commerce and increase the conversion rates. IF you keep your mobile commerce very flexible with all these options, it is possible that you can convert a lot and convert high quality customers compared to the desktop conversion.

The post How to increase mobile conversion rate: 7 proven tips appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

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While the COVID-19 pandemic did slow the economy down amidst a lot of problems, it also led to an e-commerce surge and accelerated digital transformation by 5 years. What was considered futuristic is now being experienced in the present and businesses who haven’t implemented them are considered outdated. This is because, with growing advancements, comes increasing competition that keeps brands on their toes to constantly adapt to this ever-changing playing field.  

Even if your products are the best in the market with minimal competition, there are things that are needed from your end to make your products reach your target audience. And one such channel that can be the best choice for you in the current scenario is your social media game. But if you’re wondering “There are a lot of options like email and SMS marketing, why particularly focus on social media?” Here are some stats that should convince you. 

Previous

Next

Now that it’s clear why social media is important, let’s move on to how businesses can use social media not just for the sake of it but for its utmost potential.  This is where the impact of digital transformation comes into play. With technological advancements happening throughout the e-commerce space, there are also several up-and-coming innovations in social media that businesses can take up to stay competitive. Here are some of them that are currently in the trend.

5 Ways Businesses Can Use Emerging Technology To Extract Value From Social Media

Businesses can leverage emerging technologies to extract value from social media in several ways:

1. Social Listening and Sentiment Analysis

In general terms, social listening is an extension of brand monitoring (where you can keep track of every social mention of your brand), along with each and every necessary social media conversation that includes products that you sell and competing brands. 

Primarily insights from social listening are used to identify trends, customer pain points, and sentiment analysis on similar topics, all of which can be used to make data-driven decisions for improvement. 

Sentiment analysis is a subset of social listening. While social listening monitors related mentions, sentiment analysis gives insights into the emotions surrounding those mentions and helps you pick the right context for your customers’ conversations.

For example, by understanding customer sentiments, trends, and feedback, you can work on identifying customer needs, improving products and services, and enhancing the overall customer experience. 

If you’re wondering where to start, there are several social listening tools such as Hootsuite that you can make use of to do the research on your behalf.

2. Social Media Advertising

Social media ads are a really straightforward but great way for businesses to reach their target audience with relevant messages. With proper research and techniques, ads can be your most efficient option to generate leads, drive sales, and increase brand awareness.

But advertising isn’t just posting about your brand on social media, it has several depths to it that make it relevant. To help you understand things better, let’s look at the two trending forms of social media advertising for now. 

Influencer Marketing: The lockdown phase was a blessing in disguise for a lot of individuals who began their careers as ‘content creators’, spending time on social media doing what they enjoy the most. With a fanbase growing for them, they grew into influencers relevant to particular industries. By collaborating with influencers, businesses can reach a wider audience, increase brand awareness, and drive customer engagement.

Personalized Marketing: With insights such as customer preferences, behavior, and interests, you can send out personalized messaging that caters to specific customers. With recent technological advancements and increased customer expectations, you have no option but to embrace personalization in your social media marketing tactics. Advertising campaigns that are tailored to the right customers help you create individualized experiences and spur more sales.

3. Social Commerce

Not just for advertising purposes, recent integrations have enabled social commerce, where shoppers can not just view but browse and shop directly from social media platforms. 

Social commerce retail earnings are predicted to reach nearly $80 billion by 2025 in the U.S.

With shoppers spending a lot of time on social media for their personal stuff or for looking at brands, social commerce can be seen as the best option for businesses to enable seamless shopping experiences (where shoppers can directly purchase from social media sites without having to visit your website). 

Not just direct selling, social commerce also enables: 

• Social sharing – Leverage user-generated content to drive conversions and sales
• Customer engagement – Easy support interactions and insights into brand content performance, etc.

4. Chatbots

Social media has come a long way from just content sharing to AI-powered chatbots to engage with their customers across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp. 

The purpose of these chatbots covers three essential parts of your business’ needs — customer service, customer engagement, and social media marketing. But using conventional techniques is just the bare minimum. With the help of automation, you can extend the capabilities of chatbots by a huge margin. 

Let’s start with the most persistent problem of an e-commerce business, post-purchase issues, and customer queries around their order status. With over 40% of support tickets created around the post-purchase, it is understandable that customers are worried about their orders going haywire during the shipping and delivery phase. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of waiting for your customers to take the first step, you can take a proactive approach to engage with them regarding their order details from time to time. This simple action just stands to provide multiple benefits for your business by improving customer relationships and brand loyalty while reducing costs and the time taken. 

5. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

Thanks to technological development over the past few years, VR and AR, classic science-fiction tools can be experienced today, in our lifetime. With fierce competition from multiple directors, e-commerce brands too couldn’t stay far from such technology and have started to use VR and AR primarily in advertising to create immersive experiences that can help businesses connect with customers in new ways. 

• Virtual product try-on tools and augmented previews can be extremely beneficial for the apparel and accessories industry to convince customers who are sitting on the fence over the doubt of the product working out for them to go for the buy, 
• Brands can partner with social media applications like Instagram to create filters that users can use for fun in their content. This can really boost your efforts to spread the word about your brand and increase engagement rates. 

Overall, integrating VR and AR into social media platforms helps in engaging users, driving conversions, and providing unique and interactive shopping experiences.

Final Word

With growing technology, social media will continue to evolve. To keep up with the ever-changing conditions, you will need to adapt your strategies in order to consistently stay ahead of the curve.

In conclusion, by using techniques such as social listening, sentiment analysis, social media advertising, social commerce, VR and AR, etc, you can extract valuable insights, enhance customer engagement, optimize marketing efforts, reach new markets, and drive business growth in the digital landscape.

The post How Businesses Can Use Emerging Technology To Extract Value From Social Media appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

Is your business future ready?

The e-commerce industry is continuously changing, so being up to date is crucial. In order to provide a seamless and engaging consumer experience across all touchpoints, including mobile commerce, beacon technology, and CTV advertising, the future of commerce must be fully omnichannel. Businesses must adopt a pipeline strategy, relying on data analytics and dynamic creative optimisation to boost conversions and produce an easy-to-use website experience. 

The era of transactional e-commerce is no more; today’s consumers demand relational e-commerce that fosters creativity and discovery. Customers have the choice to begin their journey online and end up in physical stores, or vice versa, thanks to Google Lens and other tools. 

Businesses must provide the best value proposition, convenience, loyalty programmes, and other services in order to meet customers’ expectations in 2023 and get repeat customers. 

Why do you need repeat customers in your business?

•  Getting new customers is expensive and time-consuming: Getting a new customer typically costs five times as much as keeping an existing one. 

•  Repeat customers are receptive to more: They’re eager to test out new goods and services from a company they already know and respect. (repeat customers spend 35% more per purchase than first-time customers`)

• Keeping loyal customers can improve a brand’s reputation because happy customers are more inclined to tell their friends and family about it. 

Customer retention should be the top aim for any wise brand in the fiercely competitive industry of today

3 strategies to get repeat customers

1. Offer omnichannel customer support

The best wingman for both transactional and relational e-commerce is omnichannel customer support. Companies may design a seamless and “omni-awesome” client journey by swiping right on a variety of touchpoints, including calls, emails, social media, text messages, mobile apps, and more. 

For example, 

Lululemon, a retailer of athletic wear, offers customised video consultations with fitness professionals to assist customers in making purchase selections. A video can be scheduled by users with a fitness expert to get personalized recommendations and advice on which products to buy.

“According to research done by the Aberdeen Group, companies that provide a consistent service quality across multiple channels retain 89% of their customers.”

A seamless message approach that is cohesive is necessary to maintain consistency across channels. This strategy offers a customised message that matches the client journey across several channels, improving the potency of a business’ value offering and striking the proper chords with the target market. 

In order to provide your customers with a complete omnichannel experience, you might begin with 

• Recognizing the platforms that your customers are most likely to use. 
• Providing a consolidated platform for customer assistance that integrates channels. 
• Communicating consistently to foster trust. 
• Providing opportunities for self-service, such a knowledge base or FAQ area. 
• Training customer service representatives to respond to inquiries from all channels.

2. Offer the most convenient experience

Online mattress and bedding retailer Casper is an example of an e-commerce company that puts its customers’ convenience first. Customers may test out their mattress at home with Casper’s 100-night sleep trial and return it for a full refund if they’re not satisfied. Also, they perform all of the labor-intensive lifting. When you place an online order, they bring the item to your home and pick it up if you decide to return the mattress. Customers may easily buy and return things thanks to their free shipping and returns policy. In addition, Casper offers a 24/7 chatbot on their website to assist users with any queries or worries they might have. Casper has been able to give customers a more seamless and delightful purchasing experience by putting convenience first. . 

Convenience is king

Checkouts using a mobile wallet are another example of how businesses can make their consumers’ lives more convenient. Customers can quickly and securely conduct purchases without using physical payment methods by adopting this feature. In actuality, Apple Pay now accounts for 48% of mobile wallet checkouts in-store. For instance, Casper’s new one-click experience lets users purchase their favourite mattresses without first creating an account, substantially streamlining the purchasing process.  

The new voice search e-commerce trend is another thing that e-commerce firms can accomplish. As more and more customers utilise virtual assistants like Alexa from Amazon and Google Home from Google, voice search is becoming more and more significant in e-commerce.

As you can see, advanced technology greatly contributes to convenience by streamlining the purchasing process, providing a variety of payment options, offering quick and free shipping, implementing a mobile-friendly design, customising the shopping experience, providing round-the-clock customer support, and integrating with voice assistants. 

Customers must come first for businesses, and this means putting themselves in their shoes and foreseeing their demands. Companies may offer a more convenient and Personalised service that satisfies the constantly changing needs of modern clients by adopting a customer-first mentality.

3. Educate your customers where necessary

Customers are overwhelmed with options as internet buying expands, and trust is getting harder to come by. This is where taking on the role of a champion for a cause is useful. 

Building trust with your customers can be accomplished by educating them about your product and the sustainability practices you employ (given that 75% of US consumers are concerned about the environmental impact of the products they purchase). Customers are more inclined to buy from you again and recommend your business when they have faith in you. 

Educating your clients could boost your profitability while also fostering a sense of trust with them. Customers can make better selections if you educate them about your goods and services. Also, they are less likely to return the item.

How can you inform your audience? Consider utilizing cutting-edge methods like augmented reality to assist buyers in determining whether the product is a good fit for them. For instance, a stove manufacturer could utilize AR to check whether a customer’s kitchen will accommodate the stove perfectly. 

Here are two actual companies that educated their clients while increasing profitability. 

In order to ensure that customers discover the ideal fit and style, the eyewear firm Warby Parker uses a virtual try-on tool

The cosmetics company Lush has launched a “Naked Packaging” programme to lessen their usage of single-use plastics. With emails, social media posts, and in-store signage, customers are made aware of this programme. . Lush has been able to grow its customer base and revenue by informing their customers about the value of decreasing plastic waste.

(According to an Edelman study, two thirds of consumers buy based on beliefs. This means brands can no longer remain neutral, but you need to back up your values with action.)

Thus, remember to effectively inform your customers of whatever environmental good deeds you undertake going forward

Bottom Line

Too often, businesses that only concentrate on acquiring new customers miss out on the hidden revenue that exists within their current customer base. Yet, businesses may position themselves to gain from building and nurturing a return client base by putting a few strategies in place. Ultimately, maintaining and keeping your current clients is more efficient than acquiring new ones. 

Crunch some numbers, see how your company is fairing, and update your retention strategy today.

The post How to get repeat customers in 2023? appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

Last-mile carrier tracking can be the most expensive and time-consuming part of your ecommerce business’ shipping and delivery process. 

Adding fuel to the fire is your customers’ growing demands of wanting complete visibility into the last-mile process. However, meeting these demands is not as easy as it looks. This is primarily because ecommerce businesses hand over the reins of the last-mile and post-purchase to the shipping carrier. 

Your shipping carrier on the other hand is already overwhelmed by their delivery volumes and has no interest nor commitment to your customer experiences (CX). 

But before we take a look at how to get the best out of last-mile carriers and grow your business, let’s start from the basics.

What is a Last-mile Carrier?

A last-mile carrier is a shipping service provider that caters to your needs, particularly in the final leg of the delivery cycle.

The last-mile carrier can also constitute the other parts of the post-purchase customer journey, based on your requirements and their capacity. 

The primary expectation of the last-mile carrier is to provide quicker delivery options such as same-day delivery and be cost-efficient. As an ecommerce business owner, you need to choose a carrier that brings out both. Here are some different last-mile carrier options to give you an idea.

Last-mile carrier options

There are multiple last-mile carrier options each with its pros and cons. You can pick one that best suits your business’ needs.

• Single carrier method – Make use of major last-mile carrier providers such as FedEx, UPS, or DHL to fulfill your customers from end to end. Their experience and skill-sets can provide a guarantee for your packages to reach your customers’ doorsteps both quickly and safely. If your business is smaller, you can make use of smaller local or regional carriers. 
• Third-party logistics or 3PL – Make use of Third-party logistics (3PL) providers for complete solutions such as assembly, packaging, warehousing, and distribution. A reliable 3PL logistics process provider can maximize your profitability through their knowledge, expertise and resources.

Now that we’ve understood the basics of last-mile and carriers, it’s time to move on to how you can provide your customers with a great post-purchase experience, especially on the last mile. 

For that, you’ll need to understand the challenges that arise due to the current state of last-mile delivery.

Challenges of last-mile deliveries

1. Increased costs – Last-mile deliveries aren’t always successful. 1-in-3 deliveries face issues such as shipping delays, delivery exceptions, failed deliveries, porch pirates, etc. This can lead to increased shipping costs in the form of unwanted returns, customer acquisition, and more.
2. Negative impact on your customer loyalty metrics – Over 55% of the customers won’t return to a brand after just one instance of a bad delivery experience. This can impact your customer loyalty metrics such as CRR (customer retention rate) and CLTV (customer lifetime value).

Don’t let these challenges worry you. There’s an easy way to handle them. All you have to do is to implement proper last-mile carrier tracking and gain a competitive edge for your business. 

What is Last-mile Carrier Tracking and How Does it Provide a Competitive Edge?

Last-mile carrier tracking is nothing but gaining complete visibility into your last mile. It is the ability to track and trace the shipping carrier’s location and parcel status from the transportation hub to the designated destination. 

93% of customers expect complete visibility while tracking their orders and viewing real-time shipping information and 47% of consumers will not shop again with a brand that does not provide order tracking visibility. Therefore, the importance of carrier tracking in the last mile is evident. 

That’s not all! Last-mile carrier tracking also provides a multitude of benefits for your business and end-users.

Last-mile carrier tracking benefits for your customers

1. Complete transparency during order tracking

With the help of real-time visibility, make sure your customers can seamlessly track their orders via order tracking pages and know at a glance what’s happening with their orders in the last mile.

This gives them a sense of control of their orders and ergo, increases their CX during the order delivery phase.

2.Receive regular communication on order status updates and delivery events

Apart from enabling your customers to track their orders, you can as well send post-purchase transactional Emails and SMS notifications to keep your customers in the loop of their orders throughout the delivery lifecycle. 

This can help in reducing your customers’ anticipations during the most anxious stage of their journey.

Last-mile carrier tracking benefits for your business

1. Resolve delivery issues proactively

Empower your support team to proactively resolve issues such as delivery delays, frequent WISMO calls, etc, and take preemptive action before such discrepancies impact your customers. 

This can help in reviving customers’ trust in your brand.

2. Collect delivery feedback from customers

Get your customers’ feedback on their delivery experiences and understand customer satisfaction. You can then use this information to make better shipping decisions and optimize the experience as well.

This way, your customers will be impressed with your efforts and will prefer you to your competitors.

How Lateshipment.Com Can Help with Last-mile Carrier Tracking (and More!)

LateShipment.com is a unified cloud solution for everything post-purchase that helps you: 

1. Identify shipments facing issues at a glance

• View real-time shipping data across carriers, services, and delivery locations
• Get predictive analytics of delivery delays identified for you

2. Resolve critical shipping incidents before they happen

• Trigger automated tickets on your helpdesk
• Easily spot shipments that may require attention in your dashboard
• Send custom notifications tailored to specific situations

3. Reduce delivery inquiries by 70% with real-time updates

• Send automated email and SMS shipping notifications
• Seamlessly integrate with your email marketing tools

4. Leverage tracking moments to drive 25% repeat sales

• Add an order tracking widget anywhere
• Create custom branded tracking pages
• Use tracking moments to drive sales via product recommendations, offers, marketing campaigns, etc

5. Decode customer sentiment and engagement

• Measure how your customers are engaging with your brand post-purchase
• Know from your customers the experience your brand delivered
• Review carrier performance in the last mile and make better shipping choices

6. Audit shipping invoices and claim refunds

• Effortlessly recover up to 20% of shipping costs through refund claims
• Improve carrier performance by regularly collecting refunds

7. Manage returns effectively

• Automate and make returns self-service to remove the hassle
• Make returns profitable via exchanges and store credit options

Bottom Line

To make it easier for you to implement last-mile carrier tracking, 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.

Last-mile Carrier Tracking FAQs

What is a last-mile carrier?

A last-mile carrier is a shipping service provider that caters to your needs, particularly in the final leg of the delivery cycle. The last-mile carrier can also constitute the other parts of the post-purchase customer journey, based on your requirements and their capacity.

What is last mile tracking?

Last-mile carrier tracking is gaining complete visibility into your last mile by making use of your ability to track and trace the location and parcel status from the transportation hub to the designated destination.

What is last mile delivery management?

A last mile delivery platform or solution is a tool that helps in creating delightful delivery experiences for your ecommerce business in the last mile. With a last-mile delivery platform, you can not just meet but exceed your customers’ expectations. It helps you with a host of benefits such as real-time tracking, proactive communication, customer feedback recording, etc.

Why is carrier tracking in the last mile so important?

The last-mile is the most expensive and tedious part of the shipping and delivery process. Tracking your parcels in real-time and more can help you reduce costs and scale your business operations.

How to make the best use of last-mile carrier tracking

You can make the best use of last-mile carrier tracking by sharing real-time order updates with your customers via branded tracking pages and customer notifications. This can help you increase customer trust and make them repeat shoppers. Also, you can use last-mile tracking moments to collect customer feedback and know what they perceive of your brand.

The post Last-mile Carrier Tracking: A Competitive Edge for Your Ecommerce Business appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

The retail industry has been undergoing a digital transformation for years. It has improved in speed, efficiency, and accuracy, thanks, in large part, to improved data and predictive analytics technologies that allow firms to make data-driven business decisions. None of these insights would be possible without the internet of things (IoT) and, more importantly, artificial intelligence (AI). 

Retailers now have access to high-level data and information, which they can utilize to improve operations and open up new business opportunities. In fact, AI in retail is expected to create $40 billion in additional income over the next three years. Many industries use the term artificial intelligence, yet many people don’t fully get what it means. 

Artificial intelligence and machine learning refer to the technology that can collect, process, and analyze large volumes of data to predict, forecast, inform, and support retailers in making reliable, data-driven business decisions. These technologies can even work on their own, transforming raw data from IoT and other sources into actionable insights with the help of advanced analytics.

AI Applications in Retail

AI has a significant impact on the retail industry, accelerating and automating a handful of functionalities. Below, we’ll discuss a list of AI applications in retail to give you a headstart:

Provides valuable data to keep track of Inventory

In the retail industry, artificial intelligence is improving demand forecasts.

AI business intelligence systems foresee industry movements and make proactive changes to a company’s marketing, merchandising, and business strategies by mining insights from the marketplace, customer, and competition data. This has ramifications for supply chain planning, pricing, and promotional planning. 

Creating interactive chat programs in the retail business is a fantastic way to employ AI technologies while improving customer service and engagement. These bots use AI and machine learning to engage with customers, answer common questions, and direct them to useful answers and outcomes. As a result, these bots collect crucial client data and then label the data that can be used to inform future business decisions.

Maintaining appropriate stocks is a major concern for retailers. By connecting more aspects of their business and using AI to help with inventory management, retailers may get a holistic view of their stores, customers, and merchandise.

Helps you understand customer behavior

The more you understand customer behavior and trends, the more you’ll be able to meet demand and provide the best products possible. 

AI might help retailers improve demand forecasting, pricing, and product positioning. As a result, customers have access to the right products at the right time and in the right place.

Predictive analytics can help you order the right amount of inventory, ensuring that shops don’t have too much or too little on hand. AI may be able to track data from online channels, enabling better e-commerce activities. 

New kinds of AI can help you understand customer intent and personalize the shopper’s journey accordingly at the retail edge. One instance is marking some areas in stores using heat mapping. Cameras and computer vision combine to indicate which items are picked up, returned, and where the customer goes after leaving the shelf.

Empowers you to offer stellar customer support

Whether it’s a little boutique or a worldwide behemoth, businesses strive to deliver quick, customized, and delightful shopping experiences.

Customers should be able to locate what they’re searching for easily, obtain assistance when needed, and check out swiftly. These operations are streamlined by AI to help generate more fulfilling client experiences. 

Customers are being recognized by mobile and digital portals, which are personalizing the e-commerce experience to reflect their current environment, previous purchases, and buying activity. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are continually evolving a user’s digital experience to develop hyper-relevant displays for each interaction. Customer engagement may be measured using digital signage with computer vision, and real-time advertising tailored to the audience can be served. AI gives additional opportunities to tailor experiences, from the retail edge to the cloud.

Manages fluctuating pricing

AI applications in retail outlets might aid in the pricing of items by showing the anticipated results of various pricing schemes. 

Systems collect information on other items, promotional efforts, sales numbers, and other data in order to carry out this task. 

Business owners can showcase the greatest deals to attract new clients and increase revenue. eBay and Kroger both use Artificial Intelligence to optimize their pricing and remain flexible in their capacity to modify rates and promotions based on the data they collect. 

The price of a product is forecasted based on demand, seasonal trends, attributes, the release date of new versions of the same item, and other factors. Its most obvious application is in the travel business, but it might also be utilized in retail. 

Consider an app or service that allows your consumers to see how the price of a product will change in advance. This is doable and simple to accomplish using Artificial Intelligence.

Improve shopping experience

During the buying process, Artificial Intelligence (AI) may also help in the detection and segmentation of your customers’ emotions. Walmart has already employed face recognition technology for this reason. 

Each checkout line is equipped with cameras, and if a customer becomes agitated, a business employee will talk with him or her. Mood tracking will surely contribute to the formation of stronger client relationships. Business owners may utilize behavioral economics to build a customized strategy for each consumer using Artificial Intelligence technologies.

Wrapping up

AI’s role in the retail industry is increasing exponentially all the time.

Applications in retail are not only bound to a software end but several other fields such as Internet-of-things and robotics also play an important role in the development of such systems so this process includes most of the major engineering disciplines and because of such facts, any company that fails to focus on such developments might struggle to stay contemporary or compete internationally. 

Such innovation not only increases the overall working skills but also eliminates the requirement for traditional or antiquated systems with intelligent automation, such as inventory management. 

AI is simply changing the way stores function for the better. You can put your shop in a better position to make better decisions, increase sales, and eventually improve customer retention by implementing AI. So, there’s no better time than now to start incorporating AI into your daily operations.

As you consider how to include AI into your retail organization, keep in mind the several advantages listed above. You may be well on your way to attaining a whole new level of business growth in the months and years ahead with the correct AI technologies.

This article is a contribution by Melanie Johnson.

Melanie Johnson is an AI and computer vision enthusiast with a wealth of experience in technical writing. Passionate about innovation and AI-powered solutions. Loves sharing expert insights and educating individuals on tech.

The post 5 Ways AI Can Transform the Retail Industry: Examples and Benefits appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

Imagine if a product you’ve longed to collect for years gets stolen from you. And guess what? It was stolen right at your doorstep by fellow people dubbed ‘the porch pirates.’

Package thefts are so frustrating for the customer because of the fact that they can’t hold anyone responsible for the mishap of not being able to get their hands on their much awaited purchases except themselves and the “pirates” who scooted away with their package. 

But you as an ecommerce business owner can save your customers from such bad times and stop package theft by porch pirates or if not even drastically reduce them to a great extent. 

However, before we get to know the ‘how’ part, let’s take a further look at porch pirates and their impact on your business.

Who Are Porch Pirates and How They Can Affect Your Business?

Porch pirates are average individuals or a group who steal packages off customers’ doorstep or porches when it is left unattended.

Much like kleptomaniacs, Porch pirates are simply opportunists who cannot resist an opportunity to pick up packages they see lying on doorsteps or porches. 

A recent study by Safewise found that a staggering 210 million packages vanished from porches across the US over the past 12 months. 

The scale of the problem is only getting worse as more people begin to shop online. The problem gets exacerbated during the holiday season because it’s at this time of the year that people shop online the most. And it is common for people to leave on holiday while ordered packages lie on their doorstep. 

Worry not! The situation is not out of hand. There are measures your business can take to stay safe from the scourge of package thieves that America is facing. Here are some things you could do. 

What Retailers Can Do to Prevent Package Theft by Porch Pirates

There are a lot of ways in which retailers and shoppers can work together to prevent a theft attempt by porch pirates. Let’s take a look at the ways in the timeline of the order delivery cycle even before it gets shipped. 

1. Package discreetly

When a package is dropped off on the porch of a house, it can sit up like a duck waiting to be shot. Porch pirates dream about just such a situation. Packaging discreetly can help avoid this situation.

There are many ways to make a package discreet. One way is to avoid excessive branding. Another way to make a package less noticeable is to reduce the amount of product-descriptive text on it.

Larger boxes are more attractive to porch pirates because they give the impression of a larger pay-off. Using a box that fits the size of the product will help make the package less noticeable while also helping to reduce the cost of shipping.

2. Provide your customers with flexible delivery options

It is best to start by leaving things to the judgment of your customers and the utmost importance for them would be the delivery. 

There is a multitude of choices when it comes to making your delivery options flexible.

For example: you can provide multiple shipping and delivery options like Same-day delivery, BOPIS, etc to let your customers choose their own delivery time and follow up with offering 4-5 time windows throughout the day. 

Apart from package safety, such flexibility in delivery options can also help you increase conversions, lower cart abandonment, and improve brand loyalty in general. 

3. Keep your customers updated about the status of shipments

Proper communication is key to eliminating many of the pain points of the post-purchase shipping experience. This is a good way to deal with the risk of package theft as well.

• The first aspect of proper communication with customers is to provide them with the right estimate of the delivery date and time. 
• The next step to be taken is to give them periodic updates on the status of the parcel in transit. These updates can be provided via SMS or e-mail or both. This will help customers be prepared at the time of delivery.
• The final step in this process of communication is to drop a message once the actual delivery is about to be/has been performed. A helpline number can be provided to assist in case of discrepancies.

4. Use emerging technologies to ensure safe delivery

Using emerging technologies can help you stay one step ahead of porch pirates. 

A lot of businesses today have come up with package guarding technologies that can come in handy for your customers. You can suggest any of these technologies to your customers and play a role in providing a safe delivery. This, in turn, can help in improving their post-purchase experience. 

• Amazon has come up with the Amazon Key, a smart lock that allows delivery persons to place packages not only at homes but also in garages and cars when the customer isn’t available at home. 
• There’s also the Amazon locker at select locations, that customers can make use of to pick up their packages with a unique code.
• Suggest using package guarding services such as The Package Guard or Door Box to protect your packages via secure locks and anti- theft alarms, etc.
• Encourage customers to install doorbell cameras and home security systems to deter porch pirates in most cases. 

Such technologies can be especially useful when shoppers are away on a short trip or a long holiday vacation.

That’s not all! If you’re still concerned about your customers’ packages being stolen, know that there are many measures available to them to deter package thieves.

What Shoppers Can Do to Prevent Package Theft by Porch Pirates

1. Route Packages to Office Addresses

Home deliveries are fraught with problems: package thieves looting drop-off deliveries, irresponsible mailmen or carriers leaving packages on the front door without even knocking or ringing the door, pre-signing delivery without consent, or delaying home delivery by sending notifications too early. 

All this can be avoided by routing packages to office addresses where they are processed officially. The probability of losing packages to package thieves is much less with office deliveries. This is also why FedEx/UPS charges more to deliver to residential zip codes than to office zip codes.

2. Mandate signatures on delivery

A mandated signature delivery can help in preventing package theft in most cases. An arrangement can be signed off with mutual consent from the sender and the receiver (you, that is). If a package is lost and there is no signature of delivery, a legal procedure can ensure that you receive a replacement or full refund.

3. Place packages on hold when on holiday

If you are away on holiday, you can opt to place your pending packages on hold. While USPS and FedEx offer a free service to hold packages for a certain period, UPS charges for every rescheduling.

4. Opt for in-store pickup

Click-and-collect is increasingly becoming a trend. Using this mode of delivery, you can order online and collect the ordered parcel from an outlet located near your home. This mode is particularly useful for ordering a larger number of items.

Bottom Line

While the threat of package theft continues to increase year on year, some measures can be taken by both retailers and customers to ensure package safety and a smooth last-mile experience. Retailers, shipping carriers, and end customers need to work hand in hand to stay ahead of package thieves.

A Little about LateShipment.com

We at LateShipment.com work hard to make “parcel shipping & delivery” transparent and help businesses be fully in control of their last-mile success.

Here are some ways in which LateShipment.com can help you regarding packages getting lost or stolen:

• With our real-time tracking solution, you can step in before customer impact and proactively address them, thereby instilling confidence in your customers.
• With automated and customized shipping notifications, keep your customers in the loop about the whereabouts of their order with proactive communication and free up your support time to focus on more pressing issues.

That’s not all! In case of packages that get lost due to carrier negligence, LateShipment.com can also help you automate refund claims from your shipping carriers for service failures to help you save up to 20% on shipping costs.

The value we add to businesses is most evident when experienced first-hand. Learn more about our solution here.

The post Porch Pirates: How to Handle Them and Prevent Package Theft appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

Understanding Shipping Labels

Shipping labels are an important part of any business’ package delivery process because when they’re damaged or missing, your parcels can probably get lost and ultimately hurt your customers’ delivery experience. 

In several instances e-commerce businesses, 3PLs, drop shippers, etc with huge shipping volume print ‘extra’ labels at times and use them on orders that more often than not get delivered. 

Statistics show that labels are used on at least 10-15% of undelivered orders every month. 

These labels attached to undelivered packages are referred to as unused shipping labels and can be an unexpected burden on your business. This is because shipping carriers such as FedEx and UPS charge money for all shipping labels created through your account (even if it was created by your 3PL provider or drop shipping partner). 

It’s all cool if you use the label. But why pay for it when it goes unused? Therefore, it is important to handle unused labels to make your business operations even more efficient. 

Here are some details on how e-commerce businesses can handle unused shipping labels billed to third parties and what LateShipment.com does to help streamline the process.

How to Handle Unused Shipping Labels

While the expenses from unused shipping labels are necessarily a worry for your business, there is still a way for you to have a sigh of relief. Almost all labels generated through FedEx, UPS, any other carrier, or shipping automation platforms, etc can be voided before they are charged in your invoice. 

• Cancel a FedEx shipment here
• Void a UPS shipment here 

However, in most cases, this is not as easy as it looks due to the difficulty of manually voiding unused labels.

Stringent deadlines to void unused labels

Within 90 days of creating your shipping label on UPS’ website, you can void your shipment through your shipping history. This window is quite tight with FedEx as cancellation can be done only before midnight central time on the day it was created or on the date on the label (for future day shipments). Shipments with past shipping dates cannot be canceled.

The onus of voiding shipping labels is on you

With such a rigid deadline, voiding shipping labels is generally harder when you ship your packages through a third-party logistics provider or a drop shipper. When an unused label created by a third party needs to be voided, they have to notify you of it, and only then can you proceed with the claims process. This makes a majority of refunds for voiding unused labels go unclaimed.

Unused labels are hard to find

When you’re manually auditing your shipping invoice for checking out labels to be voided, you have to skim through all of the shipments manifested during that time. The process of finding and voiding unused items can be tedious and cumbersome, given your huge shipping volume. 

Worry not! There’s some good news for you. 

LateShipment.com’s automated parcel audit solution makes it easy for you to void unused shipping labels created by you or third-party shipping partners on your behalf. Here’s how we do it. 

How LateShipment.Com Can Help You Handle Unused Shipping Labels

Like we said before, only you have the access to void unused labels. But what makes this fact worse is that you, the merchant, aren’t aware of it unless you are notified by customers (or others in case of third-party shipments).

Since an unused label is irrelevant for a shopper, LateShipment.com notifies you, customers, on your behalf under ‘Fulfillment delay’.

If a label remains unused 3 days after it has been created since that most likely indicates a delay in shipping. Therefore, your customers are now notified via email and SMS of the possibility of a delay. If the customer has canceled their order and the delay turns out to be an unused shipping label, you can then proceed to void it immediately. 

That’s not all! You can also enable your support reps to set up trigger notifications under ‘Unused Shipping Label’ on their help desk platform. This makes it even easier to alert/inform their internal team if shipping labels remain unused. 

The best part is, LateShipment.com monitors your shipping invoices regularly. If at all, your claim to void a shipping label hasn’t been refunded yet, we will recover them for you and deposit the money directly into your account. Our systems have escalation processes built in and we have an expert team to follow up and dispute any denied claims to ensure maximum refund recovery.

Bottom Line

It is high time you stopped overpaying your shipping carriers. Especially due to something as trivial as unused shipping labels. 

Try LateShipment.com now and save 20% of your shipping costs by claiming refunds for not just unused labels but 50 other delivery failures and billing errors committed by shipping carriers. 

Think of us as your advocates making sure you get your money back – only our process is quick and automated. And there are zero out-of-pocket costs. All you have to do is, say the word: “Audit”! ( And of course, follow it up with a 2 minute sign up process with LateShipment.com). 

The post How to Handle Unused Shipping Labels appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

eCommerce brands are constantly looking forward to improve their services at every touchpoint to build a loyal customer tribe and grow. And one way they are advancing in their said vision is by constantly adopting newer technology in every area of operations — such as product discovery and website optimization.  

All of this boils down to providing immaculate CX and increasing their operational efficiency, given we as a market are moving towards an experience-based economy from the previous price-based economy. 

Over 45% of business professionals say that CX is the number one priority for them (rather than price and the product itself) when it comes to repeat shopping. 

Understanding how you can leverage technology to enhance the experience on your store is pivotal in picking the right tool to support your scaling efforts and improve your customers’ experiences at every stage of their journey.  

However, the grim reality is that most businesses today are ready to invest in pre-purchase and purchase phases of the customer journey, but often oversee the post-purchase phase. In fact, it is the post-purchase phase that truly builds trust and confidence in customers before they choose to shop from you again.

The post-purchase experience takes up 50% of the overall order experience and is key to boosting repeat purchases. 

With advanced shipment tracking, delivery, and returns management tech, brands big or small can easily provide great post-purchase experiences that drive fierce customer loyalty. 

But before we dive into that, let’s understand the need for a great post-purchase experience. 

Why Do Brands Need to Provide Their Customers with a Great Post-Purchase Experience?

Offering a great post-purchase customer experience is not an option but more of a necessity. The CX in the post-purchase phase makes up 50% of the overall order experience. Not paying attention to your customers at this phase, creates a big CX gap that comes with a lot of consequences in the form of:

• 1-in-3 customers abandon a brand after just one bad delivery or returns experience
• 30% of customers share negative experiences with close ones and on social media, demotivating other prospects from shopping with you
• Up to 40% of customer support tickets created are shipping, delivery, or returns related
• 8 to 10 customer engagement and revenue growth opportunities are lost during the post-purchase customer journey
• Average NPS scores are 4 or below for customers facing delivery or returns issues.  

An alarming 22% – 30% of your Holiday parcels will face delivery issues due to shipping network congestions.

This is more than enough to show that you are entitled to miss out on lot of things by not paying attention to your post-purchase experience. 

Worry not! 

This is the right time to kick off your journey to providing a stellar post-purchase experience, given that he holiday season is a time when eCommerce witnesses a spike in orders. 

So, here’s how you can enhance your customers’ post-purchase experience. And for the best part, here are some ways for you to do that without making any changes to the existing tools that you’re using.

Leverage Existing Tools to Enhance Your Customers' Holiday Post-Purchase Experience

Offering your customers a great post-purchase experience was never out of your grasp. All you needed to do was to extend your capabilities of delivery and returns management. This Holiday season, take control of how your customers interact with your brand post-purchase without changing the tools you use.

Drive post-purchase CX success with tools to: 

1. Gain real-time visibility into shipments in transit

Delivery issues such as delays are 1.5x – 2x during the Holiday season. 

Having a third-party real-time tracking solution and integrating your shipping carriers and delivery partners such as USPS, DHL, FedEx, or UPS, Canada Post, Purolator, etc gives you an unbiased, unprecedented visibility into your shipments in transit (across carriers, services, and geographies).

A mere look at your dashboard can now provide you an immediate idea about how many of your parcels will be delivered during the day and how many are likely to face delivery issues.

2. Identify delivery failures/issues before customers are affected by them

Receiving predictive alerts whenever your parcels are more inclined to fail, lets you step in where necessary and take necessary corrective measures. 

By getting delivery delays identified for you well before they happen, you can take preemptive action before the issues impact your customer. Such actions display would result in your customers appreciating your efforts, which can prove to be fruitful during times like the Holiday season. 

3. Empower your support reps to proactively resolve shipping-related issues

Extend post-purchase visibility to your helpdesk platform such as Freshdesk, Gorgias, Zendesk, etc to take preemptive action on parcels facing issues this Holiday season. 

Automatically trigger delivery-related tickets for several common delivery issues and enable your customer support team to take quick action.

Proactively resolve delivery issues by informing your customers of the issue and offer them a solution for the same. 

Being proactive mitigates your customers’ worries and sets them on the path towards satisfaction. Moreover, It also reduces the burden on your support team during the busy season and lets them focus on product-related queries.

4. Effectively engage and communicate with customers post checkout

Once you have proactively resolved issues, you must look forward to meaningfully communicate with your customers.

Integrating your email marketing automation tools such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp and CRM platforms such as Zoho CRM and Freshsales, etc, and take customer engagement in the post-purchase phase to an all-new level.

Communicating relevant information at the right time to customers makes a whole world of difference for a customer anticipating their order (especially during the Holiday season when their parcels are prone to delays). Therefore, lookout to send post-purchase transactional Emails and SMS notifications to keep your customers in the loop of their orders throughout the delivery lifecycle.

Not just shipping transactional notifications, you can also effectively use customer engagement when your customers’ parcels are facing uncommon delivery issues such as weather-related delays during the Holiday season.

5. Delight your customers with branded order tracking experiences

After proactive issue resolution and meaningful customer communication, comes hyper-engagement.

Connect your eCommerce platform such as Shopify, Shift4Shop, etc and hyper-engage your customers via branded order tracking experiences in order to delight them and increase your customers’ retention rates and lifetime value. 

Apart from enabling your customers to seamlessly track their orders, you can also use this post-purchase touchpoint as a means to drive sales via product recommendations and marketing campaigns.

6. Enable easy and frictionless returns for your customers

Integrate your eCommerce store or Order Management Systems such as Linnworks, GoShippo, etc, and provide your customers with a seamless returns experience along with rewarding delivery experiences. 

• Having a clear-cut returns policy
• Offering free and flexible returns
• Automating your returns process and make order returns as easy as shopping, etc

Can all help you make returns easy, frictionless, and an integral part of your post-purchase strategy. 

One Simple Integration, a World of Retail Benefits

Pairing LateShipment.com to your existing CRM, eCommerce, order management and helpdesk tools allow you to tap into all the great benefits that can take your business to the next level. 

LateShipment.com integrates seamlessly with your existing tools and makes it possible to boost their capabilities in the following ways: 

Additionally, LateShipment.com also can integrate with custom-built tools and platforms. Our API makes it easy to enable such integrations.

At LateShipment.com, we are committed to enabling your business to wrest control of the post-purchase experience you provide customers. Therefore, integrate your tech-stacks with LateShipment.com and stand apart from your competitors by offering your customers near white-glove service in the post-purchase phase. 

Ready to try out some of our integrations? – Get Started 

Still, having doubts? – Talk to our integration expert

The post Enhance Holiday Post-Purchase Experience with Existing Tools appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

The contemporary shipping process is changing rapidly, and as a shipper, you need to streamline your process.

Streamlining your company’s shipping process implies having a more efficient and speedy supply chain, something most clients prefer.

Forbes suggests that, you need to devise effective ways to speed up the shipping process for your company to remain competitive. Therefore, we’ve come up with a few tips to help you streamline and speed up your shipping process. 

1. Enhance Your Company's Warehouse Communication

Proper communication in your warehouse is crucial for a streamlined and speedy shipping process. Therefore, you should ensure that communication with your warehouse is clear and timely to avoid delays.

Ensure you communicate with your warehouse staff on how they should conduct processes to enhance efficiency. This is particularly crucial if you’re offering cross-country car shipping because timely communication prevents delays.

Ultimately, laying down proper communication channels can help speed up the shipping process for your business.

2. Partner with the Most Effective Shipping Carrier

If you’re looking for ways to speed up your shipping process, then you should partner with a reputable and efficient shipping carrier.

This means prioritizing on-time deliveries and proper handling of damages to avoid loss or damage.

Also, when choosing a carrier, ensure you select one that can handle pressure situations. Such a carrier can help you deliver urgent packages per your customers’ needs, helping you gain a competitive advantage.

3. Streamline Your Company's Internal Processes

Most shipping companies implement many systems or programs for a single internal process.

However, this ends up converting a simple task into a complex and sluggish process, leading to frustrations and delays.

Therefore, if your company’s internal processes are prolonged and frustrating, try simplifying them or developing new simple, efficient, and speedy processes.

In the end, simplifying your internal processes can help speed up your company’s shipping process.

4. Plan for Customs Clearance Beforehand

Preparing early for customs clearance is a great way to speed up your shipping process.

Often, customs clearance is a long and tiring process that can cause delays in your shipping process.

The most effective way to address this is to plan for customs clearance in advance.

Consequently, you can avoid delays and last-minute frustrations to beat the deadline for delivering packages to clients.

5. Invest in Shipping Capabilities that Meets Demand

To speed up the shipping process for your company, you have to invest in shipping capabilities that can meet customer demand.

I.e, you have to ensure that the shipping trucks you’re using are spacious to accommodate all the products they need to ship.

This way, you can speed up the shipping process for your business to meet customer needs.

6. Provide Real-time Order Tracking

Today’s customers want to know where their parcel has reached and when they expect to receive it. For this reason, you need to offer real-time order tracking for your clients to understand the status of their luggage whenever they want.

This can help improve your shipping process by keeping your clients informed about the location of their parcel.

Also, having order tracking capabilities can help you identify and resolve issues early enough to allow timely delivery.

Ultimately, providing order tracking is an excellent way to develop trust with your clients and optimize your company’s shipping process.

Having order tracking capabilities can help you identify and resolve issues early enough to allow timely delivery.

7. Implement Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

EDI is a strategy that is implemented by many shipping companies which replace traditional paperwork with electronic data.

By replacing paperwork with electronic data, your shipping company can process data faster, speeding up the shipping process.

Besides, EDI can process large volumes of data within a short period, eliminating possible delays.

Ultimately, implementing the latest data processing technology in your business can greatly speed up the shipping process.

Wrap Up

Speeding up your company’s shipping process is critical for you to meet today’s client needs.

You have to devise new and efficient ways to streamline your delivery process to meet client expectations and remain competitive.

For instance, you can enter into a partnership with the most effective courier service and enhance your company’s warehouse communication.

You can also offer real-time order tracking and invest in shipping capabilities that meet customer demands.

This is a guest post Mckenzie Jones

The post [eCommerce 2021] 7 Ways to Speed Up Your Business’ Shipping Process appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

Why Do Packages Get Damaged in the First Place?

The packages you dearly send to your customers can get damaged for various reasons such as 

1. Mishandling at the sorting facility – sorting your fragile package under other heavier packages
2. Wrong packaging – Haphazard packaging using cheap packing material for cutting costs
3. Damaged in-transit – Bad weather or road conditions too can weaken your packaging and damage the contents within. 

What Happens When Your Customer Receives Packages That Are Damaged?

Here’s a short but not so sweet description of what would happen if such an event occurs:

• Even if the order reaches on time with all its contents, when the customer finds it damaged there are still chances of them getting frustrated
• It doesn’t matter if the carrier has caused the damage, the customer holds YOU responsible for damaged packages and decides not to shop with you
• To make matters worse, they also tend to take the issue to social media and tarnish your reputation, demotivating others from shopping with you as well.  

Is that distress I see in your face? There’s no need to worry… 

Before you start to panic over what can be done, we’ll just spoil the ending for you.

Yes, just like late deliveries, lost packages, or even package theft – issues that arise from damaged packages can also be resolved and you can turn your frustrated customer into a happy one that shops with you again. 

Stay tuned to learn how you can effectively handle damaged packages, so that you recover your lost dollars and your customers are no longer frustrated – that’s two birds with one stone.

How to Handle Damaged Packages

By making use of the right packaging material and technique you can reduce damage to an extent but despite all that, a package gets damaged and your customer informs you of it – What’s next? 

1. First things first – Acknowledge your mistake even if you had nothing to do with it. The last thing your customer wants is you staying mum over the issue or a blame game between you and the carrier. Therefore, take this as an opportunity to communicate with your customer at the earliest and apologize. This makes sure that their frustration is mitigated to an extent. 
2. Secondly – Ensure a fast resolution. Assure the customer that the issue will be resolved based on their requirement ASAP. This further elevates their satisfaction levels. 
3. Last but not least – Make sure they receive a compensation offer to make it worth their while. This is kind of a bonus, pro-tip. But works to your advantage when it comes to changing your customer from a frustrated one to a happy one. 

Also, you need to watch out for fraudulent claims made by certain customers over damaged packages. They might have damaged it themselves or simply fake damage for personal gain. 

In such cases, you can follow the footsteps of other retailers who require proof of damage or cross-verify with the shipping carrier for a seamless issue resolution. 

While acknowledging and providing a resolution works to your advantage to an extent, there are still certain hurdles you need to watch out for while handling damaged packages.

Handling damaged packages is an expensive process

Faux or not, either way, handling damaged package queries are expensive. 

• If the customer’s frustration doesn’t seem to reduce and they stop shopping with you – you have to spend on customer acquisition costs
• If you’re looking to reduce their frustration, you’ve to spend on refunds, product returns, sending out replacements, providing special offers, etc. 

 Don’t you worry! There are time-tested ways for you to recover the costs you spent on damaged packages. For example, The shipping carrier indeed provides an option for you to claim refunds for damaged packages as compensation under their service guarantee.

How to File a Claim for Damaged Packages with the Shipping Carrier

Here are a few things you need to keep in mind if you’re going to file a claim for damaged packages:

1. If the contents of the package cost less than $100, you can complete the entire form online and request a refund without documentation.
2. In the event of the package costing anywhere above $100, proper documentation is necessary for the claim to get processed.
3. Documentation can include pickup records, photos of the damaged contents, and proof of value documentation.
4. The tracking number that was initially allocated to the package is vital to the process and has to be provided.

After a scheduled inspection, your claim will be processed and you can track its progress.

While these are the common things you should be aware of, here are more specific conditions that adhere to particular shipping carriers. 

• FedEx damaged packages claim – must be reported within 21 calendar days and all supporting documentation filed within 9 months of the delivery date.
• UPS damaged packages claim – file within 5 months online, within 9 months through customer service, and within 45 days if it is an uncollected C.O.D
• USPS damaged packages claim – file within 60 days for all services except Priority Mail Express, First class, and Surface Mail
• DHL damaged packages claim – file within 30 days

If you think filing refund claims for damaged packages is as straightforward as it looks, caution! It isn’t.

Filing refund claims for damaged packages by yourself is a huge hassle

Apart from running your hectic business, manually submitting claims with shipping carriers by yourself is a huge hassle for more reasons than one:  

So, what is the easy way out?

LateShipment.com’s Parcel Audit and Shipping Refunds solution effortlessly audits your invoices and helps save up to 20% on your shipping costs. The best part is that it takes less than 2 minutes to set up and seamlessly integrates with your existing workflow.

Our parcel audit and refunds solution: 

1. Not only submits claims on your behalf but also constantly follows up till issue resolution. 
2. Make sure that all claims are submitted within the timeframe of the carrier(s).
3. Not just damaged shipments, but also helps you recover refunds for 50+ service failures like late deliveries. 
4. And best of all this, you don’t have to pay anything out of your pockets. We only charge 50% of the refunds you’ve received, that too only when it is successfully recovered.

Damaged Packages? Here's How to Make Them Right

Sure, refunds are great for your business. 

But what about mitigating the pain of a loyal customer who has an important package such as an anniversary gift damaged in their hands?

That’s when our other feature Delivery Experience Management (DEM) platform can help. DEM is particularly helpful if you are a bulk shipper who uses multiple carriers and would prefer an efficient automated workflow.

DEM helps you track your parcels in real-time and lets you stay aware of packages that are damaged at the loading or sorting facility (when it is about to be sent out for delivery). 

By letting you know well in advance if your packages are damaged, it gives you an edge when you get in touch with the carrier to resolve the issue or send a quick replacement in case of a time-sensitive delivery.

While damages are inevitable, handling them appropriately can really be the deciding factor between your customers being agitated and calm. It also ensures that your customers go to the extent of becoming advocates for your brand based on your commitment to handle issues. 

Try LateShipment.com today and take your first step towards handling damaged packages or write to us at sales@lateshipment.com if you have any questions.

The post Damaged Packages: How to Handle Them appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

You might have come across many technical terms being hyped by tech-enthusiasts, but ‘cloud computing’ rightfully deserves the attention it has been getting over the last few years. 

Cloud computing is revolutionizing technology that has created a buzz in many business areas due to its ease of accessibility and flexibility.

According to the recent cloud computing statistics, the global public cloud market will exceed estimated expectations worth $330 billion as the year 2020 wraps up. 

After looking at such exponential figures, there is no doubt that companies worldwide have outgrown the outdated technologies and expanded their investments towards cloud computing.

Undoubtedly, the advanced technology has been successfully integrated into the logistics and shipment industry as well. 

Today, cloud-based logistics software is considered much more efficient to fulfill commercial needs and provide value-added services to customers. 

Let’s find out what pros and cons the revolutionary technology has for the logistics and shipping companies.

Advantages of Cloud computing in the Logistics Industry

The following are some of the best benefits one can reap by integrating cloud computing in the logistics industry.

1. More accessibility to real-time pricing updates

Various elements can directly affect pricing when it comes to transportation and warehousing. 

External factors like market conditions, customer demands, sales fluctuations, weather changes, and other such volatilities have the power to make or break your margins. 

 

Not every person can have real-time access to such fluctuations and call the next big trend change that could affect the pricing. Cloud computing does precisely that for you. It provides more accessibility to real-time pricing updates. 

 

Like for instance, you receive immediate notice that freight rates have changed, but if you are out of the station, you can still communicate the necessary changes needed to be made to accommodate the sudden change of rates in your favor.

2. Helps your business expand to accommodate customer demand

A smooth supply chain is essential for a company’s operational efficiency. 

Given the customer-centricity and the significance the supply chain provides to it, a streamlined supply chain can do a lot more to match customer demands. It can give your business a boost across all the associated supply chain channels without costing the business a fortune.

Organizations require flexibility and integration to survive the competition in the market. And cloud computing can be the right answer. 

Cloud computing is a game-changer for businesses to expand and meet customer demands by deploying new agility services.     

 

– Data from Accenture

3. Easy collaboration at every step of the supply chain

Logistics has been transformed ever since technology has been integrated every step of the way. 

Where the supply chain has become more complex and dependent on every step, a smooth and streamlined collaboration has become vital for sustaining your business operations. 

 

Because the supply chain quickly multiplies the cost down the value stream, even the slightest change that can help you save through access to real-time pricing information is a significant win for the company. 

Therefore, cloud-based logistics is the key to breaking down communication and pricing issues in the supply chain. It will help create a more predictable supply chain by connecting the process through the cloud.

4. Better data mobility among various departments involved

Logistics and shipment require real-time access to data from various departments. 

Deploying cloud computing allows better data mobility through the organization’s various departments to streamline the supply chain and make better decisions. This not only saves time and resources but instead directs the use of resources towards other innovations.

 

Cloud computing allows speedy data deployments of departments like management, maintenance, IT, and other upgrades that are involved in the supply chain. It affects efficiency and productivity through tangible means as it takes open and seamless integration of all the other departments involved to work together.

5. Create better transit models for efficient shipping

If your supply chain requires coordination from several suppliers spread on a larger scale, then it should be seamlessly aligned and synchronized. And cloud computing can help you do just that with regards to your logistics.  

Cloud-based logistics solutions easily provide real-time monitoring access to create better transit models for efficient shipping. 

The real-time data is not only remotely accessible, but it is available for the entire team regardless of time or location.

 

Even if you want in-transit models spanning on a global scale, cloud-based logistics solutions can be integrated to efficiently cover, optimize, and manage such formidable and complex trails.

It is easier to deploy and less-costly to initiate.

6. Supply chain transparency for better operations

Cloud solutions allow you to connect with multiple dimensions of your organization. 

You can connect with internal and external departments, your partners, and even the services that you have outsourced. 

As you integrate cloud in the supply chain and connect all of your inter-departmental partners, it provides real-time transparency at every supply chain level.

 

It allows you to keep your supply chain inbound functions, outbound operations, and logistics data process under control and your customers satisfied. 

The visibility at every step makes it easier and quicker to deploy the means that can carry forward the process, ultimately making it more streamlined.

7. Access to inventory and warehouse capacity figures

Inventory is the starting point and probably the full-circle endpoint of a supply chain. That is why on-hand inventory is the most direct way through which you can easily control the risk factors and optimize your costs. 

 

Cloud allows you to instantly access your on-hand inventory figures and information to maximize your ability to respond to the on-going fluctuations. 

The consistent inventory data flow through the cloud allows you access to specific details like profit margins and highest seller figures etc. 

Such valuable information can impact your sales significantly and allow you to make better orders to fulfill customer demands. 

Disadvantages of Cloud computing

Where cloud computing can be a shining gold armor for logistics and supply chain management, organizations should understand that there are just as many unique risks involved with cloud adoption.

1. Requires a lot more efficient access management

Cloud computing in logistics can lead to inefficient access management in two ways. 

One happens through an inefficient credential policy where there is no need for strong passwords to protect the data. 

There are no frequent updates in the system to counter any territorial breaches. 

The other one happens when risk is known as shadow IT or a rogue IT system that makes use of systems, devices, software applications, and services without a clearly defined IT approval.

2. Countering unauthorized use

It requires countering of unauthorized usage, whether the breach has been made through intentional or unintentional means. 

However, the main reason behind the breach is the irresponsibility of the employees who might be using untested and unauthorized means to access the cloud servers that harm the entire logistics and supply chain system.

3. Limited structural control

Due to the risk involved, the companies are advised to protect their systems to every extent possible. 

This minimizes the structural control but also closes the access to endpoints that can be exploited. 

Limiting potential attack surfaces can be detrimental to the overall supply chain structural integrity, but there is no other way to ground the operations safely.

4. Multiple clouds and interface issues

If the cloud system is accessed through an application program interface or API, it can automate almost every transaction your organization has ever made and expose it to the world. 

Such issues stem from several factors involved in the overall system.

 

Configuration and deployment of multiple clouds require the assurance that they are compatible with each other. 

Negligence towards and lack of investment made in this regard enables more APIs that can then become potential entry points for hackers.

5. Dealing with numerous stakeholders

As a logistics company, you would be having multiple suppliers, clients, and stakeholders in general.

Therefore, logistics companies must know the main stakeholders in freight distribution and how different actions can impact their corporate relations with them.   

The sharing of your resources and cloud system data among your stakeholders, tenants, and customers is risky.

Resources are vulnerable to leakage, and anybody with ill intentions can get easy access if they want to use such information against you.

Wrapping It Up!

All in all, there is no doubt that cloud-based solutions are here to stay when it comes to logistics, shipment, and supply chain companies. 

These companies can easily achieve better operations, execution of tasks, collaboration within the business circle, and overall high functionality through cloud computing.

 

Therefore, in the upcoming future, we will see many logistics companies moving towards and adopting such cloud practices and generally advancing in the digital realm of performing company operations.

Cloud computing may not be regarded as groundbreaking anymore due to its high adaptability in every business format. 

Still, it is breaking barriers when it comes to making seamless supply chain management processes for companies adopting it.

This article is a guest contribution by Samantha Kailee

Samantha Kaylee is currently working as a Planning Manager at Crowd Writer, an excellent platform that offers services like write my assignment UK. She has gained significant experience in logistics due to her previous job in a renowned shipping company. You can check out her blog for recommendations and expertise.

The post eCommerce Success: Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing in Logistics & Shipping for Emerging Businesses appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

We live in an experience economy. Experience is everything.

Consumers own brand perception. And experience drives how consumers perceive a brand.

Be it their journey to the checkout phase or their post-purchase, last-mile delivery phase, it is imperative that you provide customers with an experience that builds trust, is delightful, and creates a positive brand perception. 

With companies like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay rewriting the eCommerce playbook from a “delivery speed” and “customer experience” standpoint, your brand needs to exceed customer expectations to stand out among your competition.

The Post-Purchase Experience Gap

The time starting from when a retailer ships a package to when it is in the hands of a customer defines the customer’s post-purchase experience.

Retailers have exclusive control of the customer experience they offer from the point a customer is browsing on their website up until the moment the product is shipped. 

But this is where problems begin to crop up. Shipping is mostly looked at as a third-party function with retailers often considering their job done once a parcel has been handed off to the shipping carrier.

The truth, unfortunately, is that, regardless of how efficient shipping carriers are, 8 to 10 percent of parcels inevitably get delayed. This results in a situation where a significant percentage of customers are set up for disappointment.

The reason why this issue must be considered as a top priority is that when delivery delays do happen, customers more often than not point fingers at the retailer rather than at the shipping carrier.

What is an On-Brand Post-Purchase Experience?

The dictionary definition of on-brand states that whatever you’re creating is consistent with the look, feel, messaging, tone, voice, etc. of the brand you’ve built.

In layman’s terms, a branded post-purchase customer experience is not just providing “an experience” but rather “the experience”.

There are several ways to provide memorable post-purchase customer experiences that align with your brand beginning with sending customers an order confirmation mail.

But there are certain guidelines that retailers must follow to create a memorable delivery experience for customers from an on-brand perspective.

Principles of Creating an On-Brand Post-Purchase Experience in the Last-Mile

Creating an on-brand post-purchase customer experience in the last-mile involves two aspects

1. Customer Engagement – Engaging with your customers via notifications that associate with your brand’s tone, voice, language, etc. 
2. Brand Identity Elements – Creating on-brand tracking experiences via self-service tracking tools that align with the visual aspects of your brand such as color schemes, design, fonts, etc.

Let’s go over these aspects in detail.

1. Customer Engagement

Customer engagement is all about communicating with customers when it matters and forging relationships that last.

Engaged customers are loyal customers and it should be your mission to meaningfully engage with them at every stage.

It is a fact that highly engaged customers buy more, promote more, and demonstrate more loyalty. Research shows that a fully-engaged customer represents 23% more revenue than average.

Keep your customers informed through timely notifications in the form of automated or customized emails, SMSes, and more. This way, you can make more of a mark on your customers and indeed, delight them.

1.1 Automated notifications

Every customer of yours is anxious about their parcels in transit. This anxiety immediately leads to frustration and constant bombardment of your support team with WISMO calls.

You can make use of technology to send automated email notifications for certain checkpoints in an order’s delivery lifecycle such as “your order has been shipped”, “your order is in-transit” etc. and provide customers a link, allowing them to track their order.

You can edit these mail templates based on your brand’s language, color schemes, and other elements.

One of the perks of these emails is that you can personalize them by calling  customers by their names or preferred nicknames or use emojis or audio-visual content to make them as engaging as possible.

1.2 Customized notifications

Parcel delays in eCommerce are inevitable. Period.

What doesn’t help is the fact that shipping carriers tend to withhold information about delivery mishaps such as delays from their tracking pages.

Moreover, shipping carriers are not as invested in the success of a specific parcel from a specific retailer as the retailer themselves. Consequently, they tend to treat the parcel only as a constituent of a larger consignment.

The responsibility lies with the retailer to provide their customers with the best possible post-purchase experience despite the challenges involved.

When you come to know that your customer’s parcel is delayed in transit, you can proactively inform them that their order is going to reach them late and offer solutions based on their expectations such as

• re-shipping the order via an expedited shipping option
• offer a discount or a refund on their next purchase.

You can brand this touchpoint by reinforcing your brand identity with customers.

1.3 SMS notifications

Notifications only over email are insufficient in this day and age. SMS notifications are also required as customers nowadays shop and track parcels on mobile phones as well. In this context, it is pertinent to keep the following in mind:

• Most of us don’t check emails on a regular basis. 
• SMSes have a sense of urgency compared to mails.
• There is a high probability that your mails can get filtered out of your customer’s inbox and end up in their spam folder.
• If there’s any change in your customer’s order, it is easier to send out a quick SMS notification compared to a long email.

2. Brand Identity Elements

Once a shipping carrier takes custody of a parcel, they share a tracking URL with the retailer, who then shares it with the customer concerned.

Beyond this stage, shipping status information is periodically updated on the carrier’s tracking page, which the customer accesses to know of parcel status.

However, there is a significant downside to this.

a) The carrier’s tracking page lacks certain information while engaging with the customer

Carriers fail to inform about delivery exceptions such as delays, which is not what your customers want.

This is why you can create your own custom branded tracking page that

• Gives you control of the post-purchase experience you offer your customers
• Provides your customers with the constant, detailed updates they’re looking for 

b) The shipping-carrier-provided tracking page is a lost opportunity to engage with and monetize shoppers

The carrier tracking page is devoid of any brand personality or tone of voice, visually boring, and a marketing dead-end (not encouraging any further brand interaction).

Worry not though. There’s a better way to do tracking.

Rather than taking your customers to the carrier’s tracking page, you can direct them to your own tracking page that contains your unique language and color schemes, thus enhancing brand recognition and keeping your brand top of mind with your audiences.

You can also drive sales by subtly populating your tracking page with similar product suggestions and through upselling and cross-selling opportunities for your business, thereby boosting your bottom line over time. 

Advantages of On-Brand Post-Purchase Experience

Creating an on-brand post-purchase customer experience has a gamut of benefits for both customers and retailers.

• Keep your customers in the know of their parcel’s status and stay connected with them even in the post-purchase, order delivery phase.

• Meaningfully engage with them regarding any delivery exception such as delays to build trust and increase customer loyalty.
• Driving brand immersive tracking experiences for your customer leads to an increased Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and in turn ROI.
• Gain access to increased monetization opportunities on tracking moments with engaging marketing assets such as personalized recommendations and offers.

How LateShipment.com can Help You Provide an On-Brand Post-purchase Experience

LateShipment.com’s Delivery Experience Management (DEM) suite is chock-a-block filled with benefits for your business to provide an on-brand post-purchase experience. Read on to explore some of these.

Branded Customer Notifications

DEM helps you set up automated email and SMS notifications that are triggered and sent to customers when their parcels reach specific events during the shipping process.

DEM also provides you with the ability to send custom notifications to specific customers whose parcels are experiencing uncommon delays like unexpected weather exceptions.

All you have to do is verify your domain to make sure that the mail you send doesn’t end up in your customer’s spam folder. We take it from there.

Some of the features of the solution are – 

• Trigger automated notifications based on shipment status such as “shipped”, “attempted” or “delivered”.
• In order to send notifications with ease, we provide built-in mail tags such as customer name, email id/phone number, order number, etc.
• You need to connect your eCommerce store or CRM platform to use this feature, which is why we integrate with every major eCommerce and CRM platform. 
• You can also edit the mail templates based on your brand’s language, tone of voice, etc. 

Custom Branded Tracking Page

DEM provides you with the ability to create a branded tracking page that contains all necessary information about the package such as carrier and service information; shipped and delivery date; the current status of the package, with location; and the recent update shown as a priority.

If you have integrated your CRM platform, your customers can see additional details such as weight, order number, etc.

Additionally, the tracking page contains a Delivery Satisfaction (DSAT) score system through which, your customers can rate the delivery performance, which in turn helps you monitor your carrier’s performance. You can also link your tracking page to your Google Analytics account to know how your brand is perceived by your customers.

DEM also helps retailers add a tracking widget anywhere on their website such as on the order confirmation/ history page. Customers can enter the tracking number on the widget, which will redirect them to the branded tracking page.

In spite of the sky-high costs, tedious process, and accumulated complications, last-mile delivery will always remain the decisive leg of the supply chain process.

At LateShipment.com, our focus has remained steadfastly on the last mile, typically the part of the logistics chain that is the most opaque.

LateShipment.com is the world’s only logistics cloud tool that helps businesses of every size reduce shipping costs by up to 20% and provide memorable delivery experiences to customers at scale.

The best part is, it takes less than 2 minutes to see LateShipment.com in action.

COVID-19 Note: To help tide over the current crisis, we are giving all businesses full and free access to our Delivery Experience Management Platform till June 30, 2020.

The value we add to businesses is most evident when experienced first-hand.

It’s that simple!

The post How to Boost Customer Loyalty With an On-Brand Post-Purchase Experience appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

Introduction

Did you know that in a relay race, the fastest runner, also known as the ‘anchor,’ is usually assigned to the last leg of the race?

It is said that the fastest one has the best chance of making up for anything that went wrong during the earlier legs.

This analogy applies to your last mile too. 

Your efficiency in the last mile determines your commitment to meet your customers’ on-time delivery expectations and make a positive impact on how they perceive your brand.

However, unlike giants like Amazon who own their last-mile logistics, almost all online retailers rely heavily on third-party shipping carriers to fulfill orders. And with third-party vendors, parcel delays are inevitable and challenging to manage.

Now, what if there was a way to counter these issues and ensure your customers have memorable delivery experiences?

The solution lies in arming your business with “real-time visibility” of your shipments in transit.

Without any further ado, let’s understand what real-time visibility is and how your business can overcome some key last-mile challenges with it. 

1. What is real-time visibility?

Real-time visibility is the ability to track and trace parcels in real time, from the moment they’re picked up by a shipping carrier up until it is delivered to its designated destination.

Real-time visibility is enabled by technology that allows you to stay on the pulse of each of your parcels in transit and identify issues they face, thereby allowing you to take pre-emptive action to prevent customer pain.

2. Challenges in the last mile due to a lack of real-time visibility

Last-mile delivery is never an easy task for any business due to its operational complexity and high cost.

According to Business Insider, the last mile accounts for 53% of a business’s overall shipping costs.

That apart, inefficiencies like parcel delays and lost packages due to the lack of real-time visibility can further hurt your business in more ways than one.

In the ruthless world of eCommerce shipping, lack of in-transit visibility means putting your business in the backburner by not staying competitive.

Now, what are the challenges you could face in the last mile due to the lack of real-time visibility?

2.1 Lack of transparency into the performance of your shipping partner

Businesses usually lack visibility into their shipments once they are picked up by their third-party shipping partner.

And, in almost all cases, businesses are made aware of errors such as parcel delays only when an angry customer calls in.

Apart from staying in the dark during the crucial “order fulfillment” stage – the last mile, the final nail in the coffin is that 94% of shoppers blame the retailer for a bad delivery experience while less than half blame the shipping carrier.

It is noteworthy that shipping carriers often get away with their mistakes as there is a dearth of systems in place to hold them accountable. 

Lack of transparency into deliveries is only one of the challenges that arise because of the lack of visibility into the last mile.

2.2 Inadequate control over delivery issues before customer impact

Customers have little patience for errors these days.

47% of customers won’t shop with you again following a bad delivery experience. An inefficient last mile means you have to spend more on customer acquisition costs.

Just the lack of visibility in the last mile will escalate into higher costs, negative customer experiences, and all the hassle for getting new customers on board. 

Moreover, a bad delivery experience doesn’t just end in an overall negative customer experience but often further leads to disgruntled customers taking a swipe at your brand on social media and leaving negative reviews, thereby demotivating their friends and family from shopping with you.

Due to the inadequate control, customer support reps are forced to handle angry customers as there is a lack of information to deal proactively on delivery issues.

Not to forget, delivery issues also lead to additional loss of revenue in the form of returns and associated costs.

3. How real-time visibility can help you avoid these challenges

Providing a seamless last mile delivery experience is the trump card that puts you ahead of your competitors.

What needs to be done is for you to take complete control of your last mile and make it predictable and transparent. 

Having a tool that gives you real-time visibility helps you create memorable delivery experiences for your customers and ensures that you always delight them.

Now, let’s discuss how real-time visibility can help you beat the aforementioned challenges in the last mile and provide seamless delivery experiences.

3.1 Real-time visibility helps you be more proactive than reactive

Real-time tracking provides you the opportunity to solve delivery issues well before your customer is even aware that an issue existed.

When a customer’s shipment in transit faces distress, especially during the busy holiday season, you can take additional efforts such as sending a replacement through same-day deliveries to make sure that their order reaches on-time.

If the delay is due to uncommon delivery failures, you can also send proactive notifications such as offering discounts on their next purchase to ensure that the customer stays on with you in spite of any delay, due to the positive impressions you create.

With real-time tracking, arm your business with information that allows support reps to be more proactive in handling delivery issues, ensuring greater customer satisfaction and mitigate the negative impact of delivery issues on a customer.

3.2 Real-time visibility helps you take control of your delivery experiences

The need for real-time delivery visibility extends to your customers, too.

While it helps you take progressive action, it gives them detailed information on their orders, so that they are cognizant of their deliveries and stop calling you regarding WISMO complaints.

By taking away their anxiety, you’re displaying how much you value them thus improving the customer experience you provide.

4. Advantages of LateShipment.com’s real-time shipment-tracking solution over a carrier's tracking page

LateShipment.com’s Delivery Experience Management platform not only offers you a real-time tracking solution but a ton of opportunities you can do with it to optimize your last mile to the fullest.

• Real-time tracking – As a business, isolating just the shipments that are facing an issue or likely to face an issue is something that is exceptionally hard with carrier-provided data and tools.

LateShipment.com, intuitively assorts your parcels based on their status and affords you a bird’s eye view of the parcels in transit for the day. 

Views like “Today’s Expected Deliveries,” “Predicted Delays,” “Failed Deliveries,” & “In Transit with Delays” help you get up-to-speed quickly.

You can also view additional categories such as “Returned Shipments,” “Damaged  Shipments,” “Just Shipped,” & more.

The interface also allows you to view tracking information for individual packages.

Unlike the limited visibility you get on the carrier’s tracking page, LateShipment.com  offers you unprecedented visibility by presenting from granular data of all your  shipments across carriers in a single, unified dashboard.

• Customer support dashboard – One of our marquee offerings is a dedicated customer support dashboard, which provides only the very essential data that you and your customer-support-team mates need to proactively resolve issues. 

You can also send custom notifications to specific customers whose parcels are  experiencing uncommon delays such as weather-related exceptions.

• Automated email notifications – The average online shopper tracks their parcel around 8 times post checkout on the tracking page of shipping carriers like FedEx & UPS. This fact is more than enough to prove that customers are always anxious about their parcel’s whereabouts.

By sending automated and timely notifications to your customers about their orders for last-mile events such as “Shipped,” “Attempted,” and “Delivered,” so that their anxiety is eased. 

LateShipment.com also provides you with the ability to integrate its Delivery Experience Management platform with eCommerce platforms such as Shopify and 3Dcart or CRM platforms such as Freshdesk to ensure an efficient process from a customer-support stand point.

• Branded tracking page – LateShipment.com helps you create brand-consistent post-purchase experiences that reinforce your brand identity with customers with a branded tracking page that contains your business’ logo and language, thereby ensuring that your brand is always on the mind of your customer.

Conclusion

In spite of the sky-high costs, tedious process, and accumulated complications, last-mile delivery will always remain the decisive leg of the supply chain process.

Any retail business that seeks to scale up must optimize its last-mile delivery processes.

Make use of a technology such as LateShipment.com to strengthen your business.

At LateShipment.com, our focus has remained steadfastly on the last mile, typically the part of the logistics chain that is the most opaque.

LateShipment.com is the world’s only logistics cloud tool that helps businesses of every size reduce shipping costs by up to 20% and provide memorable delivery experiences to customers at scale.

Some of our high-impact offerings are :

 

• Save up to 20% on Shipping – Automatically audit your shipping carriers’ invoices and recover refunds for 50+ service failures & billing errors including late deliveries.
• Real-Time Visibility – Monitor your outbound & inbound shipments across multiple shipping carriers on a centralized window, in real-time.
• Critical Delivery Alerts – Pay attention to daily deliveries with predictive delay alerts and more on a purpose-built dashboard for support reps.
• Proactive Issue Resolution – Proactively communicate with customers to prevent them from having bad experiences due to delivery failures.
• Custom Delivery Notifications  – Send custom or automated delivery status notifications for events like “shipped,” “attempted,” & “delivered.”
• Branded Tracking Pages – Build fully-customizable order tracking pages for your customers to improve brand recall and sales.

The best part is, it takes less than 2 minutes to see LateShipment.com in action.

COVID-19 Note: To help tide over the current crisis, we are giving all businesses full and free access to our Delivery Experience Management Platform till June 30, 2020.

The value we add to businesses is most evident when experienced first-hand.

It’s that simple!

The post The Importance of Real-Time Visibility in the Last Mile appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

If you are tired of all the opaqueness associated with the shipping process and you just want things to be simpler, I’m here to help. I’m as tired of the machinations of the shipping industry as you are.

One area which many small business owners struggle with is DIM weight.

1. Understand how DIM weight works

Unless you ship using USPS flat-rate boxes, you are going to have to deal with the concept of dimensional weight. This can be be a little confusing for those new to shipping. Dimensional weight (or volumetric weight) was introduced because light-weight, low-density packages had become unprofitable for shipping carriers due to the amount of space they occupied in relation to their weight.

DIM weight is calculated based on the formula:

Dimensional Weight = (Length x Height x Width) / DIM factor

The DIM factor is a number that can change from carrier to carrier.

The implication of dimensional weight has been that shipping packages has become more expensive. It is therefore important for you to ensure that you use the right amount and type of packaging to save on costs.

If the concept of DIM weight daunts you, worry not! Major carriers like FedEx and UPS have dedicated DIM weight calculation tools.

2. Don’t forget to negotiate with your shipping carrier (you actually can)

Many small businesses fail to realize that shipping rates are negotiable.

Don’t just settle for the rate your carrier charges you. Do a thorough comparison of the rates various carriers offer before settling in on a carrier, and then negotiate.

The carrier needs your business as much as you need their service. Inform the carrier representative of the rates other carriers offer. Tell them your options are still open. You will probably end up getting a sweet deal!

Of course, the actual process of negotiation will differ from carrier to carrier, but this is the basic way you need to go about things.

You could also consider using multiple carriers to fulfill your shipping needs. This way, you will end up getting the best deal each carrier has to offer for your needs. For instance, you could use one carrier for domestic shipments and the other for cross-border shipments.

3. Make sure to include the cost of shipping in the final bill

This is something many small businesses overlook. Explicitly state and include the cost of shipping on the billing page. If you don’t, the burden of paying for shipping will fall on you.  Another thing that is possible is that the customer will be required to pay for shipping on delivery. This can lead to a bad delivery experience, and the customer may choose to not buy from you again.

Also, if the shipping price varies from region to region or you plan on shipping internationally, make sure you include the relevant rates on the billing page.

4. Audit your shipping invoices regularly

Many small e-commerce businesses seldom do this. And what is the outcome? They end up losing a lot of money.

The thing is, shipping carriers mess up with their billing from time-to-time. Unless you audited your shipments, you would never know. Regularly auditing your shipping invoices helps you evaluate the service you are receiving. This can help you get your carrier to improve the quality of their service and also be a negotiating tool.

Auditing can be a pain if done manually, but there are automated options to make your life easier. LateShipment.com is one of them. Check us out. We’re waiting.

Auditing shipments gives you the opportunity to claim refunds for service failures. What are service failures, you ask? Let me explain.

Service failures are when shipping carriers mess up. There are over 50 service failure types. Some of the easy ones to identify are late deliveries, products damaged on delivery, and lost packages.

When shipping carriers mess up, they owe you money. But they don’t just own up and hand over the money to you. By design, they have a complicated process by which you need to apply for refunds within a particular time period.

Thankfully, you can be at ease using automated services like ours which track your shipments and watch out for service failures. We get your refunds for you and credit them back into your account. How cool is that?

5. Track your orders in real time

Manually tracking multiple orders in real time can be cumbersome. It’s a hassle to enter the tracking number of every single package you’ve dispatched into the portal of your shipping carrier to determine status.

A service like Pulse can help you in this regard. Pulse is a free service that is part of our offering. It works with all your shipping carriers to give you real-time updates on the status of your deliveries. It provides a great deal of insight into the shipping process, so you can stay ahead of delays or inform your customers about them. This way, you can ensure customer satisfaction regardless of the issues that occur during shipping.

A view of the Pulse Dashboard

6. Be an early adopter of technology

Stay informed of the latest tech trends affecting shipping. Be an early adopter of technology. This will give you an advantage over your competitors and also help you stay on top of challenges associated with tracking and auditing shipments. Scaling becomes easier when you move to an tech-driven process.

Automation is already beginning to play a big role in the shipping industry. Automated parcel auditing and shipment tracking is a growing industry in and of itself. Automation in these areas helps free up valuable human resources so that core business areas can be given the attention they require.

7. Package well enough to avoid damage

This may seem like a no-brainer, but a lot of damage is possible in transit. Your parcel will undergo a lot of stress during the shipping process. It is one among thousands of others that require shipping. In most cases, those who handle it will not give it special consideration.

Many young businesses fail to factor this when packaging their products. The amount of shock absorbent material required to protect your product is probably more than you might imagine.

Be generous rather than frugal with the amount of protective packaging you use. You will not regret it. The last thing any small business owner wants to hear from their customer is that the product shipped was damaged when received.

A Little about LateShipment.com

Do you have a strategy when it comes to handling parcel delays and driving more meaningful customer engagement in the last-mile? We at LateShipment.com work hard to make “parcel shipping & delivery” transparent and help businesses be fully in control of their last-mile success.

Some of our high-impact offerings are:

• Automating refund claims from your shipping carriers for service failures to help you save money on shipping.
• Giving you full control over delivery delays that harm your brand and sales. You can now predict parcel delays and even fix them by keeping customers informed.
• Reporting at every stage of “shipping & delivery” to enable you with critical supply-chain insights.

The value we add to businesses is most evident when experienced first-hand. Learn more about our solution here.

The post 7 Valuable Shipping Tips for Small Businesses appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.