4 Tips To Improve Your Customer Delivery Experience

When it comes to running a successful ecommerce business, the customer experience is a key factor in creating loyalty and retention. In fact, 80 percent of consumers stop doing business with companies because of a poor customer experience. One way you can enhance your customer experience is by improving your deliveries.

We’ve come up with 4 tips to improve your customers’ delivery experience.

1. Keep Customers Informed on Delivery Status

If you’ve ever ordered an item you were really excited about, you know how slow time can move when you’re waiting for it to arrive. Although there may be nothing you can do to speed up the delivery, you can satisfy customers by keeping them informed on the status of their order.

Include details like when their order is expected to ship, when it’s shipped, where their order is located, and continuous updates about the expected delivery date and time. The more your customer knows, the less anxious and greater feeling of control they will feel over their order. It’s also important to inform them via their preferred form of communication. Offer more choices to get in contact like email, text messages, and tracking pages to ensure you are offering the right form of communication for each customer.

2. Provide Delivery Window Options

Customers today expect narrow delivery windows, typically from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on certain days with notifications an hour before delivery. You should always try to give customers an ability to choose a delivery date and time if you can. Doing so will empower your customers and ease their concerns over possibly losing an order due to their unavailability. “Porch pirates,” thieves that steal customers’ packages from their porches, are now a real problem. Ensuring your customer is home when their order arrives is the best way to avoid parcel theft and improve your brand image by showing your consideration.

3. Integrate Delivery Experience Management Solutions

Although steps can be taken to remedy delivery issues after the fact, avoiding them altogether is still the best option. You can do so by integrating delivery management systems that exist like CRM software and carrier tracking tools. These tools will help you prevent issues before they occur and identify any problematic delivery trends. Creating a team dedicated to your delivery system will also help as they can take steps to fix the issues you’ve identified and look for new growth opportunities.

4. Personalize Your Delivery Experience

To provide a great customer delivery experience, personalization is crucial. Adopting a one-size-fits all approach to your deliveries simply will not work in today’s market where brands are increasingly coming up with ways to differentiate themselves. Customers love it when brands take the time to personalize their interactions and create unique packaging, as evidenced by the popularity of unboxing videos. Writing a thank you note to customers is an excellent way to show them your appreciation and that you value their business. Also, think about including bonuses they would not expect like samples or gifts that will delight the customer and allow you to cross-sell by introducing them to new products.

Making the Jump

Improving your delivery can be a daunting task, but it is well worth the effort. If you’re looking to provide services important to the customer delivery experience like customized packaging and order tracking, you can work with a 3PL, like Fulfillment Works.