The eCommerce industry is constantly changing, which means that your returns management platform needs to be up to par. When was the last time you evaluated your platform? Months? Years? Don’t wait until a problem arises because by then, it may be too late.
You’re losing money with your current returns platform if:
You’re not pushing more for exchanges
This may go without saying, but exchanges play a pivotal role in the buying journey. Offering a seamless returns experience is only one piece of the puzzle, you need to amp up your exchanges game.
Exchanges keep the customer relationship alive which means that you don’t lose any revenue, in fact, you’re setting yourself up to gain even more revenue. How? When customers have positive experiences with your brand, they tend to stay and they tell their friends and family about it. So by pushing for exchanges you’ve not only retained a customer, but you’ve gained a few in the process.
Offer different suggestions to your customer’s exchange such as a different size, style, color. Cross-sell like your life (or business) depends on it. This is an opportunity to help a customer discover other products that they need and may have never thought of otherwise.
Your process isn’t fast enough
If your returns process is comparable to dial-up then it’s time for a change.
Return handling time should be a top priority. AKA: how long a package is out and about and how long a specific person in the process holds onto it. The faster your return handling time is, the quicker you get the return, and then faster your customer will get their refund.
A Bizrate Insight study found that 72% of online customers expect a refund credit within 5 days of returning merchandise. In the same study, 88% of customers would limit or stop shopping with a merchant that took too long to credit the refund.
Even with leading platforms, they process packages in their own warehouses which increases the time they have the package. But with our technology at Return Rabbit, we can get items back to the brand faster. Don’t believe us? Our return handling time averages at 2 minutes, while the industry average is about 7 minutes.
Faster return handling time means faster refunds. Customers don’t want to wait for their money! If they opt for a return rather than an exchange, and they have to wait a month or more to get the funds credited back to their account, they will be less likely to shop with you again.
If your process isn’t fast enough, you’ll have a hard time retaining customers.
Your platform is hemorrhaging customer service time and money
It’s all about efficiency. If you don’t have an efficient platform, customers will have to continually contact customer service. Which leads to a domino effect of not only overworked employees, but more open tickets for customer service to handle.
To give you a better idea of what we’re talking about, cost-per-ticket for support teams ranges from $2.93 to $49.69, with the average ticket costing $15.56. The average cost per minute for handling a ticket is $1.60. That adds up quickly.
This is where the importance of having a clear and visible return policy come into play. A whopping 67% of customers check a return policy before buying anything, so it needs to be easily found on your website. Having a transparent return policy is key to a seamless customer experience.
You don’t have the data
If you don’t know why your customers are returning your products, then you can’t improve.
The right data allows you to identify trends in commonly returned items. That may mean that your photography game needs to step up to better show a product color or you need more product details on your website.
From the data, you’ll also see how supply chain costs have skyrocketed because of increased demand. Your current returns platform could actually be increasing your supply chain costs by 10%, while with Return Rabbit, customers see an average 3.5% decrease in supply chain costs.
Don’t settle for less
Not all returns can be exchanged—and that’s ok! But that’s why you need a returns management platform that can streamline both your returns and exchanges process.
And that’s why you need Return Rabbit.
Your platform needs to be efficient, push for more exchanges, and give you the data that you need to improve your bottom line, and that’s exactly what we do here. You can put our claims to the test and request a demo here.
