Keep Customers Happy With Excellent Parcel Delivery

Your job isn’t over once you’ve packaged a product and sent it to your customers. You may have the perfect customer service, efficient and professional packaging, and an amazing product, but customers can still leave you angry reviews because of the delivery of your parcel.

This means that even if the carrier is to blame you’ll be the one to suffer the negative feedback. Luckily there are ways you can counteract this. These seven tips will help keep your customers happy with your brand, even if something goes wrong.

Schedule delivery times with your customers so your parcels aren’t left sitting on their doorstep in the elements and vulnerable to thieves. Of course this will depend on the carrier you are using. If you can offer a specific delivery time, give customers the option, especially for more expensive products.

Provide delivery windows if you can’t schedule a specific time. Even if you can’t guarantee delivery on a specific date, you can often provide a delivery window of several hours.

Allow customers to request specifics when it comes to parcel delivery. Customers can leave instructions about where they would like parcels left if they are not home. This will give your customers more control over the delivery process and prevents costly mistakes.

Send tracking details over the course of the delivery. Inform customers of when a parcel ships, when it arrives, and maybe even while the parcel is in transit.

Use preferred communication mediums for each customer. Give them the option to receive updates on their parcel via email, text message, or by utilizing a company tracking landing page. Your customers will appreciate being notified about their order, and giving them the option for how to receive those notifications will make you stand out.

Offer a tracking page that customers can visit at any point during the delivery process. Having this page means you’ll field less questions from customers about where their parcel is. Additionally, by creating a branded tracking page you are encouraging further engagement with your customers. It’s a great place to cross sell as well.

Provide excellent customer service, especially if something goes wrong. It may not be your fault something went wrong with the delivery of your products, but it isn’t the customer’s fault either. Be understanding and helpful so that your customers still view you in a positive light.

How To Offer Free Shipping Without Losing Money

You have amazing products, you know exactly how to package and ship your products, and you have steady sales from loyal customers. But even loyal customers keep their eyes out for better deals across the internet. The cost of shipping can make a huge impact on if a customer ultimately buys from you or not.

Unexpected shipping costs are the number one reason why shopping carts get abandoned during a transaction. You may not be able to offer free shipping all the time, but using free shipping as a promotion is a great way to get a spike in sales.

Your goal is to not only get more sales, but to show customers why they should stick around and shop with you in the future. Take these steps to update your website so it’s looking its best before you run your successful free shipping promotion.

Is Free Shipping A Real Thing?

Of course, no shipping service is going to ship your products for free, so when offering a free shipping promotion you’re going to have to absorb the costs.

The first thing you need to do is to calculate if a free shipping promotion will work for your company. The sad truth is it may not. Some companies simply will not be able to offer free shipping to customers without it negatively impacting their profit margins. If you’re considering offering free shipping as a promotion, you may want to reconsider if:

·        You sell large and heavy products, which are much more expensive to ship.

·        Most of your orders are shipped internationally, or to Alaska and Hawaii.

·        You have a low profit margin on many of your products.

For the rest of you, free shipping will likely help to boost your sales because you aren’t forced to absorb extremely high shipping costs. Here are some of the ways you can run your free shipping promotion without losing money.

1.      Set A Minimum Order Requirement

Setting a minimum order for customers to receive free shipping is an excellent way to boost sales, get customers to browse more of your products, and reduces the risk of you losing money during a free shipping promotion. Think about your average order size. The goal is to have customers spend more than that to get the free shipping. Your minimum threshold should be 10% to 15% higher than the average order on your website.

2.      Offer Free Shipping To The 48 Contiguous States

An easy way to avoid absorbing high shipping costs is to only offer the promotion to residents of the 48 contiguous states. You must make sure that his caveat is extremely clear. Don’t simply put it in the fine print, because this could lead to angry customers if they get to the end of the purchase and discover they have to pay shipping.

3.      Increase The Prices On Your Products

This could be a risky move depending on how many loyal customers you have. We don’t recommend increasing your prices by the full shipping cost, but adding a dollar or two to the product price can help to offset the cost of you covering the shipping.

4.      Adjust Your Return Policy

This is something you can add to the fine print of your free shipping offer. When customers return items that you’ve offered free shipping on, you’re taking a big financial hit since you paid to package and ship the product to the customer. State that items returned during the free shipping promotion are subject to a “restocking” fee equal to the amount it cost to ship the customer the product.

5.       Offer Free Shipping On Select Items

If you’re worried that free shipping isn’t feasible for everything on your website, consider offering free shipping on specific product categories that already give you a higher profit margin. By offering free shipping for specific types of products you can guarantee that you can absorb the shipping costs while still making a profit.

How To Properly Pack Electronics

Electronics are expensive, fragile, and highly coveted. If you package your electronic products just slightly incorrectly, you could be out hundreds of dollars when they arrive damaged in customers’ hands. We think that proper packaging is always important, but it’s especially important for electronics.

Shipping electronics doesn’t have to be hard. Once you have a procedure down for packaging these fragile items you’ll never have to worry about damaged electronics again.

1.      Give Extra Care to Batteries. Lithium-ion batteries store a lot of power. Temperature changes, especially during shipping, can create a high charge of static electricity. Both static electricity and excessive heat can cause your battery to short-circuit, which can lead to fire. Keep batteries covered with a non-conductive material to stop this from happening.

Try: Anti-Static Foam, Anti-Static Bubble Products, Anti-Static Poly Bags

2.      Separate Equipment Into Multiple Pieces. This includes cords. Not only does this reduce the risk of damage to your components, but it makes your shipment more organized. Label each piece to make it easier for your customer to find what they need when they are unpacking your shipment. Bundle up cords so they take up less space. If you have small parts, make sure they are kept in their own, sealed packaging.

Try: Poly Bags

3.      Use Bubble Wrap For Your Larger Electronic Components. We recommend taping the bubble wrap in place to keep your larger electronic components more secure. You don’t want to place a printer in a box without any cushioning. Wrap these components in at least two layers of bubble wrap.

Try: Bubble Products

4.      Use Void Fill. Don’t be conservative. If your electronics have too much room in the corrugated carton to move around, you’re taking a huge risk. When placing your products in the box start with a layer of loose fill before you start putting anything inside. Continue to layer in the rest of your electronic parts among the loose fill. Make sure to fill your box to the top with the loose fill. If when you shake the box you can hear movement, you need more void fill.

Try: Loose Fill

5.      Seal Your Box With High Quality Tape. Consider how strong the tape is and how it will stand up to water and different temperatures. There’s a lot of different types of tape, and the one you choose should depend on the conditions under which your package will ship.

      Try: Carton Sealing Tape, Water Activated Tape

6.      Consider Double Boxing Your Electronics. While not always necessary, this gives your electronics an extra layer of protection. The second box should be about 2 inches larger than your original box. Place your original box inside the second box, making sure to fill up the extra space with more loose fill. Seal this box with tape.

Try: Corrugated Boxes

One last tip; be sure to invest in quality shipping supplies from trusted sources such as ShippingSupply.com to ensure you have the right packaging strategy and the right packaging supplies.

Use the Desire for Experience to Your Advantage

A lot has changed in the world over the past couple of decades. Selling used to be a fairly straightforward venture, with a business selling their product and people buying it. But as the years go by, more and more people want to be shopping from responsible companies, small businesses, and companies that have a voice.

As millennials and generation Z get more buying power, brands need to be ready to adjust their marketing strategies to attract new customers. Research has shown that millennials in particular value experiences over goods. So, how can you use this knowledge to get customers to purchase your products?

If you think about experiences, you likely think about big vacations and adventures, but experiences are actually much simpler than that. Going out to dinner, getting drinks with friends, and taking a walk in town all can fall under the term “experiences”.

So, how can you mix this into your marketing strategy?

Use Social Proof

In the era of social media, more and more people are turning to friends for recommendations when it comes to purchases. Consumers are also checking reviews and social media platforms before making a decision.

By offering social proof, you’ll show consumers that your brand and products can be trusted, because people are already talking about them on social media.

Add faces to reviews. Share stories from consumers about how your product changed their lives. Share glowing reviews on your social media channels and in email blasts.

You can often get these reviews simply by asking your customers for them.

Utilizing user generated content is another great way to create social proof. Ask your customers to share photos of them using your product. This works particularly well if you make it part of a contest. The more social proof your brand has, the better the sales will be.

Use Social Media

This is different than generating social proof. Utilizing social media to create an experience for your customers is one of the best strategies you can implement.

The first way to do this is simply to interact with your customers. Fostering engagement with your customers will make them more satisfied with the experience of shopping with you. Reply to comments and answer messages. It shows your customers that you care about them, and leaves them with a positive idea of your company in their mind long after the interaction is over.

You should also aim to create content that drives customer engagement. Not only does this increase your organic reach, but today’s consumers love the ability to interact. Try creating a poll, asking consumers to share photos, or discuss a topic in the comments of your posts.

Create Memories

Memories are powerful when it comes to marketing. By creating positive memories for your customer, you are more likely to gain their loyalty. There are plenty of ways you can create memories for your customers that don’t rely on only your products.

You may choose to host events. Free classes, webinars, workshops, and special sales are excellent events that you can hold in-person or online to get people’s attention. When they think back on your brand they won’t think only of your product, but how your event helped them or created a positive experience for them.

Tell a Story

Telling stories can move people in ways that simple advertising cannot. By using stories you can form a deeper connection with your audience. You can use stories to humanize your brand. Find ways to inspire using your product, then craft a story about it.

The story can be as simple as you featuring an image of your product in use with a bit of copy. It’s all about showing how your product or service is creating stories and being a part of people’s lives.

What are you doing to create experiences for your customer? Let us know in the comments!