Delivery problems are inevitable every e-commerce company from Amazon to tiny neighborhood store faces them. If you own or manage an e-commerce business you have to deal with customer complaints about delivery problems on a regular basis. There’s no secret strategy for eliminating them, but there’s a lot you can do to reduce these problems and increase customer satisfaction. It all starts with good inventory control and management.
- Use an effective automated inventory control app if you are not able to maintain optimal inventory levels based on customer demand and sales forecasting data, you will not be able to deliver products in time and the result can be not only customer dissatisfaction, but also cart abandonment and lost sales.
- Provide your customers with a shipment tracking feature you have to talk to your delivery company and ensure that they allow customers to track product shipment online in real time using tracking codes, not just on their computers, but also on mobile devices.
- Partner with a reliable delivery company your inventory management app and inventory control strategies may be top-notch, but if you choose to work with the newest and cheapest delivery company in your area, you will likely run into all manner of delivery problems, from delayed to failed deliveries.
- Keep your customers notified about the progression of their order use text, email, and phone to provide constant notifications about each stage of the shipment process, and make sure that once the delivery company picks up the order, they continue to provide similar updates.
- Be actively involved in solving delivery problems customers often hold retailers rather than delivery companies responsible for delivery problems, which is why you should never entirely pass on the blame to the delivery company but rather do your best to resolve the situation in a timely manner.
- Enable real-time stock management if you haven’t already real-time stock management provided by an automated inventory control app such as DataQlick includes warnings for low stock items and other issues with stock, helping you anticipate stock problems before they actually become delivery problems.
- Don’t make unrealistic promises unless you’re delivering pizza, flowers, or fresh fruit, it’s better to offer 72-hour deliveries and keep your word than promise 48-hour deliveries and not be able to fulfill some of them on time .
In the end, remember that adopting an automated inventory management and control app such as DataQlick is one of the keys of reducing delivery problems and keeping your customers satisfied.