Are bad delivery experiences slowly killing your business? Research has shown that 84% of shoppers will still buy online, even when they know they could buy the same item locally (NSW Fair Trading, 2012). They favoured shopping online for 2 reasons:
It’s more convenient and generally, it costs less. So, just how convenient is it for your customers to buy from your store?
Firstly, it’s probably helpful to define convenience
When it comes to buying online, convenience can be defined in two ways:
- Your prospective clients can make a purchase when and where they want
- Your clients can receive their items when and where they want
There has been a lot of research proving the importance of responsive design in driving revenue for online retailers, making the browsing and buying experience more convenient, so shoppers can buy on any device; making purchases anywhere, anytime possible.
However, this still leaves the question of receiving goods when and where customers want largely unanswered. The major issue is that the responsibility to solve this has mainly been left to delivery companies which results in your customers receiving the all too common, ‘Sorry, we missed you’ calling card.
So, what happens when a customer misses a delivery?
Their online purchase turns from a convenient buying experience into an inconvenient collection experience, as they now need to find a collection point; stand in line for half an hour listening to elevator music; while they wait for the parcel they have paid good money for. This doesn’t bode well for customer satisfaction or loyalty.
A 2014 study by UK-based MetaPack found that a bad delivery experience reflects poorly on the retailer, not the delivery provider. In fact, up to two-thirds of all shoppers who had a poor delivery experience said that they would “never buy from the retailer again.”
A simple search of Twitter for the words “missed delivery” reveals loads of angry customers who were let down by a bad delivery experience – it’s easy to see why getting the delivery experience right is critical in maintaining customers satisfaction (and quite literally, not ruining Christmas).
There are several ways to solve missed deliveries. This includes giving customers more choice in delivery options but simpler than that, by just sharing more accurate information regarding their delivery (like an ETA, an option to provide ATL etc.). Isn’t it time your customers benefited from greater transparency and flexibility during the delivery process?
What Are You Waiting For?
Request a demo or get an instant quote with Shippit today to see how much better your shipping strategy can be this year.