Forum Moderators: buckworks
Does your site offer customers a means of tracking orders BEFORE shipment? Do you email them when the package is shipped? I think it's a great feature, but others in our company worry about the work involved.
Note that we DO offer online package tracking, but that's the extent of it.
We email when we ship a package and provide a tracking number.
We have to do this because half of our business is b2b and if we don't send out the tracking numbers it triggers phone calls. The phone calls for already completed work is counter productive, its a huge time waster.
So if phone calls are something you want to limit, emailing customers of late shipments and tracking info is a must.
<added> customers can login, and retrieve tracking info as well>
[edited by: Rugles at 7:45 pm (utc) on Sep. 25, 2007]
We have never bothered to notify customers about backorder status (we don't have many) or tell them when the goods are shipped. That was the norm on the web years ago, but technology moves ahead.
As an e-shopper I'm a bit confused here. With as much as technology has moved ahead, I expect a "backordered" tag next to an item before I submit my order. And, in case there was a glitch along the way, if an item isn't in stock I expect an e-mail so I can decide if I want to wait for you to get it back into stock.
I can log into my account at a very small mom and pop e-com shop I do business with and track my order every step of the way. Shoppers have come to expect tracking, well, at least I do.
As a customer I like to know where my order is and what's its status.
If say 50% of your orders are backorder, and it will take 4-5 days to ship, should I risk LOSING the sale by asking the user if they want to continue with the purchase?
OR
Should I mark the item as 'special order' and then email the user, saying 'click here if you would like to go ahead with the order' (or something more professional).
Reason being, my competition has more stock and can ship in 1-2 days and it takes 4-5 days to arrive.
But I don't want to have 80% of the products on my site as 'back order' or 'special order'. I think the best label would be 'ships in 4-5 days'.
Agree?
You just lost a customer because you were to lazy to do the right thing.
Always let them know what is going on. I think there is an old saying
"Do to others as you would want them to do to you"
I will ask you the question if you placed an order would you want to know it will be a week before it is shipped....becaues you are out of the product and it is backordered thus giving you the chance to go elsewere to buy it....
- enters date sent per item - if many items shipped in same order, entering it once in a master ship date field applies to all items. If something is missing, we enter it individually.
- Decrements stock - orders placed initially go into "pending", when fulfilled, this removes items from pending and decrements what's in stock
- Presents prepared email, which can be sent as is but if there are any additional notes we can add them at this point.
Ship notify is essential, I think, the Golden Rule applies. Additionally, this email contains instructions to log in the the customer area to review their order if they wish.
Every company uses different means and levels of sophistication in order processing. As a minimum it's good customer service to send an email acknowledging the order and giving an estimated shipping date. This may be extra work but should be considered a good business practice.
.
Without a doubt.. If I waited a week no order called and got the "order is backordered" I would hit the roof ask for a refund and say see ya latter.
At best tracking data gives a ship date and a scheduled delivery date. There's not much to "track".
I'm considering another, more selfish reason to send progress updates...because I think they encourage re-orders. Personally, I tend to save emails (of various kinds) from sites I've bought from. They're like little post-it notes.
Do many of you include a plug for your company or products in your email progress notices?
Tracking numbers are available on request, but are rarely requested.
A really useful thing about tracking codes is it reassures your customer that something has indeed been sent when you claimed to have sent it and that it's going to his address.
That is an excellent point. It is one thing to say "your order has been shipped" but the tracking number proves it. Trust is still a very important thing in ecommerce.
Do many of you include a plug for your company or products in your email progress notices?
We dont but maybe we should.
Does anyone else have experience with a little advertising in an order status email?
A really useful thing about tracking codes is it reassures your customer that something has indeed been sent when you claimed to have sent it and that it's going to his address.
I hate to be the negative nellie here, but two things bother me about "tracking."
One, you shouldn't need to rely on tracking to support your business reputation, this should stand on its own by your company image and the way you do business. If you say you've shipped, you have. If it doesn't arrive, you make it right, one way or another.
My second reason relates to relying on *other* companies methods of operation, and not allowing our reputation to rest on theirs.
I had a real-life experience with how unrealistic "tracking" really is. A few years ago I bought several hundred dollars worth of stuff, and there was a *very* large wildfire in the west US. The package was burned in the fire. Insurance covered the shipment, but the product was moving NORTH from Texas and burned up in Utah in the fire.
Yet, the "tracking" showed a SCAN in Portland.
When I called and questioned, the response was "That was a LOGICAL scan, not a PHYSICAL scan." I was floored! I have proof of this if anyone doubts it.
So even though the package was ashes in Utah, their system registered it as received in Portland, several hundred miles north, and the next day.
Having this knowledge, in good faith to a customer I question the power of tracking. I just love being hoodwinked. But we provide it anyway, when it applies.
I think it's smart to incorporate some low-key self-promotion in the follow-up emails to help offset all the work required to run a modern update system.
So far I've included in the email template: 1) our toll free order phone; 2) a link to our main shopping page; and 3) a notice to "save this email for future reference." (and maybe future shopping purposes LOL)
Any other suggestions along those lines?
As an example -
After Xmas we do a special web page for clearance items - send a bulk email to our customer base and include a link in our new email receipts during January. Boldly specifying 'limited quantities, first come first served' helps move product during the sale.
Do you have any clearance items? Anything on special sale?
That would be great EXCEPT the progress report emails are going to a customer who just placed an order he hasn't received yet.
Furthermore, some emails will notify about backorder situations, credit card processing failures, discontinued products, etc. I don't think it's appropriate to deliver bad news and simultaneously hit the customer with a hard sell.
In the same vein, drives me crazy when I phone a company and get stuck on hold for 10 minutes where I'm subjected to repeated recorded sales pitches.
Yes it's some extra work but a free way to send an additional marketing message while also letting them know you appreciate their business.
(assuming they haven't also checked another bx during checkout for promo emails)
In essence we said - 1. we got your order - 2. we shipped it - 3. thanks
Anything beyond that would probably be spam unless customer opted in for future mailings.
Yes it's some extra work but a free way to send an additional marketing message
ok, this is ridiculous. so you have a credit card processor, now whats the trouble with sending an auto email when something is shipped with the tracking #. You have UPS tools I'm sure (real time shipping estimations) in your cart.... well - same http post to the same UPS server will allow you to print labels and email the customer the tracking number, and anything else at the same time --- automatically. If your really good you would connect the script with a thermal printer, and print hundreds of labels and email all those customers their respective tracking numbers automatically before happy hour at your local bar!
take it a step further and thank the customer in 20 days via an automated email in your cron script and then ask them to write a review, where if completed, they get a special 10% off coupon towards their NEXT purchase. Not only do you get a review for display on that prod and related category pages, you get a second sale at least 30% of the time!
OR
just choose to be lazy, say "its too much work, its all just not worth it" and continue to sit in your burnt out "day job" cubical and contemplate the reason of why you were even curious about e commerce to begin with. I figure that by reading this post your ready to do the for mentioned.
good luck and good night
Its not always for consumer benefit but for knowing your business. If you can trend out failures in your operations or suppliers by tracking delivery dates - especially against your own metrics and that of your competitors it helps you grow as a company.
As a customer if they can find out, call or get email and know exactly what is going on they will be more than happy to spend money with you.
Shipping is a hassle and we do everything to circumvent it through great communications to standardized processes & management. We also figure in our margin across the board so if we can expedite a package and get out out to the consumer quicker then we figure that in. We also average out orders so if we have good consistent customers the margin is adjusted per customer instead of per order so we often upgrade to overnight or express shipping to keep them happy
can't do any of that if you don't have the systems in place to manage your entire fulfillment process..
Our goal is to keep the customers from questioning our business to begin with but having the data & metrics in place to provide a consistent answer when it is needed.
There are enough drop shipppers or local warehouses that you should never rely on a single vendor and make customers wait for paid goods. If you can't deliver, mark it as pre-order and pre-auth the card and charge when shipped but always make sure your customer knows what to expect.
