How to succeed in your post-purchase strategy?

French market observation

In e-commerce, delivery is an essential lever for customer satisfaction. Indeed, 72% of e-consumers consider delivery to be the most important criterion when shopping online. 84% of those surveyed would even switch to another store to benefit from personalized shipping options. Delivery is one of the main reasons for abandoning the act of purchasing. (e-commerce mag)

Indeed, the behavior of e-consumers has evolved with the new delivery options. According to a study by LSA, more than 3 out of 4 consumers check the delivery terms before buying online. The diversity of delivery options offered (home delivery, click and collect, by appointment) brings added value, almost decisive, to the offer of e-tailers.

The delivery and post-purchase phases can be a rather unclear stage for the consumer and therefore can lead to delays in the sales process. Indeed, 78% of online buyers declare themselves anxious after having placed an order on an online store. They are in a phase of waiting for the package that they cannot control at their level. At this stage of the buying process, the consumer becomes passive and has to trust the brand they have chosen. When the delivery has gone well, 98% of customers are ready to reorder. (Fevad 2019)

On the other hand, a negative experience with a proposed carrier leads 31% of French people to abandon a purchase. A significant figure that directly impacts the turnover of the brand. (e-commerce mag)

So how do you make the delivery experience seamless, responsible and intuitive to satisfy and retain consumers? How to perfectly control all the delivery steps sent to consumers? How to make delivery a lever for loyalty and conversion?

E-consumer expectations during the delivery process

Delivery is the key moment not to be missed in order to offer consumers a shopping experience that is as positive online as it is in store.

As previously mentioned, delivery is one of the most important criteria in the selection of a merchant. 73% of French consumers choose a brand for the flexibility in the choice of delivery options (hourly delivery, next day delivery, with installation and pick-up services, weekend delivery). (e-commerce-mag)

Added to these requirements is the complexity of omnichannel. With multiple ordering and delivery channels and consumer expectations, mastering the customer experience has become a priority in order to retain buyers.

The post-purchase customer strategy requires a constant link and proactive communication with the consumer. It is necessary to accompany the customer through the delivery process until the package is received. It is therefore important to inform the customer at each important step of the delivery process so that they get the best possible experience.

The requests made by the customer can be numerous (Where is my package? / Why is my package blocked? ...)

We give you 4 essential tools to perfect your post-purchase strategy.

4 key tools for a successful post-purchase journey

Notifications & Personalized order monitoring

Whether it's by email or automated SMS, an order confirmation notification is always reassuring for the buyer. In fact, 64% of consumers say that order confirmation emails are the most relevant emails they receive. (Source: Omnisend)

By personalizing email notifications and tracking pages, brands don't lose traffic by sending consumers to carrier pages. Woop offers brands to manage this step from start to finish. By setting up the Woop platform, the brand can communicate in its own name, with its own brand universe and highlight the information selected upstream in the way it wishes (email, sms, etc.). The brand is the only interlocutor with the customers, whatever the chartered transport partner. The brand image is therefore omnipresent throughout the delivery process.

Thanks to this personalization, the consumer has the feeling that he is accompanied until the end of his purchase and that he can trust the chosen brand. This establishes the brand's credibility over the long term and guarantees the consumer's peace of mind.

Tracking

50% of companies that manage product flows will have invested in technologies that provide them with this visibility by 2023 (source: Gartner). This is even more important for last mile delivery, where visibility has become the main challenge, as stated by the investment consultancy Capitalmind.

The need for real-time visibility throughout the ordering and delivery stages is intensifying for brands and becoming essential for their consumers. By informing customers in real time about the status of their orders and the various stages of delivery, brands can reduce inbound calls to customer service by up to 35% and enrich the customer experience to build trust and consumer loyalty.

Tracking allows customers to know where their package is and to be notified in case of delays. Of course, this involves knowing, in real time, where customers' orders are located. The Woop platform simplifies the tracking of deliveries for customers but also for the retailer's teams by standardizing the different events thanks to an easily readable timeline.

With a single or multi-carrier tracking page, the customer can follow the progress of his order(s) in real time by following the exact timeline of the transport partner. The tracking of orders is thus ensured throughout the delivery process.

Customer satisfaction & opinion (NPS) Net Promoter Score

In a post-purchase customer strategy, listening to consumers is essential to ensure their full satisfaction. By accompanying consumers throughout this post-purchase phase, the brand creates a relationship of trust, conducive to surveys concerning their experience with the brand. Also, generating a survey after each delivery allows us to measure consumer satisfaction.

The information collected enriches the algorithms of the Woop platform and is taken into account for the next orchestration operations of the brand.

Easy return

Finally, delivery is involved at all stages of the customer experience: upstream, when the brand is chosen, at the time of the order as a selling point and at the end when the customer receives his package. However, this experience does not stop once the package is delivered.

Indeed, returns are often a source of dissatisfaction for the customer. The main reasons for this are a high return cost or an overly complex return process. More than half of French consumers say they systematically consult return policies when ordering. Thus, even at the very end of the process, delivery has an impact on purchases and especially on future purchases.

By facilitating package returns, customers become autonomous. They have an automatically generated return label with their order, so the customer feels in control of their purchase from start to finish.

The benefits of a successful post-purchase strategy

By mastering the multitude of delivery channels and all the levers of customer satisfaction between the 3 delivery actors, the brand, the carriers and the consumers, the post-purchase strategy will be an advantage over the competition.

With the 4 tools mentioned above, the benefits are multiple:

• Increase customer satisfaction by personalizing and tracking orders
• Create a relationship of trust and build customer loyalty by providing them with real-time visibility on their delivery
• Deliver on brand promise through trusted transportation partners
• Improve and measure service quality: flexibility, reliability and speed of delivery

Our Woop technology platform is available as a software-as-a-service and requires no on-site software installation.

For each delivery, the Woop platform automatically proposes different transport scenarios according to predefined criteria - price, quality of service, carbon impact - allowing you to choose the best offer at the best price, while favouring soft mobility whenever possible.