How To Reduce Order Returns In Your E-Commerce Business

In today’s growing e-commerce market easy accessibility of product specifics and support queries are the key touchpoints along the customers buying journey. Digital buyers not just want but, need immediate answers to their product related questions and/or issues. Enabling a real-time support service like that of WhatsApp Chatbots prevents your customers from getting frustrated and your business from returning products because they are unaware of the functioning or think it’s damaged/defective.

5 Reasons Why Products are Returned:

• Apart from the quality-related returns, many buyers simply return products because they are unhappy with the support services of the company.
• Many a time orders are dispatched incorrectly or some items in the order are missing.
• Sizing of products is crucial for any retail store, products can be returned due to incorrect size guides.
• Quality control is a practice that all businesses should follow, 15% of orders are returned due to damages or defects.
• The problem with selling products online is that the customer doesn’t get to see, touch or feel the products they are about to purchase this estimates to orders being returned.
  

Even though some of the reasons listed are out of the companies hands and solely up to the customer, most of them can be rectified with good customer service practices. The traditional methods of phone and email are just not enough anymore, to keep up with the current trends of preferred customer communication - messaging, your e-commerce business should employ WhatsApp Business API to serve customers more efficiently.

How Can WhatsApp Help Your RTO?

Return to Origin or RTO is when a placed order either cannot be delivered or is returned by the customers and has to be shipped back to the warehouse. Consumers are always online and ready to solve their queries via a WhatsApp automated message, this provides an instant link between the customer and your business. WhatsApp has helped reduce the efforts of many e-commerce businesses:

1. WhatsApp Business APIs allow for your store to integrate with leading platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Shiprocket, Razorpay, etc.
2. Your business can automate order updates, shipping information and even return/refund status messages to customers. Here are a few WhatsApp templates for your E-commerce business.
3. WhatsApp broadcasts to targeted segments for specific products and services. Broadcasting your return/refund policies can prevent unnecessary returns and ensure queries or issues get ironed out as quickly as possible. Wondering how to bulk broadcast on WhatsApp?
4. WhatsApp Chatbots can serve your customer 24x7 in 30+ languages. Your bots can answer return related queries, product related queries and even assign a refund on orders without manual human intervention.
5. Chatbots can also be employed with multiple intents for customers who need help in making an informed decision thereby reducing your RTO.

Here’s How Gallabox - A WhatsApp Business Solution Provider, Helped Sattvic Store with RTO Orders

About Sattvic Store

Sattvic Store is a food, herb & supplemental e-commerce store. They source their products directly from farmers and have a wide range from raw herbs to extract forms. They also sell health supplements and organic teas made by women of rural villages.

Problem

• High marketing budgets to reach a wider audience for every campaign.
• 25% of orders were returned due to products not suiting the client or ordering the wrong products.
• Manual efforts were taken to engage existing customers with new product launches.
• Their support services were of traditional methods i.e., calling and messaging. No WhatsApp automation only manual agent intervention.
• Niche segments were identified but the execution of marketing efforts was limited.

Solution

• Created a WhatsApp chatbot to reduce RTO by counselling clients on their specific requirements.
• Client data collected by the bot was directed to one common database that could be accessed by all members of the store.
• Upselling of Customer Specific Products - Created a support service through WhatsApp chatbots to aid clients in the buying process and any product related queries. This also created an opportunity to sell products suited to the customer’s needs and reduced returning orders.Cross-selling to a Niche of Customers - Created advanced customer segments through tagging/labelling of contacts to WhatsApp broadcast their new arrivals and customer-specific products.

Impact

• Gallabox helped reduce Sattvic Store’s RTO by 10% within 30 days.
• WhatsApp broadcast segments through labelling of contacts reduced their marketing budgets by 30%.
• Support chatbot reduced manual agent efforts by 50%.
  To summarise traditional messaging practices in the current digital environment for e-commerce businesses aren't the best fit. To avoid returning orders, brands like Sattvic Store employ 24x7 support chatbots to automate their operations and reduce their RTO thereby increasing their ROI. If you are an e-commerce brand and would like to automate your store with WhatsApp Business API Provider to bulk broadcast notifications, book a demo with us today!

Further Reading:

Here are a few other articles you might be interested in:

• Setting Up a WhatsApp Ecommerce Store
• How to use WhatsApp for ecommerce: Strategies for higher conversions