In most cases, when a company receives an order, they work on packing it properly with protective wrap and sending it out to their partner courier. However, most companies tend to look past this process and settle for what they’re used to do.
Fret not, listed below are the ways on how you can improve your business’ delivery process for a happy and satisfied customer
Verify The Address
A customer would need to fill out a form, which allows the company to deliver the item to their address accurately. However, in some cases, some customers don’t provide complete details as they choose to leave the option in private or they don’t know what to provide. As such, you need to confirm their addresses so the courier can quickly locate them and deliver their orders on time.
You can communicate with the customer to confirm their address for quicker delivery, or you can use an online tool that can help you verify their location, like the one from Lob. This way, you don’t need to bother the customer’s time during the day and just allow them to wait for the package to arrive at their doorstep. Still, if an online tool can’t verify the address, you should ask your customer directly to be sure, and so that their package won’t get lost in the mail.
Make The Process Quick
When your company’s already handling big orders from different customers, your old process may not be useful as it originally was. You need to look for ways to simplify your internal process so it doesn’t need lengthy methods to gather the details per customer.
When it comes to ordering creation, it’ll be ideal if people can fill out a form that they submit through an online platform and not through a personal message, so you could generate a list where every detail is already present. You don’t have to navigate from one page to another, slowing down your progress.
Automate If You Can
Now is the best time to utilize your IT team by allowing them to improve your order’s process as quickly as possible. You can create a database that lists every detail needed from a customer, including their order and status about the order handling. You can include notes if you’ve already received the order, packed the package, or sent the item out to the courier, or if the order is already out for delivery. This way, you can freely monitor the status of each order and see if you have any existing or possible delays.
With automation, not only can you eliminate the use of paper, which slows down the process, but you can also help save the environment. When you allow automation to run on your business, the process will be a lot quicker, allowing you to ship out your items in a shorter period.
Know Your Warehouse
When it comes to fulfilling orders, you should make the process as quick as possible. If you’re selling plenty of products, you need to know where every product is at your warehouse. You shouldn’t be navigating the area every time you receive a new order as it’ll slow down the process.
When it comes to your warehouse, you should keep it organized by keeping similar items together or have them sorted through their item numbers. It’ll be beneficial if you keep track of the item number to verify if you’re getting the right product as you don’t want disappointed customers waiting for a pink T-shirt to arrive and receive a green t-shirt instead.
Not only do you need to know where your stocks are, but you also need to know where your packaging tools are. You should know by heart where you keep your bubble wraps, boxes, pouches, thank you notes, and waybill printer so you can quickly arrange orders.
Track Employee’s Availability
When handling numerous orders, you need to do everything as quickly as possible to allow your customers to receive their packages immediately. Usually, customers expect to receive their orders within the week. While that can be possible, you need to consider that the courier needs time to deliver different items. That’s why you need to send their orders out as early as possible.
To allow you to fulfill every package within the same day, you should have enough people to handle sorting and packaging, especially with numerous orders. As much as possible, only allow one employee to file for leave so you wouldn’t fall behind with fulfilling your orders. If you could arrange orders within the same day you received them, the better.
Furthermore, if you’re having trouble managing your employees with handling orders, you can choose to hire a fulfillment company so they’d do the packing and shipping for you. They should be helpful with minimizing your workload and stress.
Offer Updates
After a customer created their order on your website, they’d get excited and would be waiting excitedly for the delivery guy to drop their package at their doorstep.
While the excitement is joyful and magical, you need to update them about when they’ll be receiving their order. It’ll help your customers see the updates by providing a link to see where their orders are, or logging in to their accounts on your website to see a list of all of their orders and their progress. This way, you can have complete transparency and avoid having customers frequently check up on their orders’ status through your customer service portal.
You can also send an SMS to the customer if their order is out for delivery so they can properly manage their schedule.
Conclusion
Handling customer orders can be complicated, especially that you need to ensure that you pack everything well and your customers will receive what they ordered on time. Apart from that, you also need to look for ways to speed up the delivery process.
You need to ensure that every detail you have from your customers is correct, along with automating the process so you can be quick on your feet and ship out the items within one to two days. Above all else, your customer’s satisfaction should always be your priority.
Danis Woods in Businessman, investment banker and stock exchange traders. On the same time he loves writing financial blogs to shed lights on different aspects that new and existing businessman are not aware of.
