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Small Business Shipping: 5 Tips For Happy Customers
Staying competitive in the digital age is getting increasingly harder and harder.
With more online stores opening every hour, the global market may seem saturated on all fronts. The trick then becomes how enjoyable the customer experience is with your brand versus others. To attract customers and, more importantly, keep them; you need to have tricks.
Not smoke and mirrors tricks, the kind of tricks that your competitors will never see coming ? outstanding customer service. For small businesses, that can mean better shipping options.
Use the below five tips to give your customers a happier experience with your brand:
Stick To Your Dates
Thanks to leading online industry giants like Amazon, customers are used to getting their purchases on the same day or, worst case scenario, the next day. That leaves massive shoes to fill for small businesses that don?t have the mass-production teams necessary to offer that kind of delivery speed.
As a rule of thumb for smaller businesses, the quicker you want the delivery to be ? the more you?ll be charged. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for smaller businesses, so weigh up your delivery options and choose the one that offers the quickest delivery at the lowest cost.
Once you know where you stand timeline-wise, make that clear to your customers so that they manage their expectations. Never overpromise; that leads to under-delivering.
Use Safe Packaging
If there is one thing that is guaranteed to drive away customers, it is items getting broken in transit. While some blame could get shifted onto the couriers, most of the time damages occur due to poor packaging. That will instantly ruin all of your attempts to market your small business.
Understanding your products? shipping requirements will help you understand their packaging needs. Use lightweight packaging that offers the most stability for your product ? your customers will be grateful that you did.
Hire Reliable Couriers
You must use a reliable courier service like www.losangelescouriers.com/ and ensure their service matches your product and customer requirements. When looking around for courier partners, it would help to know how many items you need to ship each week.
Multiple elements will impact your decision with this – namely price, delivery range, tracking options, and speed. Choose a company with clear statistics and impressive shipping solutions.
Custom-Brand Boxes
Instead of using boring, generic-looking brown boxes, invest in custom packaging to help your product stand out. In this day and age, it is not uncommon for competitors to sell largely the same thing, just under a different brand.
The company branding you choose needs to portray the right message to your customers and make them glad they ordered from you. You would be amazed at what a difference the right packaging can make to your customer?s overall experience.
Manage Returns
For a customer buying from you for the first time, something that would put them off instantly is an unclear returns policy. It won?t matter how beautiful or ingenious your product is, if there isn?t a clear route for returns, your customers won?t bite.
Go over your returns policy and clean it up where necessary to ensure that there is as much focus on customer retention, as there is for protecting your business. Offer a user-managed return system where possible, so you don?t need to hire multiple people to do the initial booking.
Follow these steps above for a smooth, bump-free journey for your customers’ orders.
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