The WISMO acronym stands for “Where Is My Order?” and it is becoming more common as customer expectations increase.
These calls occur when the customer feels out of the loop on a delivery exception, WISMO calls account for up to 50% of inbound calls to customer care centers. And they cost an average of $5 each to resolve-each.
It has been estimated that nearly 93% of online shoppers demand to receive updates on their shipments; they expect never to wonder “where is my order?” And when they do, they can easily turn your customer experience into one where you are left wondering how you’ll make them happy again.
Within the customer journey there are two major stages pre-purchase and post-purchase.
You’ve done all the hard work – attracting customers to take a look at your website, encouraging them to add products to their cart by providing value, getting them to take a step further to make a purchase decision, and hit the checkout button.
The post-purchase stage of the customer journey deals with the timeline between your order being placed, delivery to the doorstep, and subsequent feedback.
Couriers take over once an order has been shipped, and they may not share your level of commitment to a customer’s overall experience which could turn into bad experience.
The post-purchase stage is relatively straightforward: the customer will contact you for any shipping and delivery issues (unless they go away with all their packages intact).
In this stage, it’s important to nurture customer loyalty by delivering a hassle-free order experience, and reward them with more future purchases. Customers want to know when their orders will arrive, and you should proactively keep them up-to-date on the progress of their shipment.
As a result, your customer service teams are overwhelmed with tickets from anxious customers– and all that despite their best efforts.
As your business grows, you’ll receive more orders and inquiries; with greater volume comes higher customer service demand.
Some quick math:
1000 order/month
40% WISMO calls -> 400 WISMO queries
Cost per ticket = $5.5
Total WISMO cost= $2,200
Because of the continuous demand from eCommerce buyers, shipping delays are inevitable. The best way to resolve this is by planning ahead and being resourceful.
Delayed deliveries will deprive your customers of their desired product and can ruin a store’s reputation. However, they are unavoidable when there is an unusually high demand for that product during peak periods such as Christmas.
Some common causes include:
The customer acquisition cost for your company and product includes all of the money spent on sales, advertising, marketing and often shipping. You won’t have a profit if customers spend less than your acquisition costs.
Customer retention rate (CRR) is the ratio of how many customers you can keep after a period.
Customer lifetime value predictions (CLV) are a method to determine the revenue potential for your business from one customer. The longer customers buy goods from your site, the higher their CLV prediction should be.
Some quick math:
CAC = divide the amount spent on acquiring new customers during a period by the number of customers acquired.
Marketing Cost = $100
Customers Acquired = 4
CAC = $25
CRR = percentage of customers you can keep during a specific period.
New Customers = 4
Start of period Customers = 10
End of period Customers = 8
CRR = [(E-N)/S] X 100 –> [(8-4)/10]X100 = 40%
CLV = average customer purchase lifetime value X Purchase time frequency X
Average length of customer lifespan
WISMO is directly affecting Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and your Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Feedback collected from the customer directly after purchase gives you one of the most valuable insights available.
CSAT and NPS scores show how our customers feel about their shopping experience.
This tactic can help you evaluate your performance on customer expectations after purchase.
Just like Jocko Willink (Author of Extreme Ownership) say, you need to take ownership of the issue!
You as a retailer, you need to make sure they are taking responsibility for anything that happened during shipping: If a package has been delayed or is lost or even stolen, then it’s your fault and you have to handle it.
The best way to deal with delays is to contact your customers and provide them a personalized, detailed solution. Use any of the following channels: email, social media messaging app, or phone calls. When using phone calls, discuss every detail of the order delay and offer an estimate on when you expect their package will arrive.
Using our branded tracking page that come with custom interfaces will enable customers to get instant updates about their deliveries and feel as if they were given comprehensive instructions on the page itself. WeSupply: your one-stop shop for all things shipping!
If your delivery is having problems, you can use a website to track the progress and get updates when the package starts moving again. You could also email your customer before they realize there’s been a delay and re-assure them that everything is going to be ok!
The right software can help you avoid WISMO calls. You will see delivery exceptions in real-time. Contact your customers before they know there is a problem. If you do this, your customers will not be as mad and you might even save money from refunds!
Online retailers need to offer accurate updates on where the order is in the process.
Some quick strategies:
The most effective strategies for ecommerce companies to delight customers include:
WISMO or Where is my order? is just part of the problem!
Where is my return/refund? is probably just as common if you do not have good processes implemented for returns. Often packages are returned to the retailer, but the retailer processes these returns only once a week, followed by even longer refunds due to complexity of multiple systems.
Centralizing and streamlining returns and refunds can significantly decrease complexity, processing times and often results in higher satisfaction scores.
Another common scenario we see is that there are refunds, but the customer doesn’t get any notification. If you process returns with an ERP often recipients don’t receive a refund email and if they do it might be confusing or lack vital information.
Package tracking is an essential part of running a successful eCommerce business, and there are some major points that need serious consideration.
Customers are used to having a seamless, single-source experience. They want one place where they can find everything they need in order to track their packages and get the answers that they need quickly and easily.
When customers have multiple places to go for information or tracking numbers, it leads to confusion and frustration which hurts your brand image.
Reduce WISMO by simplifying the customer experience with ONE SOURCE FOR ALL TRACKING INFORMATION! Now you can provide an easy way for your customers to view all of their shipping status updates in one convenient location – no matter what carrier is being used. This means less time spent searching for tracking numbers because you’ve already done it for them!
Let’s face it! You can’t control the customer experience after they click to buy.
If a carrier experiences any glitches and fails to deliver on its promise of a seamless delivery process, your brand will suffer. Not only do you have no control over how the customer perceives this experience, there’s also nothing you can do about it in real time or afterward.
Implement a tracking solution that allows you to maintain complete control of every step of the customer journey from beginning to end through an easy-to-use interface where you are able to monitor everything from web page tracking all the way through shipping notifications. This means that if something goes wrong with your shipment—like if it was damaged during transport or lost altogether—you don’t have to go looking for answers elsewhere; instead, information will automatically be pushed to you.
These days, customers want more than just a business that offers traditional products and services. In fact, 40 percent of shoppers would leave any site immediately if they couldn’t track their orders on their own. To keep up with this demand for convenience, providing online tracking is critical.
Provide quality customer support and quicker package resolution by integrating WeSupply package tracking solution directly into your Customer Service solution such as Zendesk. This will help your customer Service team to follow the shipment status in real-time and get notified when shipments are delayed or delivered.
It’s not just about orders being marked as “delivered” – it’s also about knowing where they were last located before arriving at their destination, which is a function that WeSupply can provide to you.
With a package tracking solution, you can have peace of mind knowing that all information is at your fingertips. Not only does this help provide customer service employees with accurate answers and the tools to solve any shipping problems, but it also saves time by eliminating the need for customers to contact support with questions about their shipment status.
And if that wasn’t enough, WeSupply comes at absolutely no cost! I mean Free!
We’ve got all of this covered so your team can focus on what matters most- delighting more shoppers with quality customer service! If you’re ready to start getting more control over how people find out about their delivery status click the link below and go live with your Branded Tracking Page Today!
Our shipping and logistics experts will guide you through the product and analyze how WeSupply best fits your eCommerce needs.
