Imagine a shopper badly wanting new running shoes. If they prefer shopping online and don’t have a favorite brand, their next move would be to perform a detailed Google search with their size and color preferences (if any). 

Let’s assume this Google search takes them to a marketplace like Amazon, where they select the shoes that they feel are perfect for them. Now imagine that these shoes are from your brand. This sale would not have been possible without you listing your brand on Amazon’s marketplace. 

As a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand, catching your customers’ attention at a place of interaction where they are spending most of their time and offering them the convenience of shopping can increase your chances of making a sale. 

According to Linnworks research, 76% of consumers say convenience tops their priorities, and almost half (45%) value convenience over cost. According to the National Research Federation, 97% of American shoppers have abandoned a purchase over lack of convenience. 

The importance of customer experience across multiple channels.

According to HubSpot research, 53% of online shoppers choose social media for purchasing products. Also, on average, 42% of consumers shop via marketplaces. 

Your prospective customers are on different channels than just ecommerce websites. This makes it necessary to focus on where they spend most of their time. And one way to do that is to build your brand in multiple sales channels.  

Remember, shoppers don’t connect on a transactional level but connect on a relationship level. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to keep your brand engaging and provide consistent customer experiences across different channels.

1. Build brand visibility by understanding your audience – Understanding where your customers are spending their time for shopping (ecommerce website, marketplace, or social media) and reaching out to them can help you bring in new customers as well as nurture relationships with existing ones.  

2. Ensure customer satisfaction by meeting their high expectations – Next to a multichannel presence comes seamless shopping experiences. This involves preventing items from going out of stock in specific channels with the help of an inventory management system. Also, consider equipping your support teams better to handle issues during the buying journey. 

3. Increase sales by keeping checkout flexible – Prevent customers’ shopping carts from getting abandoned due to a complicated checkout experience. Consider providing options like guest checkout, multiple shipping and payment windows, etc to nudge customers to close their purchase.  

All of this can help your customers have a great shopping experience and drive them to hit buy. But have you thought of what happens later?

Customer experiences in the post-purchase phase are just as essential if you’re looking to improve your customer satisfaction and loyalty metrics.

The need to focus on the post-purchase experience

Shopping and checkout experiences are only halfway through the overall order experience. There is still a lot more to come in the post-purchase phase in the form of shipping, tracking, delivery, returns, reviews, and more.

It is evident for your customers to have a seamless post-purchase experience irrespective of the sales channel. However, a big post-purchase CX gap coupled with carrier errors, customer anxiety, complicated delivery, and returns experiences can take a toll on your CX efforts and ultimately your wallet.

The post-purchase CX gap

The post-purchase CX gap is a lost opportunity to improve customer experiences in the post-purchase phase (order shipping, delivery, and returns). While this may look trivial, the post-purchase CX gap can have a significant impact on engagement and revenue opportunities. 

Hope this throws some light on the existing gap in the post-purchase phase of your customer journey and its negative impact on your business. 

That said, let’s take a look at how you can turn the tide and provide your customers with a seamless post-purchase CX.  

Ways to build winning post-purchase experiences in multichannel ecommerce.

Proactively resolve delivery issues 

Tracking your packages in real-time provides an insight into your parcels that are facing issues. You can then use this data to take corrective action before the issue impacts your customer.

When your customers’ parcels are facing critical issues, you can proactively communicate with them. In such cases, even if the issue goes unresolved, they will appreciate your efforts to provide them with a great post-purchase experience.  

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Your website, Amazon, or Instagram wherever you may be selling — proactively addressing issues comes in handy by helping you build trust with your customers.

Send automated shipping notifications 

Regularly send post-purchase transactional notifications via emails and SMS to your customers across the order delivery lifecycle. This will help in keeping their anticipation levels in check and provide them with a seamless delivery experience. 

If you’re selling on a website or social media, you can send notifications to keep customers in the loop of their orders. This in turn reduces WISMO calls to a great extent and frees up your support team’s time to focus on other important things like product-related queries.

Ecommerce websites can also integrate a delivery management solution with their email marketing tools and automate shipping-related notifications to your customers.

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Offer custom branded tracking experiences

Making your customers track their orders in customized branded order tracking pages can keep them engaged in a brand immersive experience. 

Here’s what your branded tracking page can contain: 

• Provide essential tracking information 
• Branded elements such as design, colors, etc that align with the rest of your website 
• Personalized product recommendations and promotions 

Ecommerce businesses can make use of tracking pages to extend the brand experience post-purchase and improve customer delight. Small businesses with a social media store can make use of branded tracking to build long-lasting relationships and improve repeat purchases. 

Get customer feedback via collecting delivery satisfaction ratings 

Take the guesswork out of providing better post-purchase experiences for your customers. Collect your customers’ feedback via delivery satisfaction ratings to know what they think of the delivery experience you provided. 

Businesses running on personal websites can use delivery feedback to influence shipping decisions to optimize their experience and social media businesses can use it to make better delivery choices.

 Either way, this can help businesses:

• Make critical cost-saving decisions
• Promote brand credibility and
• Earn fierce customer loyalty in return. ‍

‍Make returns as seamless as shopping

Many businesses leave out returns when taking measures to optimize their post-purchase experience. Don’t make that mistake. 

Make your returns process seamless by:

• Having a clear-cut returns policy
• Offering free and flexible returns
• Making product returns as easy as shopping 

Seamless returns experiences can help businesses throughout the ecommerce multichannel to create loyal customers for life and redefine returns as a growth driver.

Now that we understand how providing winning post-purchase experiences allows you to make the best possible impression on your customers across the ecommerce multichannel, here’s an integration that will help you do just that to the fullest and enjoy success.

LateShipment.com with Linnworks 

The experience that today’s shoppers demand encompasses everything; from product discovery to checkout and whatever follows post-checkout.

To help businesses win more customers with winning post-purchase experiences, LateShipment.com has partnered with Linnworks to provide a host of benefits for businesses like yours: 

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1. Stay on top of delivery issues 

• 3Multi-carrier, real-time shipment tracking
• Foresee parcel delays, auto-trigger tickets
• Proactively communicate to mitigate the negative impact of delivery issues

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2. Timely and Personalized Shipping Notifications

• Automate shipping notifications via emails and SMS
• Trigger notifications for transactional and uncommon shipping events
• Seamlessly integrate with your email marketing tools 

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3. Build beautiful, branded order tracking pages

• Build brand consistent order tracking updates
• Provide complete order tracking information
• Boost repeat purchases with product promotions and recommendations

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4. Capture your customers’ delivery satisfaction ratings

• User engagement metrics
• Delivery satisfaction ratings
• Carrier performance scores

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5. BONUS 1: Save on your shipping bills

• Identify every carrier error, effortlessly
• Recover up to 20% of your shipping cost
• Shipping spend insights to make critical cost-saving decisions 

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6. BONUS 2: Provide effortless returns experiences

• Self-service returns
• Proactive updates on returns requests via notifications and tracking page
• Provisions to make returns profitable

Final word     

It is clear what providing winning post-purchase experiences can do to build brand credibility and strong customer relationships in multichannel ecommerce. 

Therefore, keep in mind to provide an outstanding experience to your customers that extends beyond checkout and enjoy post-purchase CX success. Request a callback with LateShipment.com here.