You expend big sums of money to launch websites, acquire customers, put contact centers and fulfillment in place, but how do you actually monitor customer service performance? To avoid the kinds of issues that can cause even loyal shoppers to vote with their feet, here are 5 tried-and-true ways to improve your customer service.
What does it take to create excellence in brand communication? L.L. Bean, an iconic brand, has been doing it right for decades. Brad Mason, the company’s SVP of brand communication, discusses the company’s approach with Multichannel Merchant. The company is a finalist in the category for this year’s Excellence in Customer Experience awards, with the winners announced March 29 at Operations Summit 2017 in Pittsburgh.
Giant omnichannel players such as Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, Pier 1 Imports and Target have lowered their free-shipping thresholds to better compete with Amazon. Here are how merchants of all sizes can look into their operations for ways to control their shipping costs.
In an effort to remain competitive and cut costs, iconic brand L.L. Bean is considering changes to its famous free shipping and returns. This follows policy changes instituted last year by Nordstrom, another brand famous for its generous returns policy.
Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust, with FedEx and Best Buy as clients, said ecommerce will make up 50% of its Canadian warehouses, up from 30% today. See what other plans the company has, including wooing Amazon as a client north of the border.
Intelligent omnichannel order allocation allows you to make smarter order fulfillment decisions. With real-time inventory visibility across warehouses, stores and 3PLs, you can dynamically set up and apply business rules to automate processes, reduce costs, speed delivery or combine a number of factors to profitably meet customer expectations.
FedEx Supply Chain, rebranded from the company’s 2016 acquisition of Genco, is rolling out FedEx Fulfillment, a solution that provides a full suite of warehouse, inventory management and delivery services for small- to medium-sized businesses that is directly competitive with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
Same day delivery represents an opportunity area for retailers as delivery partners can make it a reality across a wider swath of the country than Amazon, which covers 27 U.S. markets at present, according to a new report from L2. See what other insights the report uncovered, including consumer expectations for fast shipping and how one major retailer is pivoting to the new reality.
Once again the team at Multichannel Merchant is conducting the annual MCM Outlook survey, which covers every aspect of ecommerce, marketing and operations in the world of direct-to-customer and omnichannel businesses. Please take a few minutes to complete the survey, and be entered to win a $500 American Express gift card, courtesy of MCM. You’ll also be providing valuable data that helps shape our coverage of the industry in 2017 and beyond.
There often isn’t a “single version of the truth,” one official set of figures for sales, inventory, plan and history in DTC operations. For management to have confidence in the integrity of the data they’re using, the time has come to advocate and budget for projects that resolve these problems.