What distinguishes e-commerce retail from its traditional brick-and-mortar counterpart? Aside from the fact that the former is anchored exclusively on a web platform, customers can’t see, feel, or touch a product before they buy it. The “try-before-buy” principle is essentially reversed when one shops online, which means that there’s also a risk of not being 100% satisfied with the initial decision.
Achieving full customer satisfaction in spite of these will be a constant challenge as an e-commerce entrepreneur. At any given time in your business dealings, you’ll need to worry about your product quality, handling returns, shipping large volumes of products consistently, and the like. But this is where your customer satisfaction guarantee policies factor in: these policies assure customers that they can buy something at your site with the least trouble to them and that your business follows a framework to give them the best possible service.
The best approach to follow with your satisfaction guarantees is twofold: they must be clear and accessible to customers, and customers should have several practical options to meet their needs. With regard to the latter item, here are four satisfaction guarantee policies that you can consider implementing on your eCommerce site.
Free return shipping guarantee
If customers don’t have sufficient motivation to ship back an item they’re not satisfied with, they less inclined to purchase a product. Conversely, customers that have an avenue to ship back will tend to put more trust in a company that has these policies in place. This encourages these customers to come back for repeat business as a result. If you want to upgrade your eCommerce fulfillment services to accommodate consistent free shipping guarantees, you can choose to partner with a top USA third-party logistics provider like Red Stag Fulfillment.
Lifetime guarantee
Ever bought a product from a store that came with a lifetime satisfaction guarantee? It must have given you a strong impression of the product’s quality, construction, and ability to last. This is the same guarantee that your eCommerce store can put on products you really believe in. Ascribing a 30-day or 60-day money-back guarantee conveys that your products may have only that long shelf life. On the other hand, a lifetime guarantee shows absolute confidence in your product, plus a persistent opportunity to ship back just in case this standard isn’t met.
First-try guarantee
Some customers may get cold feet about the very first product they buy from your site, not knowing whether they’ll like it or not. What eCommerce retail stores can do is turn this litmus test of satisfaction into a way to keep earning. For example, if your store sells a special variety of athletic wear, you can give customers the option of getting another item at a discount. You can also offer to switch out the size, style, or color for free if they don’t like the item the first time. Not every customer will bite, but those who do may keep purchasing from your store. You can also create an online eCommerce store so that customers can check your products from home before buying them. You can select WordPress, Shopify, magneto, or any other website building platform but Shopify seems most ideal for this. You can hire a Shopify developer to build a beautiful and secure website.
Free trial or free virtual fitting guarantee
The word “free” has a powerful effect on customers. Many people jump at the opportunity of getting something for free. The most common satisfaction guarantee policy that falls under this is the free trial policy. For example, for customers buying books, the site may offer a free read of the first chapter. A rather creative variation of this policy is offering a free fitting room feature on your site. Customers who are ordering accessories like necklaces, sunglasses, or hats from your site can view what it looks like on a virtual representation of theirs, such as a photo or webcam video. Once the customer gets a good idea of how the product will benefit them, they will take that extra step to spend money on it.
Again, having satisfaction guarantees should motivate you as well as the customer. Show any customer your policies in good faith, and let them know that you will address a problem if it ever comes up. At the same time, double your efforts to lessen order fulfillment mistakes, so that both the customer experience and your end-of-year profits prove satisfying.
