WooCommerce – A Few Shipping Best Practices to Ensure Customer Satisfaction

Last updated - September 8, 2020

 

The customer satisfaction on your online store is often directly linked to shipping. Even the slightest delay of a shipment can trigger bitter responses from your customer. In such a volatile scenario, if a shipment is misplaced or the product is damaged, it will be your worst nightmare as a store owner.  You don’t have to imagine the worst possible scenario every time you ship something. However, even the far-fetched possibility of a shipping mishap can be thought of and taken care of well in advance. In this article, we will discuss some of the best practices that you can follow while shipping.

There are plenty of scenarios that you can think of to enhance customer satisfaction while ensuring profitability. Reducing the risks in shipping is clearly one of them. Let’s dig further into these best practices.

Offer shipping insurance for a select range of products

Offering insurance for a certain type of products may be a good idea to ensure that you are prepared in case one of your parcels are damaged or misplaced. The insurance service may compensate for any damaged or lost shipment. Generally, shipping insurance can be bought from courier service providers, postal services, or from specific shipping insurance companies.

It is important to understand what kind of products are eligible for insurance beforehand. You need to carefully consider the value and price of the product and the possibilities of it being damaged while in transit. It is quite natural that your customers will also think similarly. And they probably willing to shell out a few extra dollars to purchase insurance for certain products.

How do I offer insurance in WooCommerce?

WooCommerce doesn’t offer a default option to offer insurance. Your best bet is to install a premium shipping plugin to tackle this challenge.

WooCommerce documentation has some useful alternatives to deal with the matter. Do read them and see if you can find a suitable option for your store.

If your product is really unique and the pricing is more of a subjective matter, you can include the insurance cost in the actual price of the product. This is not at all practical for normal consumer goods as your store prices may look evidently over-priced.

Shipment tracking may provide peace of mind to your customers

An important aspect to include while shipping a product is real-time shipment tracking. Proper shipment tracking makes the customer feel in control. It also helps to avoid repeated inquiries about the delivery of the product.

Like insurance, premium shipping plugins would be your answer to shipment tracking as well. With these plugins, you can easily set up and send emails to customers with all shipping related information.

You also need to find a plugin that integrates data from all your shipping zones and gives the live update on the status of all your shipments.

A clearly stated return policy will save your customer from shipping concerns

There are no misgivings about the power of a good return policy in winning the trust of your customers. You need to make sure that the return process is as seamless as possible because there’s a chance that there is an unsatisfied customer at the other end. Free, ‘no-questions-asked’ return is a reliable strategy to promote sales. This is increasingly used by most leading online retailers. But if yours is a small to medium business, you need to carefully consider the pros and cons of your business model before offering free return. You can even think about offering free returns on a specific set of products. Offering a fair flat rate for return shipping might be another good option.

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