7 Tips for Successful Product Returns Management
According to the latest business research, 90% of sales come from websites that have easy returns and refund policies. Since most of the market has shifted online, thus many retailers have detailed product return management for the smooth business function. A strong online product management system ensures customers that they can easily return the product if not required. Let’s know more about how to do successful product return management.
What is Returns Management?
When a product is purchased by a customer, there can be n number of reasons for the product to be returned. So once the product is returned, the seller needs to decide on what to do with the returned product. Also, the refund process gets initiated accordingly. The entire process of planning and executing the return process is called product return management or reverse logistics.
If you have purchased anything from Zara Store and are willing to return it back, you can use the Zara return policy to know what its policy states.
Tips for Successful Product Return Management
Large expense is covered by this entire product return management system. There are various ways through which you can reduce and possibly manage the entire reverse logistic system. We have mentioned a few tips for successful product return management.
1. Understand Controllable and Uncontrollable Returns
There are few returns that can be avoided with popper packaging description, poor packaging result, slower delivery, and other mismanagement issues. If these issues can be addressed specifically then the controllable measures would help reduce the return amount and logistics.
2. Offer Free Returns
Often to maintain a good customer satisfaction relationship, businesses have to provide free returns policy. Since in an e-commerce business, the product is not physically verified by the customer before purchase, there can be a chance that the customer's expectation is not met. For such circumstances, free returns are often the most loved feature for any customer.
3. Quickly Process Your Returns
We do understand that it takes time to quality-check the product you have returned. But studies show that brands that take longer time than usual to process the return eventually lose customers in the long run. Additionally, these brands get fewer chances of earning business through word of mouth due to their longer return process. As the banking process has become faster, customers expect their refund sooner than before.
4. Understand Your Cost of Returns
Apart from offering free returns, it is equally important to keep track of the cost of returns. This includes the shipping charges if incurred and the time, cost of managing these returns. This helps you to understand whether you can afford to offer free returns or not. For example, if your cost of returning a product is more than making a new one, then it is always advisable to tell the customer to keep the product while you issue a refund.
5. Understand your Returns
Every product returned has a story to tell. You can understand the real reasons for these returns to provide a better experience next time. You can just add a space for the customer to mention the reason for the return. For example, a clothing item may be true to fit or fits smaller, or is larger than expected. Similarly, the material may be transparent or may leak color on the first wash. These types of first-hand customer experience help other customers understand their products better and make purchases accordingly.
6. Have a Clear and Transparent Return Policy
Having a clear yet transparent return policy help you trust your brand more. It is often considered as the key element in a customer satisfaction experience. Just the way shipping or a refund policy is mentioned, customers should easily get access to your return policy. It must also be written in easy and simple words. To do that, you can easily put your return details on your website, and any other third-party sellers where you sell your product. For better accessibility, you can also put a copy of your return details in all your packaging. Apart from just customer satisfaction, the customer also gets to know how he can perform a return, exchange, and get refunded too.
7. Offer Transparency to the Entire Return Process
Just like your shipping policy, a transparency chain should also be maintained about return requests accepted. Product received, Product verified, and so on. This helps customers better understand their returns and exchanges as they often want to know the status of their returns. Additionally, text alerts can also help customers know the stage of their return process.
Also, Remember
Thus for maintaining successful product management there are the above-mentioned seven tips which you can follow. Additionally, you can also look into the small details like providing exact product descriptions, giving samples of material for better touch and feel experience. We hope that by following the above-mentioned tips you can easily enjoy successful product return management.
