Order fulfillment is the method companies use to process a sales order depending on the specifications of a customer. This important business component is responsible for packing, picking, and shipping the items to the customers. With that, any minor fulfillment error may have a significant effect on the satisfaction of the client and your ability to meet their expectations.
As an entrepreneur, you must train your employees to get the correct orders to the customers by the promised date. Once your company achieves higher perfect order rates, you’ll expect fewer inventories and shorter cash-to-cash cycle times. As a result, your customers will always trust your organization, which motivates their brand loyalty. You can check out https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIqsxdfz0HUWPuT_nfDycYg for more details.
In this article, you’ll read the five mistakes you must avoid in order fulfillment and learn ways to prevent them.
1. Manual Order Management
If you own a startup company, chances are your existing and new clients will understand your manual order fulfillment operations. However, this process may become overwhelming as your organization expands because the possibility of human error increases. In turn, your employees may experience wrong product delivery and a boost in returned orders, which may hurt your accounting.
As a growing organization, your customers will start to expect to receive the right order with minimal issues. That said, you must choose to automate this process with the help of Selery Ecommerce Fulfillment and Kitting Services. This company provides you with industry connections within logistics to ensure you get the best shipping contacts possible.
As you automate your order fulfillment system, you’ll have to select a software that can establish robust databases of customer information. You can expect this system to notify you about shipping status, delivery deadlines, and other order-related insights. As you work with barcode scanners from this system, order fulfillment becomes easier and all orders will go to the right customers.
2. Inaccurate Online Product Description
One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make relates to inaccurate product description information. If you input incorrect order details online, you’ll receive negative feedback from unsatisfied customers and higher rates of product returns. As a result, damaged items or wrong products are sent to your clients, which is an expensive mistake for your organization.
You may address this issue with the help of a warehouse management system. This tool loads accurate product descriptions into your digital platforms and enables your staff to accurately fulfill orders. With inventory safety and quality control measures, you’ll actively eliminate instances of damaged goods being sent to the wrong clients.
3. Failure To Deliver On-Time
With recent technological innovations, online customers are used to next-day shipping if they live in urban areas. However, this scenario doesn’t entail that you need to expedite your shipping services. Instead of focusing on fast delivery, you should concentrate more on fulfilling your promises about the order.
For instance, if you tell your customer that the item will arrive within three days, the individual may begin counting the days. Consequently, you should fulfill your promise within the given period. On the other hand, you’ll risk them distrusting your services if you fail to deliver their order on time once you induce anxiety in them.
If you want to prevent this scenario so you can protect your reputation, you’ll have to prepare your team for an increasing demand for expedited deliveries. Preparing your employees means hiring more delivery staff and filling your inventory in multiple warehouse locations. Also, your customers will expect you to deliver on time during Valentine’s Day, Christmas, or Mother’s Day.
4. Lack Of Communication
While internal mistakes during business processes could happen, this scenario is unacceptable when you’re not actively communicating with your customers. That said, you must remember that a day of delay may induce anxiety within your clients, which may lose their trust. Furthermore, your consumers may have questions about the products they’re buying, so communication is important.
Fortunately, you don’t need to hire a customer support team to build a firm line of communication. Instead, you may use e-commerce tools that’d enable you to ease customer service like live chat and chatbot. These digital tools can serve as your first line of defense as they help your human customer support crew resolve customer issues.
5. Excessive Shipping Costs
Shipping is one of the biggest obstacles in order fulfillment, which can make or break this process. Customers are likely to expect themselves to pay more when they purchase additional products, but they don’t agree with higher shipping fees. Thus, you shouldn’t surprise your consumers with additional fees since it might cause them to cancel their transaction.
If you have a shipping provider, you must communicate with them about ways to reduce overall shipping costs. For instance, you may offer free shipping to motivate your existing customers to shop from your brand again. Alternatively, you may consider covering the shipping costs in the product price.
Key Takeaway
As an entrepreneur, you must always aspire to meet the expectations of your customers so you can earn their trust. That said, you should avoid these five order fulfillment mistakes with all the provided ways to prevent them. In turn, you can always ensure your clients that they’ll receive their items within a certain period.
