To achieve ecommerce success, you have to provide the ultimate customer experience —from fast delivery, world-class support to an excellent returns policy and dealing with situations when things go wrong.

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One of the best ways to enhance customer experience is to empower customers to resolve unforeseen order issues easily. However, such powerful ways come with robust technology that comes with a high cost.

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So the only choice for ecommerce brands in unavoidable circumstances is to manage such exceptions effectively or lose their customers to the competition.

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To the rescue, tech-enabled 3PL (third-party logistics) providers are now becoming the torchbearers of great customer experience with their superior technology, cost-effective accessibility, and ability to manage the unexpected!

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In this blog, you'll learn what are post-purchase exceptions, what is a self-service portal, and how to resolve the most common post-purchase exceptions via a customer portal offered by experienced ecommerce fulfilment companies in India like Eshopbox.

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What are post-purchase exceptions?

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After a customer places an order, a series of activities are put in motion. This ecommerce order fulfilment process includes picking, packing, shipping, and delivery of the customer order. Usually, orders are delivered to the customer without any delay or difficulty, and customers are happy with their purchase.

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However, sometimes customers may experience some issues related to their order, such as they provided an incorrect address, they were not available to receive their order, or they did not like their purchase. These post-purchase exceptions can cause difficulties for the ecommerce brand as well as the customers.

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The customers are bound to feel frustrated if their issues are not resolved immediately and efficiently. Unfortunately, this means you can be bombarded with endless calls from angry customers.

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Although these instances are an unfortunate part of ecommerce, you can still handle them gracefully. After all, they aren't entirely out of your control, and you can save crucial team hours and reduce customer support calls. Let's see how.

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What is a self-service portal?

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A self-service portal is a platform that offers information and resources to enable customers to request services, find information, and register and resolve issues.

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Today's customers want their order issues to be resolved at the earliest—at any time they want. A self-service portal helps meet their expectations. It also provides online support to customers without requiring any interaction with a customer support representative.

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90% of customers expect an organization to offer a self-service portal. At the same time, 73% of customers want the ability to solve product or service issues on their own.

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Eshopbox provides the ultimate solution for such exceptions so that your customers can have a great shopping experience without any hassle.

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Eshopbox's self-service portal, i.e. customer portal enables ecommerce brands to enhance the customer experience at every stage of ecommerce order fulfilment. It is a secure page that allows you to deliver a great post-purchase experience at ease.

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You can empower your customers to easily resolve unforeseen order issues through the customer portal. This means you don't have to deal with hundreds of customer queries, complaints which will be very costly in the long run. Moreover, your customer reviews don't have to suffer or tarnish your ecommerce brand's reputation.

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Here's what Eshopbox's customer portal features allow your customers to:

• Track orders in real-time on a dedicated tracking page
• Receive an estimated date of order delivery
• Receive an estimated date of pickup for returns
• Receive proactive order status updates on email and SMS
• Initiate refunds and exchanges from the customer portal

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Now that you know what a customer portal entails and its importance, let's see how a customer portal can help you manage the unexpected.

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How to manage post-purchase exceptions?

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Here's how ecommerce brands can manage unexpected situations in the post-purchase phase with Eshopbox's customer portal:

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1. Failed delivery attempt

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In these cases, the shipping carrier is unable to deliver the order to the customer. This usually happens when the customer or recipient is not available at the shipping address to receive the order. In such instances, the unsuccessful delivery attempts result in incurring extra costs due to rescheduling, informing the customer and attempting the future delivery.

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As an ecommerce brand, you can empower your customers to request another delivery attempt on the customer portal whenever they want, without any assistance from the customer support team.

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2. Change in the delivery address

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There can be instances where customers can provide incorrect shipping addresses mistakenly while placing an order on your online store. This means the order can be delivered to the wrong location and can be a source of great distress to your customers.

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As a solution, Eshopbox enables you to offer an option to your customers to edit and change their delivery information prior to shipping or delivery through the customer portal. This will also eliminate the chances of order cancellation or sending another product to the customer at the correct address.

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3. Refund

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After an order is delivered, customers might not be satisfied with their purchase. They can return the product and seek a full refund.

However, when customers initiate a return for a refund, you lose a sale and the revenue gained from that saIn addition, you. You also incur additional costs, such as the cost of return shipping, the cost of conducting quality checks, the cost of refurbishment, and the cost of restocking.

On the brighter side, you can still use this opportunity to drive customer loyalty by implementing a customer-centric returns policy and ensuring a hassle-free and quick refund process.

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With a customer portal, you can enable your customers to initiate a refund within a few clicks and provide an estimated date of pickup for the returned product. This way, you can process refunds quickly while ensuring a superior experience.

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71% of buyers say self-service availability impacts their loyalty.

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4. Exchange

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After an order is delivered, customers might want to return the product and intend to order a different product instead of getting the money back.

Although you don't lose out on a sale or revenue when customers initiate an exchange, you still incur additional costs. In comparison, an exchange means that the customers were satisfied with the quality of the product and the buying experience but chose the wrong product. You can further enhance their experience by ensuring a great exchange process.

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With a customer portal, you can enable your customers to initiate an exchange quickly and easily. You can also provide an estimated date of pickup for the returned product and delivery of the exchange.

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5. Order cancellation

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Customers can simply change their minds and cancel their orders any time they want. Of course, order cancellations can be unfortunate for any business. But when it comes to ecommerce, order cancellations while the order is processed and shipped can mean severe losses. However, customers can cancel their orders before they are shipped.

But this doesn't mean you have to end your relationship with the shopper. You can curate a superior experience for your shoppers while they cancel their purchase. They may return to your online store again and order something else, some other time.

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You can simplify order cancellation for your shoppers with a customer portal. They can initiate order cancellations before shipping or delivery without any difficulty.

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Bottom line

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As the competition in the ecommerce landscape is growing, it's becoming crucial to delight your customers at every stage of the customer journey. However, unforeseen and unavoidable issues can still make your customers feel distressed. Therefore, It's now critical that you previsualize your ecommerce fulfilment experience by integrating robust technology into your ecommerce order fulfilment process. This means you can redefine customer experiences even in times of uncertainty with greater flexibility and win your customers. Ultimately, enabling you to adapt and meet the modern shopper's needs.