How SOPs for eCommerce business are helping improve CX

With every passing day, the intensity of competition in the eCommerce sector is growing in unprecedented ways. Unless we are talking about any revolutionary innovation, products alone have become insufficient to create a brand identity. Even the likes of Amazon or Walmart are not exceptions here. But that also is the point. What are these companies doing differently? Do we not every day on social media and news come across so many new businesses with unique ideas and marketing approaches? One thing that makes successful retail and eCommerce brands different is that they know their customers better than we could even begin to comprehend. They use these understanding and insights for continuous improvement of the customer journey with eyes set on delivering progressively enhanced customer experience. Well, then why is every retail or eCommerce business with this enlightenment not successful? Why are only some selected brands able to increase and retain their customers? The answer lies in maintaining consistency in the delivery of value and services. If the marketing aspects are in place, the operational ones must also support it.

As an enterprise that works with retail and eCommerce businesses, we always maintain that robust operational planning is the key to marketing success. It does not matter whether you are selling lemonades or limousines. How you are doing it at the level of execution matters. And if you could do that consistently, your customers will keep coming back for the value and services which they know you never fail to deliver.

In this blog, we will try to highlight how the application of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in various business functions/departments helps eCommerce enterprises build a robust operational framework leading to enhanced customer experience (CX).

Inventory & Hub/Warehouse Management

Some of the operations of inventory management and hub/warehouse management leave strong undertones on customer experience. If these operations are done wrong or in a deviated fashion, it can adversely affect the CX priorities of a brand. A few such operations are purchase/procurement, QA & QC, storage, and distribution.

The ability of customers to place orders is directly affected by whether or not the goods are available or would become available on time. This necessitates that procurement processes and operations are carried out with precision. SOPs can help ensure that procurement is done following the required operational standards. This includes defining when to place an order, who will do it, who will authorise it, wherefrom the requisitions will come, what the inventory requirements are, wherefrom to source, and so on.

Quality Assurance and Quality Control are the next big impact sources for customer experience. Any kind of sloppy work in QA & QC will lead to faulty goods entering into the business cycle. Such products, if not filtered out at the gates, eventually reach the customers causing dissatisfaction and hurting the brand image. By their inherent nature, SOPs are highly-detailed and systematic solutions making them ideal for executing QA and QC measures.

Storing operations also affect customer experience. While well-defined inventory storing procedures may not enhance CX, a poorly-defined framework hurts it. SOPs help businesses implement inventory storing requirements in their warehouses and distribution centres. With time and habit, employees begin to get convergent with the different strong requirements for different goods.

Digital Marketing

In recent years, digital marketing has emerged as a powerful business solution in aiding the retail and eCommerce customer journey and delivering better customer experience. Customers now interact with brands at several digital touchpoints in their shopping journey. This includes exposure to content and advertisements, reaching out to customer support, sending queries and grievances, community engagement on social, reviews of other customers, etc. Maintaining robust back-end operations to deal with these elements has become necessary.

Take the example of content marketing. Maintaining the quality of content is very important to secure reach and engagement with audiences who could be both existing and potential customers. If the content calendar is not followed, content posting frequency would be affected which in turn would affect the prospects of visibility. Or if any content gets posted on the wrong platform, the right audiences may not notice it. The same holds for how customer support communications take place on social. All these experiences or lack thereof affect a brand’s relationship with its customers. If digital marketing activities continue to fail to resonate with customers, the brands eventually lose touch with them.

SOPs are necessary for digital marketing because they can define and standardise the operations and the operational requirements.? For example, your social team should know beforehand what to do for comments made in a bad taste. Establishing in advance how to handle such comments could be a part of customer support SOPs.

Fulfilment Centres (FC), Order Fulfilment, Last-Mile Delivery

A fulfilment centre is a place where the physical operations of an order fulfilment process are initiated. After a customer places an order, it is sent to the nearest FC. The goods are then packed, labelled, and sent for dispatch. This involves coordination with the logistics team or associates. Before all this, the goods are first stored at the FCs. This is done considering various factors like demand trends and forecasts, festival seasons, discounted pricing, etc.

If you look carefully, all these activities carried out at an FC have a bearing on customer experience in one way or the other. For example, the wrong technique of picking up goods from the shelves could slow down the rest of the order fulfilment process. Or untimely coordination with the logistics team could cause delayed delivery at the nearest hub for last-mile delivery.

The use of SOPs could ensure that all the operational activities carried out in an FC and for order fulfilment process are executed in a planned, systematic, and quickest-possible manner with due adherence to all the required operational standards. For instance, defining the packing, labelling, handling, and transporting standards for fragile products help ensure that the products are received by customers as intended. These standards and requirements could be integrated into the SOPs of the concerned operations.

Returns and Refunds

As the returns and refund policies could barely get any more liberal in the competitive eCommerce space, businesses just have to make sure that they do not end up making any strategic or operational blunder. The effort should be to make the process simple and convenient for customers. While at the same time, certain safeguards are also necessary. Keeping the process as much internal as possible is a good approach. Asking for proof in the event of a wrong delivery is an area of concern. Why ask customers for proof? Don’t you know what you sent or not sent to them? Concerns like these may fall on the side of strategic decision-making but it affects the experience meted out to customers. And therefore, the operational implications of these concerns must find the due place in the operational planning. That is where SOPs are so useful. Things like what questions or proof you should be asking for could be mapped in the SOPs. And once these are okay, refunds should not be a problem provided it is done through SOPs to avoid any errors or mistakes that could bring financial loss to the company or its customers.

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FAQs

What is CX in ecommerce? What is eCommerce customer experience?

CX stands for Customer Experience. It refers to what or how customers purportedly feel or experience when they see, interact, and transact with different brands and businesses at different touchpoints of their shopping journey. In eCommerce, customer experience can emanate from the usage of shopping apps/websites, content exposure on social media, precision in order fulfilment, amicability of the return policies, swiftness of refunds, etc.

How can I improve my eCommerce CX?

If you own or run an eCommerce business, you could improve your CX by defining the buyer persona, mapping the buyer/customer journey, developing a sound CX strategy and ensuring that your business operations are tied to your CX priorities.

What is a CX strategy? What is a good CX strategy?

A CX strategy is how a brand intends to improve its customer experience.? For example, adding an EMI purchase feature makes it possible for customers to make purchases with a small initial amount. But is that a good CX strategy? The answer will depend on other factors like product segment, purchasing power, availability of associate financial services, etc.

Why is customer experience in eCommerce important?

The reasons are no different for eCommerce than what they are for in general. If you want your customers to stay and come back and make purchases, you will have to continue giving them the right value propositions and meet their service expectations. And while you do this, it should also meet your bigger business goals and objectives.

What are some of the latest and best eCommerce customer experience trends?

· ? ? ? ? Using the outreach of local and niche-based content creators for SMM

· ? ? ? ? Use of hyper-personalization

· ? ? ? ? Use of video-based product descriptions

· ? ? ? ? Use of social media platforms to address customer grievances

About Your Retail Coach (YRC)

We are a retail and eCommerce consulting brand with an extensive portfolio of business solutions and services. With 10+ years of experience in this field of work, we have worked with 500+ clients spanning 25 verticals. As an enterprise with a budding international presence, we consistently endeavour to maintain world-class standards in our service design and delivery. Our projects are handled by professional and experienced retail and eCommerce consultants.??

To know more about our eCommerce SOP consulting services or to speak to one of our online business consultants, please drop us a message.