Operations experience management: your brand’s number one customer retention strategy in 2022

The pandemic has greatly enhanced e-commerce growth. More people are shopping online than ever before, and these customers are expecting the same personalised experience that they receive in store. But what is the state of online retail in the UK and US as we go into Q2? And why should post-purchase communication be a priority customer retention strategy?

Customers want to be updated on their order. In fact, our recent research found that 66 per cent of consumers want regular updates throughout delivery. A further 65 per cent want to be notified immediately if there is a delay. That doesn’t sound too complicated, does it? Sadly, most of the world’s leading brands fail to do this.

parcelLab is on a mission to change this. Enter operations experience management (OXM).

What is operations experience management?

Imagine the following: you buy a product online, checkout, receive the order confirmation and dispatch and then... nothing. A total absence of updates about your order from the brand you just purchased from. Perhaps you get some communication from the carrier, but not always. Sounds awful, right? Well, this happens every day when consumers are shopping online with the world’s biggest brands.

OXM is the combination of operational processes and customer experience, further enhanced by personalisation and relevant value-led touch points.

How OXM benefits customers

Delivery is the most emotional part of the customer journey, and many customers are left in the dark about the whereabouts of their order. Here’s how OXM changes that and benefits customers during last-mile delivery.

1. Customer-centric, user-friendly delivery tracking

Accurate and easy-to-access tracking during delivery is a basic requirement when shopping online – but many retailers don’t provide this. In fact, our latest research found that just 21 per cent of UK retailers communicate with their customers after dispatch. By taking control of post-purchase communication and sending branded, proactive updates, the customer knows where to go to find the tracking information and there’s no confusion around who the package is arriving from.

2. Live ETA

A live tracking link allows the customer to stay up to date on any changes to delivery. Once the parcel is in the delivery truck, a host of factors can affect the final delivery time. Traffic jams, closed roads, poor weather conditions... the list is endless. And any one of them can change the course of delivery in a second. That’s why providing live tracking is so important. Plus, by sending event-triggered notifications, brands can manage expectations so their customers are kept informed and don’t wait around for their parcel.

How OXM benefits brands

Customers are their most engaged during delivery, and many brands don’t capitalise on this. By owning the end-to-end customer experience, brands can create a fully personalised communication flow in their own branding. Here’s how OXM changes that and benefits brands during last-mile delivery.

1. Extended brand engagement

By sending branded tracking emails, retailers can create a recognisable experience. This not only creates an engaging end-to-end journey for customers, but also means there is no confusion when each parcel will be arriving. Plus, if the customer has a good last-mile experience, they will remember who it was! OXM allows brands to add branded details to their delivery notifications such as fonts, logos and graphics to stand out.

2. Reduced enquiries

By keeping customers up-to-date during delivery, WISMO enquiries will no longer be such a time-consuming problem. The customer doesn’t need to call up to find out where their parcel is, they can track it on the order status page. This means customer service agents have the time to answer more serious customer enquiries – a huge saving to businesses!

3. Commercial cross-selling and upselling

Having control of post-purchase communication means brands have new opportunities to cross-sell and upsell to customers. For example, brands can include embedded product recommendations in delivery notifications or on the order status page, based off the item the customer has bought. This is a low-cost, low-effort way to improve retention rates and increase traffic back to the retailer’s store.

4. Reporting and analytics

OXM provides brands with unique reporting and access to delivery data. Brands can identify trends in performance and improve their ability to forecast delivery times. The data provided also allows brands to understand a carrier’s efficiency and compare this with other providers. They can establish first-hand if carriers are meeting agreed SLAs and flag areas of improvement if required.

5. NPS and feedback

When post-purchase notifications are sent by a brand, customers will remember them. Take the opportunity to request feedback at this moment, when customer satisfaction is at its highest. OXM allows brands to send automated, event-triggered feedback messages to customers within the first few hours of a product being delivered.

Why you should invest in OXM

Through OXM, parcelLab wants to help brands improve the most crucial stage of the customer journey: shipping, delivery and returns. By transforming every transaction into an experience and every touchpoint into a personalised and memorable interaction, customers receive an exceptional end-to-end branded customer experience.

When a brand owns their end-to-end customer experience, customers receive relevant, reliable, personalised and branded communication directly from the retailers, which actually adds value to their experience. OXM gives brands the opportunity to share relevant content, cross-sell and upsell to customers and create a community among their buyers.

Above all else, OXM enables brands to be more efficient. They can better manage customer expectations without manual work. Plus, for their customers, this means increased visibility into their parcel’s journey, creating a streamlined, worry-free experience.

Read parcelLab’s latest research on the post-purchase performance of the top 200 retailers:

UK data

US data

By Tobias Buxhoidt, CEO and Co-Founder, parcelLab