How eCommerce Online Stores Reduce Complaints Through Quality Checks?

Increasing your customer loyalty and retention should be integrated into your eCommerce business model at many touchpoints of the customer journey to maximize customer satisfaction.

Here’re a few tactics and common practices that I want to share with you as a digital marketer of one of the trusted ecommerce software companies in the US.

Why It’s Important to Reduce Complaints via Checks?

Reducing complaints requires the business to first take ownership and put pride aside to focus on understanding where the disconnect is. The goal from an owner’s point of view is to embed a culture where people are looking to constantly improve and not be complacent.

Most complaints are in the form of negative reviews which are easy to gather. A weekly or monthly review should be done to see if there are any common themes. A complaint that comes out regularly is definitely something that needs to be addressed. It could be related the product quality like leaks, breaking in transit, or product breaking.

Make note of the patterns in customer feedback you receive on specific products you sell. If your reviews are offset by a few particular features about one product, it may be time to consider a redesign to correct the issue.

With customer reviews, you want to do your best to knock satisfaction ratings out of the park every time. While 100 percent customer satisfaction ratings aren’t always realistic, it is worth noting where your products excel and where they stand to improve.

Here are a few more things you can do:

• By delivering on promises. Online stores can reduce complaints through quality checks by ensuring that suppliers meet product and packaging requirements. That includes assessing materials and construction of products, color requirements, weight and dimensions, carton labeling, and graphics, among others, thus ensuring you deliver on your promise.
• Performing onsite product tests. Find out which tests are considered necessary for your niche product or in your industry, the procedure for testing, and testing tools to ensure your customers get value for their money and reduce churn.

How to reduce customer complaints in ecommerce?

I believe the best way to avoid complaints is by inviting feedback and providing an excellent customer experience. Become a listening and caring partner to your clients and use the feedback to develop an in-depth understanding of their requirements to enable a timely resolution to their problems.   

An ecommerce business can reduce complaints by pre-surveying consumer priorities, needs, and interests. You can do this in email newsletters, follow-up automated messages after follows or subscriptions, or after an initial purchase through your site.

My best tips to help ecommerce online stores reduce customer complaints include:

• Consistency of product quality
• Supplier on alert, as they are hyper-aware of your expectations
• Cutting down on chargebacks/customer returns
• Lowering fees associated with returns, e.g., shipping, credit card company
• Minimizing negative reviews

Managing Customer Retention

You can reduce customer complaints by offering to teach them about how to use the product. Giving them a walkthrough is important because you’re showing that there is no defect in the product. Also, it prevents them from misunderstanding instructions on paper and using the product wrong. Teaching customers should be practiced because it lessens the chance of them complaining about how they broke the product or it is not working.

One of the common complaints from customers, especially if their purchases are being delivered, is that it took too long. You’re an online store so that means you have to keep on top of the deliveries. Inform your customers early on about the estimated time of arrival of their products. Never make promises but make it clear to them when they could possibly receive the delivery.

Improving quality checks is important because it keeps your connection with the customers intact. You are trying to make them loyal to you but if they find that you are lacking, they would search somewhere else. Too many customer complaints can taint your business. You also don’t want to send out products that have defects. It’s important that you keep on top of the work.

Documented quality checks

Implementing frequent documented quality checks serves multiple purposes. The first is improved customer experience through quality assurance, as the customer is more likely to receive a great product. The second is team accountability, every staff member throughout this process is responsible for the quality of the product. Lastly, if a complaint does occur, there is ample evidence to show that our team has taken every precaution to ensure quality and makes the handling of complaints more streamlined because we already know what happened while the product was with our team.

If you don’t sell a quality product and are not keeping on top of quality control, it will eventually bite you in the ass.  Word of mouth marketing is still very much alive and well, even more so in the social media age, and an unhappy customer who received a crap product will let their friends, family, and followers know not to buy from your brand.

Quality Assurance for reducing customer complaints in ecommerce

Before significantly upgrading our QA (quality assurance) process in regards to receiving products and shipping out the right products for orders, we would get lots of complaints One of the best ways we upgraded our product quality was shifting to more reputable manufacturers who delivered on their promises. We currently use GroovePacker to scan and verify all SKUs are correct before shipping out any order. This has a 99% rate of ensuring the proper product is in each order.

Your existing customers can act as brand advocates for your products, assuming they’re happy with your product and their experience with your store.  Existing customers also tend to spend around 33% more when they buy from you, versus new customers, so it’s definitely in your best interest to retain as many customers as possible.  Keeping customers is a combination of making sure they’re satisfied with your products while simultaneously keeping your products in front of them.  Email marketing is a great way to do this.  Send them welcome emails, thanking them for making a purchase.  You can also offer cross-sales and up-sales through email.  If they haven’t purchased anything in a while, send them an email with a sale offer.  Many people will make a purchase after receiving a personalized email from a company.

So, the answer to the question How?

The best thing to do in order to avoid complaints through quality checks is

To make sure you get the right product from the vendor itself.

Perhaps the main issue is that customers who shop online may not get what has been shown on the net.

So before sending the product, why not show a video of the thing in real life! This will help to set the customer’s expectations rather than shattering them upon receipt.

A business flourishes based on good reviews by the customers. They can earn goodwill by word of mouth publicity and that can be highly beneficial for their sales. Hence, good quality control yields beyond just good products.
No matter what industry you are in, quality will be the center of everything. Your customers will come back only if you manage to satisfy them. Hence, it will also boost your brand image in the market and help you sustain competition. Thus, do not compromise on quality.