Give Your Buyers’ Time The Priority

Its so cliché to hear from different vendors how you can save money and time using their products. Most of the time it’s true but hard to quantify. We can hang our hat on hard costs like knowing that a 2 lb. Priority mail package going to a household probably saves a couple of bucks at least over the private carriers’ ground products for example. One of the soft “indirect” costs that I’ve always been fascinated with is the reduction of customer service costs using the US Postal Service for domestic parcels. The main advantage here is that you would be using Priority Mail (or First-Class) parcels which in most cases get there in 2 days (3 to some further out locations) while the private carriers’ (who will remain nameless) ground products are meant to get there in 4 to 6 days.

Some research companies have determined that buyers get antsy around day 3 and will start calling or inquiring from sellers as to the status of their package. Sellers usually send them a status email with the tracking number of the package which helps alleviate that inquiry or at least deflect it but it’s not the full solution. So, if you’ve shipped with the US Postal Service and it got there on Day 2 (or 3), you probably no longer get that call. IMHO, that’s worth a lot. You get a happier customer and you don’t have to allocate time or resources to handling those inquiries. To me, that translates to real money.

Not only that, but I have heard of cases of great service from our customers (shippers/sellers) where they will automatically resend a package to a buyer if they call complaining that they have not yet received a shipment. Then you have to deal with getting the duplicate back – if that happens. I also expect that when a buyer feels they got something back, the probability of them ordering from you again increases.

It’s funny how several customers I’ve talked to don’t include that when they factor their choice of shipping carriers or mail classes but then after the fact realize how much service has improved.  I’d love to hear about your experiences and if you’ve seen that in your business too.