Our research shows that the largest proportion of returns are often caused by first time, dissatisfied customers. These customers were dipping their toe in the water and trying out a new retailer but ended up disappointed with the product they received.
The largest proportion of returns are caused by first time dissatisfied customers
Generally these customers make a small purchase of one or two items with a fairly low basket value therefore they may not appear to be a lucrative prospect, however once they receive an unsatisfactory product they won’t buy from you again. This means the true cost isn’t just a refund - it’s the customer who has been lost, and may leave bad product reviews or share their dissatisfaction via social media.
Luckily this is a problem you can act upon if you are able to detect product issues or mismatches between online content and customer expectation quickly and remove these items from customers view. Targeted customer service can salvage the customer experience and ideally convert the return into an exchange, which is where in-store returns have an advantage as active salespeople are on hand to help customers.
As this group account for such a large proportion of returns, helping even a small percentage to exchange the unsatisfactory product or incentivising the customer to visit again will save millions of pounds in revenue.
Quickly identifying product or online content issues can salvage the customer experience
Clear Returns’ customer value scoring has the ability to identify these customers within your existing CRM, allowing marketing and customer services to act quickly and alter targeting appropriately to encourage these customers to return again by perhaps providing customer support or offering exchange suggestions.
