How customer feedback improves returns
Vaishali Ravi
·August 1, 2024
Customer feedback is always valuable for improving your product development and business operations—and you’ll learn just as much from shoppers who returned their products as those that kept them.
By building a strong pipeline for collecting customer feedback and strategically analyzing the data, you’ll be able to understand what customers love about your brand and what leaves room to be desired. Armed with the right insights, you’ll be able to make improvements to your product lines and marketing initiatives that can help you boost sales and reduce your return rates.
Here are some guidelines on how to solicit, and use, customer feedback to improve your returns metrics.
How to collect customer feedback on purchases
You know when your customers’ products are delivered to them—so set up an automated campaign a day or two after the packages’ arrival to ask them how they like their items, and encourage them to leave reviews. If you offer a VIP or loyalty program, you can encourage customers to leave reviews by offering bonus VIP points for every review of a verified purchase.
If you sell apparel, create optional fields for detailed feedback in your customer reviews, such as the shopper’s height, weight, and whether the product fit is tight, loose, or just right. You can even encourage shoppers to submit UGC, such as photos and videos, that show how they look in the product and how they’ve styled it.
This social proof will go a long way towards convincing new shoppers to give the product a try if they see positive reviews and images from real customers. When shoppers submit their sizing data within their reviews, it will also make it easier for customers to get the right fit on the first try. And, if customers have paired the item with other products from your brand, it can help you upsell new shoppers on complementary products to the one they’re considering.
Collecting customer feedback on returns
Return requests are another type of customer feedback—but you’ll have to dig into the data more deeply to understand what those shoppers are telling you.
As many as 30% of online purchases can end up as returns, but it’s not always because the shopper doesn’t like the product. Sometimes, it’s simply the wrong size, or the shopper didn’t like the color in person. Sometimes, the return is a result of a defect or shipping damage.
And sometimes it is the case that the shopper didn’t like the product—but they may not have negative feelings about your brand in general.
When a shopper requests a return, it’s important to find out their motivation. Using Loop’s returns management portal, you can set up an automated questionnaire that uncovers your shopper’s reason for requesting a return, such as whether the item was too large or too small. You can then automatically guide them towards logical actions: If the product was too big, offer an Instant Exchange for the next size down. If it was damaged during shipping, offer to send an immediate replacement. If they generally didn’t like the item, encourage them to use their exchange credit towards another item at your store, rather than requesting a refund.
By offering personalized options based on their return reasons, you’ll be able to optimize for exchanges and retain revenue from many of these returns.
Using return insights to improve product development and marketing strategies
While you can use each customer’s return reasons to develop a personalized plan to retain them, analyzing all of your return insights in aggregate can help you develop large-scale strategies to improve products and ensure accurate marketing, which can reduce your future return rates.
Using Loop’s Insights tool, you’ll be able to assess which products are being returned most frequently, and why. From that, you can uncover:
- Sizing issues
If customers regularly return certain products because they are too small or too large, the sizing is not accurately described on your product pages. Once you’ve discovered sizing discrepancies, you’ll be able to update your product pages with a descriptor, such as “customers say this product runs small; size up.” - Manufacturer defects or shipping damage
If a product comes back once due to shipping damage or a manufacturer defect, it’s a minor inconsistency. But if it happens multiple times with the same product, it points to a problem with your business operations.
If the issue is due to shipping damage, consider using better packing materials that will provide more protection for fragile items, or evaluate whether it makes sense to change your last-mile delivery provider if you believe they’re to blame for the damage. In the case of manufacturing defects, work with your manufacturer to correct the problem, seek out alternate suppliers, or discontinue selling the product. - Trends in item popularity
Some items may simply end up being sent back more often because customers don’t like them, without any specific reason. It may come down to the perceived value of the product, or changing trends in style. Whatever the case, if you’re seeing a low sales rate or high return rate on certain products, it’s a good opportunity to liquidate those products and replace them with more popular alternatives.
By analyzing your customer feedback around returns data, you’ll be able to uncover hidden insights that will empower you to boost your brand’s operational efficiency and reduce your return rate.
Build a better customer experience
By analyzing customer reviews and returns data, you’ll be able to get new insights on your customers to uncover their sentiments towards your brand and products. You can see which products are rated most highly, and re-stock those products quickly to get ahead of increased demand. You’ll also understand which products are returned most frequently and why, paving the way for marketing or operational changes that can lower your return rate.
Measuring insights will give you a clear look at your customers’ needs and values, helping you to build a more relevant buyer’s journey from end to end. You’ll be able to personalize your customers’ experience by providing product recommendations in the right sizes for them, decreasing the likelihood of return rates. And by modifying your merchandise selection based on customer feedback, you’ll be able to keep your collection relevant to your customers’ needs and preferences. Armed with the right data insights, you’ll be able to create a superior customer experience that will keep your shoppers coming back.
Want to see how Loop Insights can help you analyze your returns data?
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With Loop, your brand can offer everything from refunds to direct exchanges to shopper incentives and more. Even better? These exchanges build your business.