What is a delivery promise, and why does it matter?
Vaishali Ravi
·April 1, 2025
While most brands focus heavily on marketing their products to convince customers to hit the “buy” button, they don’t pay nearly as much attention to the post-purchase journey. And that’s a big mistake.
In fact, a shopper’s experience with your brand is just beginning after they’ve committed to a purchase. And if they’re not thrilled with the experience from there, you’re likely to pay the price in the form of high customer churn rates and negative feedback.
Optimizing the post-purchase experience
There’s a big disconnect between brands’ and customers’ view of the post-purchase experience: While just 18% of retail leaders believe there’s room for improvement in the post-purchase journey, 83% of customers do. In fact, 79% of shoppers say they’re not likely to buy from a brand again after a negative post-purchase experience.
Shipping is a big factor in the post-purchase journey, with ecommerce shoppers saying it accounts for at least half of their experience. But a lot of brands are still getting it wrong: 71% of shoppers have contacted customer service in the last year due to shipping or delivery problems, and more than half say they’d leave a negative review if the issues weren’t resolved to their satisfaction.
As a retailer, it’s critical to dedicate resources towards delivering a high-speed, low-cost, and consistent delivery experience for your customers. Delivery time accuracy is also a key priority for shoppers: They want accurate data around when their item will arrive, rather than a rough guess. By offering them the Delivery Promise, you can deliver on all those counts.
The problem with shipping estimates
When a shopper places an order, many brands will respond with a shipping estimate shortly after confirming the order. But shipping estimates are often vague: for example, it may say “estimated delivery within 4 to 7 business days.” And 40% of major ecommerce brands simply note “shipping speed” rather than delivery date in their estimates, which doesn’t provide clarity around when the package will actually be sent out for delivery.
These rough estimates are frustrating for customers, as they have no real visibility into when they should expect their shipment. They can’t plan around being home to receive it, and they may no longer even want the item if it doesn’t arrive in time (i.e., they’ve bought a new top for an upcoming vacation). And many items take significantly longer to be packaged for shipping than the original estimate.
While many brands include a link to the carrier’s shipping notifications once the package is en route, shoppers must frequently log in to check for status updates, or risk missing out on vital information if there is a problem with delivery.
All of this leaves the shopper with a sour taste in their mouth before their package even arrives—setting them up for disappointment and a negative brand experience.
The solution: A Delivery Promise
Instead, take a proactive approach to improving the post-purchase experience for your customers by offering them a Delivery Promise with Loop.
In contrast to a vague and non-commital estimated delivery date, Loop’s Delivery Promise uses a predictive model based on real-time carrier tracking data and fulfillment times unique to the brand to deliver an accurate prediction of when your shopper’s package is due to arrive.
Benefits of using Delivery Promise include:
- Increased conversion rate: When viewing products, a customer can input their zip code to get a Delivery Promise even before putting the item in their shopping cart. That gives them increased confidence in their purchase and lowers the cart abandonment rate.
- Reduced CX support needs: Many customer support requests are due to “where’s my order?” questions. With Delivery Promise, you can give your shoppers improved visibility around their order status, cutting down on CX tickets related to shipping by an average of 40%.
- Enhanced visibility on shipping performance: Loop’s enhanced data insights can empower your Support, Operations, and Retention teams with complete visibility around shipping performance, so that they have the know-how to solve problems and optimize strategies for more efficient fulfillment.
- Multi-channel, real-time alerts:Provide your shoppers with real-time updates and alerts around their order, using their preferred communication channel—whether that’s email or SMS, or both.
- Customized email and SMS templates: With our Delivery Promise and order tracking tools, you can provide a streamlined post-purchase messaging flow over email or SMS, with automated campaigns that send a new message based on every status change with your delivery. No matter what happens, you’ll be able to keep your customer in the know, and give them confidence in your brand.
Enhancing the customer experience with a streamlined shipping process
Using Loop’s order tracking tools to help you manage your customers’ expectations will help you deliver a streamlined, consistent post-purchase journey. Even in the event of shipping delays, missing items, or other unexpected hurdles, you can proactively reach out with updates and reassure your customers around next steps.
While shipping times can change due to outside factors such as weather or carrier issues, providing your shoppers with real-time updates and insights around their package’s journey will go a long way towards boosting their confidence in your brand and your ability to deliver.
By prioritizing a great customer experience throughout the shipping journey, you’ll be able to build a stronger connection with your customers and show them that you care. And that will pay dividends, helping you build stronger customer loyalty: Our brands saw a +20% lift in same-month purchases after using our real-time order tracking features. Shoppers are also more likely to spread the word about your brand, helping you boost your referral rate.
Here at Loop, we pay close attention to everything that comes after the purchase, from order tracking and delivery through to the return process. We know what’s most important is how you take care of the shoppers who’ve put their trust in your brand—and with state-of-the-art post-purchase tools, you can deliver a delightful experience that will keep them coming back time and again.
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