Ecommerce has become a way of life, at least for the urban cities in India. With so much happening at the forefront of Ecommerce, between companies like Amazon , Flipkart and Snapdeal, you can’t miss the fun.
But sometimes, this fun can be frustrating when you don’t know how to deal with a situation in case of an issue.
I would not condemn an Ecommerce website for this ‘coz, nobody had anticipated such a growth for Indian Ecommerce. And with the war chests full of cash reserves, these companies are out for a kill.
This is the reason why the number of orders has tripled in last 2 years itself. Coming from the other side of the table, I can assure you that missing out on delivery promises and having our customers crib is the last thing on anyone’s mind. It’s generally the circumstances / situations that cause these issues.
However, There are a few things one can do to ensure that they don’t have to face the frustration in any interaction online. By following these steps, you will not be at the receiving end at least.
1. Know the SLAs of the Product you are ordering: You should know what is the laid down SLA for an item to reach you. Please don’t go by your previous experience. It could be possible that you received your previous order early, but that doesn’t mean, that everyday will be a holiday 🙂 . Keep your expectations real, based on the timelines shared by the company.
2. Penny wise , Pound Foolish – Please don’t go by the over rated and over hyped discounts poured all across the internet. We live in a connected world, and many times, the ads keeps following us until we take a decision. However, Please ensure that you keep in mind the company / website you are purchasing from. Don’t fall trap for the discounts and end up getting frustrated. To keep it short, I would suggest, spend a 100 Rs extra from a known , trusted website, than saving a 100 bucks and going in an unknown territory.
3. Read all policy documents carefully 🙂 – Make sure you read the FAQs of the website along with the return / exchange policies. More so, when you are buying from a SALE section. Most of the times, websites, don’t allow return / refunds on SALE items. Look out for these policies, not just to be aware of what’s happening, but to ensure you don’t end up placing an order and then going in circles to get it returned.
4. Know the seller: Today, most of the big Ecommerce giants have gotten into a Marketplace model, where every Tom dick and harry is given a space to showcase it’s products. So, Before placing an order, make sure you check out who the seller is , what kind of reviews the seller has been getting, what all products the seller is selling. Take an informed decision of purchasing from this buyer basis all these things.
5. Know the Escalation Channel: While placing the order, you should also know the escalation channel for that company. You should know who you should contact in case there’s something you need an immediate attention to. What are the channels of Support they have? What are their email ids? How’s their customer service? These are a few questions you should answer before doing a big purchase online.
6. Keep all the information : All the information you have like Order Number , Tracking number , Ticket number, Registered Email id , and Registered phone no. should be kept handy and should be used while dealing with the company. It will save a lot of to and forth with the company. And it would also make things easier for the service agent to help you if you have already shared all the details.
7. Last but not the least – Keep your expectations realistic and try to resolve the issues. Many times, I have come across customers who would have very unrealistic expectations and would want the brand to incorporate. Please understand, there are humans on the other side as well, so please try and ask for something which is humanly possible.
I’ll end this with an incident that happened with me. I work for an ECommerce Fashion brand for women. A girl placed a COD order, verified the address on the phone and next day, when she received the delivery , she asked the courier guy to deliver the product at a different address. Since the new address was a little far away from the address on the system, officially, the courier boy denied saying, he can’t change the address on his own. Please call the customer service. She called up customer service, and as an exception we agreed to change the address, even though, it would be an extra cost to us, ‘coz, the courier guy had already reached the destination. Anyway, We said, it’s okay. This lady again calls up after 3 days and says she didn’t like the product and she wants to return the product. Now, In lieu of the “Inconvenience” she had to go through at the time of delivery, she said, we will have to pickup the product from all together a different place.
As a customer we should realize that editing an order once placed involves a lot of interaction with external partners also like Warehouse team, Logistics Partners, etc. When we are processing thousands of orders in a day, it becomes humanly impossible to incorporate all such requests.
Since I am involved with day to day operations of an E Commerce Store, I can say this for a fact, that this Diwali, all the logistics partners had 3 times the usual volumes and this includes all the big players as well.
At the end I would say Happy Shopping and Do let me know your thoughts , tips and tricks to maneuver around with the Policies of E-COMMERCE Portals