COD is bliss for all online buyers and companies as it reduces the risk of making payment online while trying out a new shopping site for a buyer and also boosts revenue of e-commerce companies.
However in the fastest growing internet industry there are different types of customers, few are genuine buyers and few fun/prank customers who never accept COD orders and order it for fun and sometimes snatch it from the delivery boys without paying the COD amount.
There have been instances where fun/prank customers order products online and right after delivery of the same they change the product with a piece of rock and take a picture to share it socially with the seller and ask for refund so that their product become FREE!
These customers could have been handled easily by companies who are ethical and technologically advanced and have proper quality checks, packaging of products and premium delivery partners but social media is acting to be the biggest challenge to handle these type of losses as prank customers always pretend to be innocent and social audience get to see only one side of the story which might not be true story and hence companies end up paying or making losses accepting their mistakes even when its not to avoid losing their social brand image.
These prank customers could have been dealt easily as per the company policy if social media was not a challenge because e-com companies have terms like:
1) Do not accept the packet if it looks tampered.
2) Call the customer care in front of the delivery boys if you see product is missing.
On social media there is a psychology of users to accept that whatever is posted is always true and consumer is always right but the online shopping company which is run by ethical values and have been serving millions of customers happily has no reason for cheating you intentionally.
If there are genuine cases ethically operating companies detect the issues and make necessary corrections which is acceptable.
Image source – bongous.com