Any business, be it warehousing, manufacturing, retail or even pet-sitting, knows that you need to depend on customer satisfaction to thrive, succeed, and grow. After all, without customers, who exactly is your business serving?

Warehouses have a number of areas they can consider when trying to deliver the best possible customer experience, and due to various factors like what kind of products you carry, how you handle your returns, how shipments are processed, and so on, the work performed can have a huge impact on how your customers respond to your business.

That said, no matter what you do or how you do it, there’s a few areas that nearly any business can focus on to improve customer relations and help keep your customers coming back time and again whenever they have need of your products. Here’s our suggestions for the five biggest areas to focus on to ensure your customers are satisfied with your service and delivery:

Accuracy

First and foremost for any fulfilment business should be a focus on order accuracy. Customers who get the wrong item, experience delays, or whose orders get lost in the shuffle aren’t likely to come back, and that lost business can have a huge impact on your bottom line.

Perform frequent audits of your shipping, packaging, and receiving practices to make sure your items are being picked and shipped correctly, and always double check any shipping lists or bills to ensure each order has the items it needs.

Presentation

With the options customers have for purchasing items these days, even the littlest things can have a big impact on how they perceive your brand (and if they’ll come back for repeat business). Make sure your items are packed as gently as possible and with the cleanest packing material you can find—gone are the days where it’s okay to dump a pound of packing peanuts into every box. Make sure to reduce touches on each item to prevent damage (or confusion along the supply chain), and try to protect the items on your warehouse shelves to keep them as immaculate as possible before they get to their destination.

Transparency

A big part of fulfilment involves communicating with your customers. Above and beyond the obvious approaches like shipping updates and making inventory levels available to the public, customers these days want to know more about the process.

Keep them updated on where their item is, be clear about what their costs are and why, and provide representatives to discuss billing and payment needs when able to make sure your customers feel like they’re getting a fair (and honest) deal.

Speed

These days, it isn’t enough to just offer accurate orders—you have to get them there faster than the next guy, too. The likes of Amazon have shifted customer expectations to needing the fastest shipping options available, and talking to your carriers and working out the fastest shipping options possible will go a long way towards keeping your customers happy.

Make sure to provide faster handling, too. Even if your items will only take two days to arrive to their destination, same-day shipping could make or break your customer relations.

Flexibility

Finally, you need to be able to roll with the punches and keep up with changes in customer demand and the landscape of business. Approach all of your customers like a partner and not just another link in the chain—provide customer service reps (personalised when possible) to help answer any questions your customers have and ensure a good rapport between your business and your customers. If your customers know you’ll be there to help answer any questions they might have, they’ll be much more likely to stick around.

Get in Touch with Advanced Handling & Storage

If you want to find our more about how second hand pallet racking, shelving or any other storage system can benefit your business, then please get in touch with our team on 0800 345 7088 or send an email to [email protected]

Make sure you follow #TeamAdvanced on Social media for all our latest news and offers.

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Connect with us on LinkedIn

Subscribe to Our YouTube channel

Follow us on GooglePlus

Read our other blogs on Medium

Follow us on Instagram