5 tips for strengthening your end customer’s returns experience

The number of online shoppers has increased by 40% in the last five years — meaning there are now nearly 280 million in the U.S. alone. And (of course) more shoppers means more returns.

While returns are frustrating for brands of all sizes, they’re also an inevitability in ecommerce — which makes the post-purchase experience one of the most important steps of the customer journey.

Not only does a streamlined returns experience influence customer loyalty and retention, but it can also give prospective shoppers the reassurance they need to convert if they’re unfamiliar with your brand. Simply put, investing in your returns experience can drive incremental revenue, profoundly affect your bottom line, and benefit your operations in the following ways:

Your 3PL partners operate more efficiently
Your CX teams are better equipped to answer customer inquiries
Your customers get their refunds processed faster
You get more high-quality products back on shelves
More products get donated or resold, and fewer end up in landfills

So, how can your brand implement a returns experience that drives these benefits? In this guide, we’ll cover five insider tips for creating a returns experience that serves both your customers and your entire supply chain.

5 steps to optimize your returns experience

Curating a streamlined returns experience requires a balance of internal strategies and external tools. Here’s what your brand can do to achieve this balance:

1. Partner with an RMA provider

Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) providers are essential in helping brands efficiently manage returns and exchanges. Their signature dish is empowering brands to create online portals where customers can track the status of their returns in real time. They also generate return labels, update inventory systems, and notify customers and CX teams at every stage of the post-purchase journey.

Without an RMA provider, return communications happen via email, which frustrates customers wanting fast refunds and eats up your CX team’s time.

We recommend selecting an RMA provider that easily integrates with the rest of your tech stack to ease the burden on your 3PLs. For example, Two Boxes integrates with RMA providers like Loop, Happy Returns, and AfterShip, preventing miscommunications between systems and saving teams from the lift of managing data across multiple sources.

2. Create clear, user-friendly SOPs

If you’ve ever visited a 3PL facility and found overwhelmed employees sifting through endless pages of returns guidelines, you probably agree that many SOPs could use a serious upgrade. Unrefined SOPs don’t just add another layer of frustration to an already difficult job but have the potential to hold up your entire supply chain.

However, by providing clear protocols for returns processing, you can streamline warehouse operations, reduce the possibility of returns fraud, and get products back on shelves quicker.

The most effective SOPs are comprehensive but easy to understand. To make the grading process as objective as possible and eliminate decision fatigue, you should give workers no more than ten attributes to check for. Which attributes to include will depend on your vertical, of course. For apparel brands, the most important attributes to check might include stains or holes, while for a cookware brand, they could be scratches or discoloration.

We also suggest providing clear images of each item, so warehouse workers have a point of reference as they move through the returns inspection process.

When Caraway onboarded Two Boxes’ returns processing software, for example, our straightforward, digitized SOPs made it much easier for its 3PL to sort SKUs based on condition. Whether they needed to process a single pan or a bundled set, workers knew exactly what they were looking for and could quickly determine which products were damaged beyond repair, which could go back to stock, and which could be resold secondhand.

3. Stay ahead of fraud and defects with item-level return details

When countless products are pouring into your warehouse every day, fraudulent returns and defects can easily slip through the cracks. However, a dedicated returns processing platform (like Two Boxes) gives you a bird’s-eye view of how each product is processed, allowing you to observe larger trends and address them as needed.

Your platform should include data insights on everything from warehouse performance and disposition to fraud detection and supplier quality issues. These insights will prevent you from refunding abusive returns and empower your CX team to transparently communicate with customers about each update — especially in these cases where they need to refuse returns.

Take the premium cookware brand Made In as an example. The brand’s lack of access to returns data made it an easy target for fraud. However, after adopting Two Boxes’ analytics dashboard, its team was able to quickly spot suspicious findings and catch five figures worth of illegitimate returns that might otherwise have been refunded — all in a two-month span.

Increased returns visibility likewise helps you get ahead of potential product defects. When the footwear brand Kane’s Two Boxes dashboard revealed an influx of shoe returns, its team was initially puzzled. However, after probing into the issue, they realized that some faulty shoe boxes had been damaging the shoes themselves.

Knowing the root cause of the returns, Kane addressed the issue before more damaged orders risked jeopardizing its reputation and bottom line.

4. Offer a customer-focused returns policy

When done right, your returns experience can showcase your brand’s personality, trustworthiness, and devotion to its customers.

The core ingredient of a customer-centric returns experience is a clearly defined policy. You should give your customers a set window for shipping back the return and specific standards for what it’s expected to look like (i.e., tags on, no stains, etc).

You should also consider offering free returns shipping and a prepaid label for each order — if you can justify it financially. When a customer is on the fence about making a purchase, the reassurance that the decision could be conveniently reversed can make all the difference.

Being transparent with your customers about your policy from the get-go will also limit the number of back-and-forths with your CX team, leading to quicker processing and happier customers.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, we recommend checking out goodr’s best-in-class returns page. Between its playfully self-deprecating tone, relatively generous terms, and clearly delineated guidelines, the page provides a compelling example of how brand personality can shape the returns experience.

Tie it all together with Two Boxes

Investing in a returns processing platform is the easiest way to simplify every step of the reverse fulfillment process, from warehouse receipt to back-to-stock.

Two Boxes already integrates with your existing ecommerce tech stack — including RMAs, 3PLs, and other logistics solutions — to help you streamline warehouse operations and bring more items back to stock.

Our digitized SOPs improve the 3PL experience and ensure returns are accurately processed, while our data dashboard tracks these day-to-day operations and translates them into high-level insights. Whether you want to identify underlying return trends or catch fraud, we give you the visibility you need to get ahead of every issue.

By allowing you to track how many returns are coming in at a given time, Two Boxes even helps you preempt operational bottlenecks and schedule shifts that meet demand. Plus, we’re pretty resourceful, and we like to think we have an eye for spotting hidden return-to-stock opportunities.

Just ask the swimsuit brand TA3. When our platform identified that they were donating and discarding several items because of deodorant stains, they realized the problem could be remedied by simply removing the stains. Now any time an item with a deodorant stain is returned, TA3 has a clearly-defined protocol in place for getting it back on shelves.