Whenever a customer wonders where their order is, you are facing the infamous WISMO phonemon.
The delivery stage is decisive for the shopping experience in eCommerce. Delayed or failed deliveries, lost parcels or a lack of communication during the delivery process are common shipping issues that can harm customer loyalty.
What is WISMO and why is it reducing your profits?
WISMO is the acronym for “Where Is My Order.” This term is used when an online store doesn’t offer any tracking information to the customer, leaving the buyer wondering where the order is.
If an online store is getting the WISMO question, it’s already a sign of deficient after sales service. This means that the purchasing experience could be improved in order to increase customer satisfaction and reduce unnecessary costs.
WISMO-related queries can come in many different forms: emails, calls, support tickets... However, all of these queries have one thing in common: they can be avoided.
Tackling the WISMO issue: How to improve customer satisfaction
The first step to tackle the WISMO issue and improve the purchasing experience is to provide more information to your own team.
Why? Because WISMO and WISMR (Where is my return?) can happen for two reasons:
1. Customer support doesn’t have any tracking information. Without this information, they will be unable to provide it to customers to solve their WISMO questions or contact them directly to inform them of a delay, loss or any other shipping issue.
2. Customers don’t receive any tracking information on the status or location of their shipment or return, forcing them to contact support, which creates more work and higher costs for you.
Moreover, when customers have this information, it’s more likely that they’ll be at home at the time of delivery, reducing the number of shipping issues.
How to Reduce WISMO
The first step toward reducing WISMO is to automate communication with customers.
Provide the package tracking information to allow users to use in a tracking portal and get updated information in real-time and send them emails with the location and status of the order.
You could go as far as giving them the delivery information before they even make the purchase. How? Be transparent about delivery times by including a delivery period estimate on product pages or including a ‘Where is my order?’ section on your FAQ page to answer some common questions regarding delivery times and lost or damaged parcels.
These practices will provide customers with the information they’re looking for while you save on costs and time in support.
If you compare the effort required to manually search for the information a concerned customer needs with the resources invested in email automation and creating a tracking portal for your customers, the difference should be pretty clear. Automation is the way to go.
Bonus tip: Make these tracking features mobile responsive.
Reduce WISMO with Outvio
Remember when we said that there are certain tasks that can be easily automated to improve the customer experience and reduce customer support-related costs? We weren’t lying. We have the perfect platform for this.
Outvio provides a plug and play solution that allows you to create a functional and attractive tracking portal that can be customized with your preferred branding and cross-selling strategies.
Outvio also detects anomalies and possible shipping issues to prevent them or speed up their resolution.
Another way Outvio helps you reduce WISMO is by programming automatic messages to your customers —either by email, SMS, Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp— with the tracking information of the shipment or return. In this way, your customers won’t even have to spend time looking for the tracking portal. All this information can be easily tracked through an email that is fully customized and creates a branded experience to boost sales.
Conclusion
WISMO is one of the main sources of unsatisfied customers and customer support queries. Now that you know what it is, how it impacts your eCommerce profits and how to reduce WISMO in your online store, you’ll be able to boost customer loyalty and brand reputation while reducing the workload and resources needed for customer support.
The easiest way to achieve this is by using an automation tool like Outvio.
