Why You Need Post-Purchase Workflow Automation

You've put in a lot of effort to get customers to your online store and make sales. But what happens after the purchase? That's where post-purchase workflow automation comes in. It's the trick to keeping your customers happy and coming back for more. Let’s dive into the world of post-purchase automation and show you why it's the future of eCommerce.

Post-purchase workflow automation offers a range of solutions for optimizing every stage of the customer journey. Here are a few key types of post-purchase automation to consider:

Order tracking is an essential post-purchase step to automate. You might be thinking, "But I'm already using a shipping carrier that offers order tracking. Isn't that enough?" Well, not quite. 

While carrier tracking is a great start, it doesn't necessarily provide the best customer experience, as your customers have to leave your website and go to the carrier's website to track their order. That breaks up the customer experience and takes them away from your store site.

That's where ReturnGO comes in. With ReturnGO's branded order tracking portal and notifications, your customers can track their orders directly on your website, on a portal that’s fully branded to your store. This keeps customers on your site and gives them a consistent customer experience. It's a small change that makes a big difference for customers.

In addition to the benefits for customers, order tracking automation simplifies your workflow, as you can automatically keep your customers up to date with email and SMS notifications in real-time throughout the shipping process. This can significantly reduce WISMO (Where Is My Order) inquiries and make things easier for your team.

Returns can be a challenging aspect of eCommerce, especially when dealing with complex returns policies or large volumes of returns. Returns automation helps simplify the process by leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the returns workflow. 

Integrating with your tech stack including your inventory management system, shipping carriers, and order management system, returns management systems like ReturnGO can identify eligible returns, generate return shipping labels, and automate refunds and exchanges. This streamlined approach reduces the burden on your team while making the returns experience much easier for customers.

By automating returns, you can concentrate on growing your business while maintaining an exceptional customer experience and reducing the hassle associated with returns.

Automate your inventory management with a tool such as a Warehouse Management System (WMS) or 3rd-Party Logistics (3PL) provider, which can help you manage your inventory levels, track stock movements, and optimize your storage and shipping processes. 

The fulfillment process has a lot of moving parts, and by automating inventory management parts of your post-purchase workflow you can reduce errors and improve efficiency. This is becoming the standard - 83% of warehouses and logistics providers use a warehouse management system.

Using inventory management automation, you can:

• Automate inventory tracking and updates in real-time, ensuring accurate stock levels and reducing stockouts or overstocking.
• Set up alerts and notifications for low stock levels, expiring products, or discrepancies, allowing you to adjust as needed.
• Streamline tasks like counting, tracking, and reporting, freeing up resources for higher-priority tasks.

Loyalty and rewards programs are a great way to incentivize customers to make repeat purchases and increase customer loyalty, and they can be automated to make it easy for customers to track their rewards and redeem them, and easy for you to manage and monitor. 

For example, you can automatically send emails to customers when they earn rewards, and let customers view their balance and redeem rewards directly from your website.

Automating your loyalty and rewards program can help you save time and improve the customer experience. Instead of manually tracking rewards and sending emails to customers, you can let the automation system do the work for you. This frees up your time to focus on other parts of your business and provides a more seamless, convenient experience for your customers.

Automating your post-purchase workflow can bring some serious benefits to your eCommerce business. 

Here are some of the top reasons why you should consider automation:

Automating your post-purchase workflows ensures your customers have a seamless experience, from order tracking to returns and beyond. This leads to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and, ultimately, more revenue.

With an automated post-purchase experience, customers can stay up-to-date without your team needing to get involved. The more hassle-free the shopping experience is for customers, the more likely they are to come back and buy again.

Post-purchase workflow automation can make a big difference in reducing your operating costs. 

Simplifying your processes lets you reduce manual labor and save on labor costs, freeing up resources to invest in other initiatives that drive growth and profitability.

Additionally, automation can help prevent errors that may lead to costly returns or customer service issues. 

Wouldn’t it be great to have more time to focus on the things that really matter for your business - like growing your brand, developing new products, or engaging with customers? With post-purchase workflow automation, you can make that a reality. 

It’s no surprise that 74% of businesses are increasing their investment in supply chain technology and innovations, including AI technologies, automation, and analytics.

Think about it: if you automate tasks like order tracking, returns and exchanges, inventory management, or even shipping label generation, you can take these tasks off your plate and free up resources to focus on high-leverage initiatives that generate profits and growth.

Automation ensures that your data is always accurate by reducing the risk of human error. 

By automating data collection and analysis, you can eliminate the need for manual data entry, which can be prone to mistakes and inconsistencies. Automated workflows can help ensure that information is accurate and consistent, reducing the need for data cleanup and minimizing the risk of fraud. 

Additionally, automation can help enforce data governance policies and standards, ensuring that data is collected, stored, and processed in a consistent and compliant manner, helping prevent data breaches and ensuring that sensitive information is protected.

As your business grows, automation ensures that your post-purchase workflows can scale with it. Manually processing orders and fulfilling customer requests can quickly become overwhelming and inefficient, leading to delays, errors, and frustrated customers. 

Automation takes the pressure off by handling routine tasks at scale, allowing you to focus on high-value activities that drive growth. 

With automated workflows, you can effortlessly process and fulfill large volumes of orders, manage complex fulfillment routes, and ensure that every customer receives a personalized and seamless experience. 

Whether you're dealing with a sudden spike in demand or expanding into new markets, automation lets you adapt without sacrificing speed, accuracy, or customer satisfaction.

Now that you've seen how important post-purchase automation is, it's time to learn how to make it happen. Here are the steps to automate your post-purchase process:

Start by identifying the areas of your post-purchase process that are causing the most inefficiencies. Is it order tracking, returns, or exchanges? Is it manual errors, delayed responses, or lost packages? Pinpointing the pain points is key to solving them.

Once you've identified the gaps, it's time to choose the right tools for the job. Look for solutions that can automate your post-purchase workflows, such as ReturnGO. Assess your options based on factors like scalability, customization, and integrations.

Integration is key to seamless automation. Ensure that your new automation solution integrates seamlessly with your existing systems, such as your e-commerce platform, CRM, and inventory management software.

Configure your automation workflows to meet your specific business needs. Define the triggers, actions, and conditions for each automated process. This will ensure that your workflows are tailored to your unique post-purchase process.

After implementing automation, monitor your process to identify areas for improvement. Optimize your automation workflows as needed to ensure that they continue to meet your business needs.

Post-purchase workflow automation is the key to maximizing efficiency and productivity in your eCommerce store.

Automation eliminates manual errors, reduces bottlenecks, and ultimately makes it possible to scale your business effectively, making it stronger and more adaptable.

So don't wait - start automating your post-purchase workflows today to take your business to the next level.