Hi and welcome to another video by BOA Ideas. I’m Lital, the CTO, and today we’re talking about a return system that works with your Shopify store.
At BOA Ideas, we built a return system that works together with your Shopify store. The system provides answers for customers who want to request a return. It also helps the day-to-day operations of customer service and your warehouse to receive returns and credit the order amount to the customer.
Note that the topic of returns in Shopify stores is hard and problematic for store owners and customers. So let’s talk about these problems.
Customer Service Overload
The first problem that our clients face is an overload on the customer service representatives. Whether it’s by email, phone, or WhatsApp, many customers reach out to return products. And it’s hard to recruit enough customer service representatives to deal with all of the returns.
No Access to Tracking Number
Another problem a lot of clients had was that the customer service representative always has to check the status of the package with the shipping company because the customer didn’t have the tracking number to check. It creates a lot of problems and a bigger workload, as we mentioned in the first problem, on customer service. And sometimes, packages are lost along the way because of the overload.
Warehouse Confusion
Another problem we had was that when the warehouse received the returned package, after we went through the trouble with customer service, the warehouse doesn’t know what to do with the package. They don’t know what the package is, what it’s connected to, etc. They need to open inquiries, open Excels, talk with customer service, and it creates a lot of chaos in the warehouse. We wanted to make this process more efficient for them with the system.
Lack of Reporting
Another thing that our clients requested was to be able to check which items are returned most often. They want reports. They want to know, “okay, we received returns but where can we analyze the data, and create statistics, and check which products are not worth us producing or selling in-store?”
No Clear Return Process
The last thing, that causes a lot of frustration for people buying via Shopify: they don’t know who to turn to about returns. They send a request to customer service, customer service gets back to them after five days. It’s possible that the time frame for making returns has already passed and they’ve already forgotten about the package. And then the package sits in their house, even though they wanted to return it. And they have to remember to do it and figure out where to turn and what to do. Sometimes there are mix-ups, sometimes they are not given a credit. The entire process is not transparent for the customer and causes a lot of frustration and can even create a bad name for the store that they tried to return the product to.
So these were the problems that our clients with Shopify stores were facing. If you also have these problems, let’s talk about the solution.
Self-Service Return System
Our company built a return system that gives an answer to all of the problems that our clients were having. And of course, it gives an answer to your customers also to request a return and receive quick and efficient service.
Imagine to yourself that a customer entered your store after receiving a package and having a few items that they’re not satisfied with and want to return. He received a note in his package that says, “If you want to do a return, go to the return section of the website.” He goes to your website and arrives at the return area.
When he clicks “return” on the website, he’ll arrive at a form where he can enter the order number that is included in the package and his email address. He clicks “confirm” and continues to another form that has the details and quantities of everything he purchased.
He can choose the amount and items he wants to return, he can choose the type of shipping he wants - if he wants to return in a branch, with a messenger, or through the mail. He chooses the address. If it’s a messenger, which address they will come to. It can be the original address on the order or a different address. He fills out the form, clicks “confirm” and immediately goes to a page that says “Thank you for your inquiry” along will all of the details of the order and the items he wants to return.
He also gets a notification via email confirming the execution of the return. In the email, it says the shipping number with the shipping company to monitor the delivery, and the return confirmation number.
Merchant Benefits
Okay, so until now, we saw the customer journey through the return process. And now, I want to tell you about the advantages as store owners in using this return system. In the system, you have the ability to choose what will be in the form that the customer fills out.
You can choose the type of shipment that can be returned. You can choose how many days customers have to do a return from the day the order was created. We have clients who chose 14 days, we have clients who chose 21 days. Every store can do it according to their own return policy.
You have the option to create different types of shipments, whether its by messenger, mail, or the branch. And then when the customer gets to the form, they can pick which type of shipping they want.
When the customer finishes the return process, all of the information he filled out, goes to a system behind the scenes. Customer service can enter this system and can see which returns are incoming. And if a customer reaches out to them, they can go into the system, enter their order number, and check its status. If you’re using a delivery company, there is also the shipping number for the delivery company. You can check with the shipping company where the messenger is, if he’s coming, if the package is with him, when it will be sent, and lots of other details on the return that customer service needs to know.
The return gets to your warehouse, either via the branch, or messenger, or mail, but the package arrives at the warehouse. At this moment, they can scan the barcode on the package and then open the order of the package, remove the items, scan them, and mark in the system if they arrived damaged or not. After this process finishes, customer service can see that the items arrived at the warehouse and then they can decide whether to credit the customer or not through the system.
There is no need to go back into the Shopify system to credit the customer. Through the return system, they press a “credit” button and the system will automatically credit the customer for every item not marked as “damaged”.
All of this information that is in the system can be downloaded via Excel and you can do statistical analyses on it. We have clients who like to see which items are returned most often and to understand from it that perhaps there are items that need higher or lower production. Maybe there are items that need to go on sale to reduce inventory.
Tracking the returns that we offer clients gives them a lot of tools to know how to manage the store. And all of the information in the system can help a store know how to manage from a future perspective. Is it a product that is worth selling? Or should it be sold less?
Customize the System
Of course, in our system, we can make lots of changes based on store owner requests. For example, there is a client that requested that the credit be given based on the original amount paid. For example, if an item cost 50 shekel, and there was a sale of 10 shekel on it, then the system will automatically know to issue a credit of 40 shekel.
And there are clients who said they want to be able to decide the credit amount. So of course, we gave them that ability. There are clients who say they want to charge for shipping and other clients who say they won’t charge for shipping. It depends on what the client wants, and we built the system to fit the needs of the client.
If this is something that sounds interesting, we would be happy to build the system for you and fit it to your needs.
So I hope that you are as excited as I am about the return system and you already want to add it to your store. So come to us with every question, we’re happy to be here for you.
And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We post interesting Shopify content every week that can help your store. So we’ll see you in the next video!