3 Fulfillment Tactics That Boost Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

Whether you are a traditional business owner or run an eCommerce store, it can be challenging to fulfill orders and keep customers happy as your business grows.

Improving fulfillment operations as much as possible will help your business to handle large order volumes and meet customer expectations.

Here are three key fulfillment tactics that will help you boost the efficiency of your business and improve customer satisfaction:

1. Offer Free Product

Do you have a new product you’re trying to push sales for?

Include free samples in your next shipment to customers who bought related products. Not only is this a great way to surprise your customers, but it will also encourage them to buy your new product after they try it.

It will also give you some feedback, so you can gauge how well your target audience will receive your new product.

Example: A customer purchased a laptop from you, and was happily surprised to find the free laptop sleeve included in the shipment. They loved using it and, when they wanted a new laptop accessory later on, they made sure to come to you before looking at other retailers. The best part? When people asked the customer about their laptop sleeve, the customer always referred people to you.

Throwing in something extra in your product shipments like that goes a long way toward building customer loyalty and gaining referrals. Word-of-mouth advertising IS the most valuable form of advertising, after all.

2. Cross-Train and Outsource

People get sick. People have their slow days, where they’re just dragging through.

Don’t let days like this affect your business’ efficiency and customer satisfaction – make sure all of your employees have been cross-trained, and that some of the work is outsourced.

By cross-training all of the people on your team, you can ensure all of the orders will be able to be fulfilled in meet throughput demand.

Sure, those that were cross-trained may not be as efficient as seasoned order fillers, but they do help boost your company’s overall throughput. It also helps boost morale, as everyone feels part of a team that teaches its staff the different aspects of the business.

In addition to cross-training, you may also want to consider outsourcing some of the work. Have an independent contractor send out those purchase confirmation emails or make those calls, contract with a graphic designer for your package inserts, or contract with an experienced fulfillment service for the storage and shipment of your products.

3. Have a Personal Touch

Part of giving customers a better experience is taking strides toward building the consumer-brand trust that helps keep your products flying off the shelves.

Consumers tend to purchase from brands they feel they know, connect with, and can trust. By adding a personal touch to all the packages you send out, you make your customers feel validated in their purchasing decisions. You also give a sense of authenticity, showing your customers there is a real person (or team of people) on the other side of that logo.

Having a custom-made box for your brand will help you stand out from the rest, and will make a long-lasting impression on your customers. It will create an association for your customers, just like the way most consumers can pick out the specific blue of a Tiffany box.

Include a hand-written, personalized note in each package as a way to become more memorable for your customer.

Have you spoken with them before? Great! Make a reference to those previous conversations in the hand-written note. Maybe you helped them pick out a product. Mention that.

Have they bought things from you before? Excellent! Tell them how happy you are to have such loyal customers.

Final Thoughts

Many business owners make the mistake of pouring all of their efforts, time, and money into generating new leads and getting people to buy their products.

The customer is excited to finally get the product they’ve been anxiously awaiting – only to receive a shoddy, boring package with a lack of personal touch or even persuasive copywriting.

Put these 3 fulfillment tactics into play, and you’ll start seeing a definite growth in both brand efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Do you have any fulfillment tactics you recommend? Let me know in the comments below and, while you’re here, don’t forget to share this post!