by Mike Richmond, Vice President, Doddle- Part of Blue Yonder

Steve Jobs was desperate to make Apple focus on customers.

“Some people say, ‘Give the customers what they want.’ But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do.”

That’s a classic Jobs quote you’re probably familiar with. How many retailers really take it to heart, though? Listening to what the customer wants is the very essence of what great retailers do – but what if there was a whole array of very direct customer feedback that they weren’t using?

Returns are a Treasure Trove of Customer Feedback

Every single return tells a story. And while in isolation, they may feel meaningless, together they give powerful insight.

What if 100 customers returned the same item? A thousand? More? If you give those customers the chance to explain their decision to return, you can uncover important trends such as misrepresentation on your website, inaccurate sizing information, packaging issues, and more.

Having this information is the first step to implementing strategies that will improve the customer experience, reduce return rates, and ultimately boost revenue and growth.

Why Aren’t Retailers Collecting the Data?

A big reason that returns data is underutilized is that many retailers don’t have the systems in place to collect it.

For example, printing a paper return slip and asking customers to fill it out with their return simply isn’t an effective way to encourage feedback or gather data. Customers frequently do not fill them out accurately, warehouse employees don’t always accurately transfer the information to a digital system, and that digital system might be stuck in a silo, hard to access for its insights.

To collect returns data, you need to gather insights from the moment a customer registers their return. Using a digital returns platform is the perfect solution for this. Customers are provided with a quick and easy way of initiating a return, while retailers can gather accurate data on what is being returned, by whom, and why. There is no physical paperwork, and the data can be assessed and acted upon before the returned item arrives in the warehouse.

Turning Returns Feedback Into Customer Strategies

Once returns data is being collected with a digital returns solution, there are a myriad of ways that it can be used to shape the business to become more customer-centric across departments, such as:

• Marketing: We have identified a segment that costs us more in returns than it earns – can we adjust campaigns to exclude it?
• E-commerce: This range is being returned more than others because the photography is not clear.
• Logistics: We have discovered an unacceptable lag between customer drop-off and arrival at the warehouse. It’s impacting resale opportunities and time to refund.
• Purchasing: Customers are flagging an inherent problem with a product, we should reassess our supplier.

These aren’t just small improvements or fixes for customer experience – they add up to a significant impact on company profitability.

However, because such data can be harnessed by various departments, there also comes the challenge of ownership. If responsibility for returns sits between multiple departments and there is insufficient coordination between them, it’s very difficult to drive improvements or build these vital capabilities.

Traditionally, returns may have been treated as a cost center, reducing the appetite to invest in the customer experience and capture that useful data.  Defining clear ownership, and seeing its potential to add value to the business goals will go a long way to making returns improvements possible.

Beyond Customer Feedback: Using Data for Efficient Returns Processing

Returns data doesn’t just provide retailers with customer feedback, but also lays the groundwork for smarter, more efficient returns processing. For example, retailers can implement smart rules that enable free returns for loyal customers, or even “returnless” refunds (where shoppers keep the item and receive a refund) on items that would cost more to ship and process than they are worth to resell.

In addition, returns data will cut down on manual processing time and ensure that items are routed and prioritized based on the information given, so damaged items can go straight to repair or recycling and items more likely to resell can be sorted back into inventory faster.

Mike Richmond is a Vice President at Doddle, a Blue Yonder company. Doddle’s technology, expertise and partnerships help posts and parcel carriers become ecommerce leaders, growing volumes and cutting costs in the first and last mile.