With rising customer acquisition costs, supply chain complexity, and changing consumer habits, a generic post-purchase experience is no longer enough to deliver true business benefits.
One of the ways to take your post-purchase experience to the next level is to have an order status page hosted on your website. An order status page is a self-service portal where ecommerce shoppers can track the progress of their order from processing through shipping and delivery.
By implementing an order status page, you unlock opportunities that wouldn’t be possible if you send your customers to the carrier tracking page or just provide updates via email.
Optimize Your Order Status Page for a Better Experience
With the proper post-purchase software, you can get an order status page up and running on your website with minimal effort. This page should deliver an authentic brand experience in your look and voice that embodies your culture and customers’ lifestyle. Additionally, you should have the ability to continuously customize the tracking experience as your brand evolves and new marketing campaigns launch.
Provide everything customers need in one place
When you implement an order status page, you gain the ability to deliver the most convenient post-purchase experience. This is your brand’s opportunity to give customers everything they need all in one place and they’ll rarely reach out for customer service help, especially when it comes to “Where is My Order” (WISMO) inquiries.
To be the most helpful to customers after they make a purchase, your brand’s page should include:
- Production and warehouse updates
- Delivery tracking
- Details on multipackage orders
- Inflight options for address or schedule changes
- Feedback options
- Personalized recommendations
By including all of the features above, customers have a convenient way to check the progress of their order and shop for other things in the process. To make this happen, the post-purchase software you use should be able to integrate with the systems you are already leveraging. For example, parcelLab’s operations and engineering experts help retailers make their post-purchase experience better by connecting the systems and data from warehouses, payments, ERP, CMS, carriers, marketing and content platforms, and customer services systems.
To keep customers coming back, it is critical to get the right data to the right place at the right time. The more successful and informative your brand’s post-purchase experience is, the more likely it is that customers will make repeat purchases.
Build a Community and Create Customer Excitement
An order-tracking page is a great way to promote your customer community and differentiate your brand. Share posts from your Instagram, customers, and influencers to create an emotional connection with new customers. Then, you can ask them to promote their purchase on their social media accounts once they receive it. The platform you leverage should empower you to add links for customers to opt into SMS notifications or to sign-up for newsletters or special events so you can continue to stay top-of-mind.
The post-purchase platform you use should be able to integrate with your recommendation engine, so you can encourage customers to shop while they wait, and suggest accessories and other products related to their order for follow-on purchases. Similarly, your brand can use this page to support integrated marketing campaign efforts with ad space available for upsell engagement.
What are the benefits?
| Benefits | Description |
|---|---|
| Increase customer retention rates | Staying connected post-purchase is extremely important for customer retention and sending automatic updates is a great way to keep customers happy and excited about their order. |
| Reduced WISMO inquiries | Customers have instant access to any information regarding their order with an order status page so they will not feel the need to contact customer service agents. |
| Improved customer engagement | Encouraging customers to interact with your social media pages and leave feedback about their experiences shows them you care and will keep customers engaged. |
One key benefit of the order tracking page is that it enables brands to deliver targeted updates automatically. Most people will unsubscribe from a brand’s marketing content if it is targeted incorrectly. This means that it is imperative to deliver relevant, personalized messages to your customers in order to stay connected from pre- to post-purchase. When you add targeted content to the order tracking page, your brand can improve overall open and click-through rates because the customer is seeing relevant content while they are the most engaged. Since this page is hosted on your brand’s website, you can view analytics to see how changes to this page impacts site traffic and then adjust accordingly for better results.
While waiting for their package to arrive, customers often check the order status page several times. With instant access to the latest information regarding their order, customers do not feel the need to call customer service agents about WISMO inquiries. In fact, having a personalized order status page is known to reduce customer inquiries by up to 25%. With this in mind, it is also best practice to link to an FAQ page or a preferred channel for inquiries. This allows you to manage customer queries in a way that is most convenient and cost-effective for the brand.
Lastly, order tracking pages enable retailers to deliver a recognizable experience and improve customer loyalty. By encouraging customers to follow your social media platforms, you are encouraging them to join your community which helps with customer retention. An example of what retailers have done is add a hashtag to their messages with an invitation to join the conversation or invite customers to give their feedback. When you make customers feel valued, they will keep coming back time and time again.
Looking to Build an Engaging Post-Purchase Experience?
Since it requires a lot of time, money, and effort to gain a customer, it is necessary for brands to implement tracking pages that will convert, build loyalty, and increase engagement. That’s why more than 800 retailers have chosen parcelLab as their post-purchase experience platform.
Interested in learning more about how we can help? Contact us today!
FAQ
An order status page is a self-service portal where e-commerce shoppers can track the progress of their order from processing through shipping and delivery.
It helps customers stay informed in real time without having to ask customer service agents for live assistance. This alleviates some of the anxiety that comes with e-commerce shopping. It can be especially helpful when customers order multiple items that ship separately. For brands, it helps to reduce the number of times customers interact with service agents.
Whenever a brand can answer a repeatable question before it’s asked, it reduces costs and helps free up agents to address more complex questions. Having more agents available reduces hold times and improves overall customer experience.It also helps brands bring shoppers back to their site sooner. This helps build more traffic, increases their domain authority, and leads to more repeat shopping.
Absolutely. Brands should customize their order status pages to fit their brand style and voice and stand out from the competition. Some customization options could include offering customers the opportunity to sign up for SMS updates, news, and special offers. Brands can integrate product recommendation engines to show customers more products they might like, encouraging them to shop again.
Marketing teams might want to showcase the latest offers and promotions or integrate social platforms to share user-generated and influencer content. E-commerce and product owners might add links to setup guides and user documentation for electronics and appliances which can help reduce returns and increase adoption.
While building an order status page in-house is possible, most e-commerce retailers will want to work with a technology vendor. This will cut down on the development costs, implementation timeand comes with many advantages for maintenance and innovation. There are a few things to look for in a post-purchase experience platform provider. The first is responsiveness.
Retailers don’t want to sacrifice customization to work with a vendor. Delivering the same experience as their competition won’t help them stand out either. A vendor that will be responsive to their needs will make it easier to find ways to improve the order status page over time and create a unique experience for shoppers. The platform should also be easy to use and work well with the e-commerce retailer’s existing tech stack, making personalization and customization simple and straightforward.
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