I've always maintained a healthy scepticism of Ai (as per some of my comments above). And I have been frustrated with many Ai bots. So much so that I've resorted to creating a screenshot scrapbook of me asking 'can I talk to a human please?'. There are currently 34 screen shots in the scrapbook. However, I think many of the points raised here are excellent use cases. Especially the power of letting Ai handle repetitive, low-level CS tasks. I think the brands that balance human-ness with Ai are the ones that will win, especially when it comes to CS.
Returns are the topic of the year, as industry-wide, sweeping changes are taking place.
Whether it’s PrettyLittleThing ‘facing a huge backlash’ after charging for returns, or restocking fees, or reducing fraud within refunds - the topic can’t stay out of the news.
Product returns continue to impose logistical challenges on retailers - in 2022 alone, consumers returned a staggering $212B of products, just over 16.5% percent of total retail sales.
For every $1B in sales, the average retailer incurs $165M in returns, and for every $100 in returned merchandise accepted, retailers lose $10.40 to return fraud.
While the latest data from 2023 shows returns slightly decreasing to 14.5% of overall retail sales; the ecommerce-specific numbers show returns continuing to increase from 16.5% to 17.6% of sales, according to NRF.
Never Fully Dressed Use Two Simple Strategies to Retain Revenue
NFD were receiving a boatload of returns every month… not a foreign concept to most fashion brands!
They implemented two simple strategies which resulted in retaining 10% of the revenue they would’ve otherwise lost through returns:
Exchanges
NFD focused on making it easy for customers to exchange their unwanted product(s) for ANYTHING. Size, Colour, SKU - it didn’t matter; what mattered was that customers were happy and were encouraged to still make a purchase!Gift cards
This offered a huge simplification for their customers. The journey of going from a return → to an exchange → to an upsell was made incredibly smooth. Allowing customers to move their return to a gift card created a new upsell opportunity they hadn’t previously experienced.
Never Fully Dressed decided to shift their focus from simply processing returns to proactively avoiding them. The brand leveraged messaging strategies to educate customers on making informed purchasing decisions, ultimately reducing the need for returns. Additionally, NFD introduced tools like Easy Size Online and Bambuser to help customers choose the right sizes and make confident purchases, resulting in improved revenue and valuable feedback from their consumer base.
Maybe try:
Offering a wide variety of options for exchanges
Offering Gift Cards for returned items instead of a refund
Hera Retain Revenue Through Integration
Hera was founded in 2015, gaining early notoriety with celebrities wearing their signature lines, including Lewis Hamilton, Hailey Bieber, and Brooklyn Beckham, among others. In October 2021, HERA Clothing was acquired by Paul Richardson, an established British businessman. Nicole Jackson joined the team as Head of Customer Support shortly after the acquisition, and Hera has strived to put the customers first ever since.
"It was a whole new team. We needed to regain our customers' trust, and everyone on the team helped get the customer journey to where it is now."
There was a lot to do and, at first, that involved more listening than acting.
“One of the first things we did was integrate our returns solution with our 3PL. Processing returns at peak times takes a lot, so having that automated has saved us a ton of time!”
Next, Hera implemented HERA Rewear to take advantage of the explosion of secondhand clothing sales.
“We wanted to play a meaningful role in that space in the best way possible, and Rewear is the start of the journey towards HERA becoming more circular. We wanted HERA Rewear to be an extension of our website. Rewear is handled and executed in the exact same way. All items are hand-reviewed, cleaned, and repaired by our in-house experts to prepare the product for resale. I like how we’ve made the process smoother for our customers.”
The life cycle of clothing continues, and it’s all resonating with consumers.
Maybe try:
Customer service Returns Integration
3PL Returns integration
Reuse program
For Hera, it’s meant a great deal of retained revenue!
