Ecommerce—like so many other industries—has accelerated almost beyond recognition since March 2020. For a start, 6+ months of continued social distancing measures have seen a critical mass of UK consumers swap physical checkouts for digital baskets. 

• According to July’s BRC-KPMG retail sales monitor, online sales now account for over 40% of all UK sales. 
• A recent study by McKinsey indicates that UK consumers expect to shop online more after COVID-19 across all the major categories surveyed: food and grocery, apparel, household items and entertainment.

But it’s not just that more people are shopping for more things online. It’s that they’re bringing pre-pandemic CX expectations with them—and they’re gravitating towards whoever can meet them. (In fact, McKinsey reports that 71% of UK consumers have switched to a different brand or retailer since COVID-19.)

For brands, the message is clear: customer tolerance for poor communication, inaccurate information and delayed deliveries has plummeted. The demand for fast, frictionless, faultless delivery services has skyrocketed. And that means effective order management has shot from just very important to mission-critical. Let’s take a look at five emerging order management challenges that smart brands can capitalize on to boost CX, grow loyalty and position themselves for growth as the economy reopens. 

Challenge #1: Where’s my order anyway?

The spikes in consumer demand – the run on toilet paper for example – took many retailers by surprise. But crucially, in an environment of compounding uncertainty, proactive transparency around the causes and consequences of delays can actually build consumer confidence.

How prepared are your order management processes to handle consumer queries about sudden stockouts and unexpected delays? Or even better, are your shoppers able to check the status of their orders themselves – either online or via an app?

The key here is not to overload your human agents with common queries that could easily be serviced by automated routines. For instance, it doesn’t make sense for a person to manually collect upfront order details and update the order status on your website – that’s better served by a bot.

This frees up your dedicated service agents to handle more complex cases as they’re escalated – but only so long as they have fast, easy access to the right customer information and the right capabilities to actually fix the problem.

Can your service teams place orders on behalf of customers, make delivery/shipping changes, and handle returns and exchanges? Order management touches a wide range of critical business areas such as CRM, ecommerce and customer service. To function effectively, service agents need to be able to fix customer issues without switching between disparate systems. 

Challenge #2: I clicked but couldn’t collect!

Click and collect (C&C) should be an obvious win for you and your customers. 68% of digital buyers were already using it in 2019, and the flexibility C&C offers is proving hugely beneficial for both consumers and brands during the conditions of the pandemic.

Customers get to pick up purchases wherever and whenever suits them all while avoiding delivery charges and social distancing. Meanwhile you get to use your store as a distribution centre, and move stock that would usually be purchased exclusively in store.

So why is it so tricky to get right?

C&C depends on real-time sales feeds to ensure that the right product is available at the right location at the right time. Order management systems that feature advanced order routing algorithms can help you optimize inventory allocations, reduce fulfillment times and keep your customers happy.

Challenge #3: Why didn’t you tell me it was out of stock at the beginning?

As you can imagine, it’s frustrating for your customers to go through an online buying process only to discover that the product they’re trying to check out is out of stock. Homegrown order management systems and ERP systems that have been ‘customised’ to help with order management are often the culprits. They tend to receive delayed feeds of sales activities and aren’t built to scale.

Online surges – due to holidays or future lockdown orders – can easily lead to stockouts, inaccurate inventory counts, faulty orders and upset customers. An effective order management system should enable out-of-the-box integrations and real-time data exchanges with all your primary ecommerce tools.  

Challenge #4: How the heck do I return this?

It’s all very well nailing a fast and frictionless delivery process, but what about when customers want to send something back to you? Closed stores, and concerns about visiting those that are open, mean that some shoppers have been sitting on returns.

So why not make it easy – for your customers and your business – by making returns self-service?

Set up a simple, step-by-step automated process – either through your site or within an app – to guide customers through return actions, including printing return labels and choosing how and where to return items. A chatbot could help to answer common queries throughout the process – and even to guide customers towards different products that will meet their needs. 

Challenge #5: Future-proofing your order management strategy

Successful order management is part of an integrated approach that gives customers the opportunity to ‘buy anywhere, collect anywhere, and send anywhere’. It’s responsible for the most important moment of value exchange – where the money a customer pays translates into the goods and services paid for.

Nothing matters more than getting that right.

Truly customer-centric order management requires a single platform for managing Commerce, orders, customer records, fulfillment, inventory, business processes, payments, customer care and invoicing.

Learn more about how to get it right with a future-proof order management strategy here.