With e-commerce becoming increasingly competitive year on year and margins squeezed due to rampant inflation across the globe, it’s become increasingly important to identify and mitigate business costs that may not initially be obvious. WIMSO is a great place to start.
Never heard of WISMO? It stands for "where is my order?" and is a term commonly used in the logistics and e-commerce industries. It refers to the customer enquiries regarding the location and status of their orders which can result in increased customer service workload for businesses, or more plainly, cost.
In the context of e-commerce, how WISMO enquiries are delt with can be a crucial factor in determining customer satisfaction and retention. Customers expect timely and accurate information regarding the status and location of their orders, and any delay or lack of communication can result in negative experiences and potential loss of future business, or more plainly opportunity loss (cost).
The cost can vary depending on the business and the volume of orders they receive. However, in general, WISMO enquiries can be a significant cost for businesses that do not have efficient order tracking and management systems in place as that can result in delayed or inaccurate information being provided to customers.
On the other hand, investing in an efficient order tracking and management system can help businesses reduce the cost of WISMO enquiries by proactively providing customers with accurate and timely information regarding the status and location of their orders. This will reduce the volume of inbound enquiries and in turn will reduce the workload on customer service staff and improve overall customer satisfaction, leading to increased customer retention and repeat business.
A good place to start would be to understand your WISMO rate - the percentage of all orders that generate a WISMO enquiry:
Once you have established your WISMO rate it's important to then understand how much this is costing you. If you multiply the total customer service expenditure by the WISMO rate you'll get the total WISMO cost. Divide this by the total number of WISMOs and you'll get the per unit resolution cost.
You may even wish to go a little deeper by breaking the WISMO enquiries into segments such as countries, shipping service type or distribution site if you ship from multiple locations, to identify what is driving the rate.
Taking these steps will allow you fully understand what the costs are and enable you to take a much more targeted approach to reducing your WISMO rate and per unit resolution cost.
Dealing with WISMO effectively can be a revenue driver rather than a profit diluter. This is where ibundle can help. Every item sent via ibundle is fully tracked and ibundle users can quickly and easily identify delayed or problem shipments, pinpointing where WISMO enquiries would likely come from so those all-important proactive messages are sent to customers before they enquire. This directly reduces the WISMO rate.
But, it’s not just communicating any issues that’s important, resolving delays is just as, if nor more crucial. Often this can be very challenging, with the simple task of just speaking with someone that can help seeming almost impossible. The team at ibundle have direct communication to all parties handling all stages of a package journey and are readily available and able to help resolve issues swiftly. This directly helps to reduce the per unit resolution cost.
To find out more about how ibundle can reduce costs as well increase customer advocacy and lifetime value simply get in touch via support@ibundle.net.