Settling on the right shipment tracking software means knowing what you want to accomplish and which aspects of the shipping experience you’ll want to focus on.
What package tracking is, and why it matters
Package tracking — or shipment monitoring — means providing your customers with real-time alerts and real-time tracking, giving them greater accessibility when it comes to knowing how long until their packages are delivered and whether the packages are experiencing any delays. Most of us probably interact with package tracking regularly. But why is it so important?
In today’s e-commerce environment — especially now that the global supply chain has been impacted by COVID-19 — consumers have been taught by companies like Amazon to expect a high level of speed, transparency, and accessibility when it comes to shipment tracking — so if you don’t offer package tracking, you’re putting your customer satisfaction at risk. In fact, 93% of surveyed customers want to be informed and receive updates about their shipments.
Table of Contents
- Goals to consider when buying shipment monitoring technology
- Real-time visibility
- Shipping exceptions
- Intelligent estimated delivery dates
- APIs
- Integration with other technologies
- Different features of shipment tracking tools
- What customers are looking for
- Why Convey’s shipment tracking provides the best retail and customer experience
Goals to consider when buying shipment monitoring technology
Investing in shipment monitoring, tracking devices, and other methods of location tracking is critical, but making the right decision is important. The process to optimize the customer-facing shipment process involves figuring out what features your business needs — whether bar codes and RFID (radio frequency identification) are enough — and identifying which technologies can provide them.
Real-time visibility
Leveraging the right analytics tool to provide your customers with real-time visibility — and then presenting it to them fluidly through a branded tracking page —are the ideal first steps in your journey towards optimization of your supply chain management and boosting customer satisfaction.
After all, keeping your customers up to date with an ETA on their order status is one of the best ways to prevent “Where Is My Order?” WISMO calls. And cutting down on pricey WISMO calls is a great way, in turn, to boost your bottom line.
UncommonGoods leveraged the power of Convey to give its customers a “track package” link that clarified the shipping process, giving them the option to sign up for and access real-time SMS and email notifications — in essence, real-time location tracking. Ultimately, the new strategy helped keep customers better informed and reduced WISMO calls.
Shipping exceptions
Customers want to be informed as soon as a delivery exception occurs or a shipment issue arises. That means you’ll need a head start — a way to see which shipments are likely to encounter errors or delays so can deal with the issue proactively.
Leveraging predictive insights, Convey’s AI-driven platform not only has the ability to reveal hidden issues impacting up to 17% of your shipments, but it can also identify potential or actual delays up to 33 hours before the shipment’s carrier, giving you a valuable heads-up when it comes to dealing with your customer.
Intelligent estimated delivery dates
Providing your shoppers with quick, accurate estimated delivery dates (EDDs) is incredibly important. In a survey, we found that 49% of consumers would abandon their cart simply due to a mismatch between their expectations for the delivery date and the actual delivery date.
Finding a platform that’s able to generate estimated delivery dates and then make sure they’re met is essential.
APIs
Excellent shipment tracking is all about refining data and making sure your brand has access to a centralized — and actionable — store of tracking data. API-driven development models make all of this possible, giving brands access to their tracking data quickly and seamlessly and enabling them to channel it wherever they need to — whether that’s a tracking page or an SMS update.
Integration with other technologies
Staying ahead of the pack in today’s e-commerce ecosystem means remaining flexible and giving your brand room to adjust its strategies at a moment’s notice. Being able to partner with different carriers and logistics partners will be an essential functionality for many brands, especially those hoping to expand.
ConveyPLUS does just that, building an integrated network within the supply chain ecosystem and giving companies access to logistics partners like Salesforce, Kustomer, and many others. This partner system gives brands greater flexibility when it comes to designing their shipment tracking solutions.
Different features of shipment tracking tools
If you’re starting to think about investing in better shipment tracking software, you’ve probably already realized that you have many tracking tools at your disposal. But what separates tracking technology that’s merely good from tracking technology that’s truly great?
In general, the best tracking tools offer:
- Accurate data. Using APIs to filter and refine data and centralize the countless variables that crop up in the supply chain, Convey offers both you and your customers real-time data that gives the clearest picture of where your shipments are at any moment in time.
- Customer support. It’s important to give customers the ability to interact with their shipments and resolve exceptions when they can. Increasing the flexibility and control over their shipments through self-service delivery appointment scheduling can be an enormous boon.
- AI capabilities. With machine learning capabilities, the right shipment tracking software can rapidly sort through disparate data like bar codes while also improving itself with every shipment tracked.
What customers are looking for
When it comes to shipment tracking solutions, customers look for visibility, self-service options, substantive delivery communication, and accuracy.
In fact, 98% of customers want to self-serve or interact with a brand to resolve delivery issues when they occur, a clear sign that interactivity and engagement are must-haves when it comes to choosing shipment tracking software.
In terms of delivery communication, customers want accuracy and honesty. In other words, don’t think you can get away with being sneaky — 95% of customers expect real-time alerts when the estimated delivery date on their shipment changes.
So what does good, high-value communication look like in practice? As we can see below, it looks like automation in the form of personalized SMS messaging when a delivery exception occurs. A whopping 96% of customers expect retailers to proactively identify and resolve delivery issues, so making sure your customers are aware that you have everything under control is critical.
Below, you’ll see a well-designed real-time tracking page that meets several customer needs. It’s clearly designed with the user experience in mind and breaks the shipment experience down into logical stages to make it easier to understand. The tracking number is clearly displayed, and the customer has the chance to pursue further or find more particular information if they’re looking for it.
Why Convey’s shipment tracking provides the best retail and customer experience
As we’ve seen, Convey offers more flexibility, a higher number of functionalities, and greater speed than other shipment tracking software options on the market, as well as a proven track record of customer results.
When Bodybuilding.com needed to optimize its last mile experience, it turned to Convey. With the help of Convey Engage, the site’s customer service and logistics teams were able to proactively tackle major exceptions before they impacted customers, all while increasing supply chain visibility for its customers with automated communications and branded tracking pages.
Ultimately, the company saw a reduction in WISMO calls of 27%, while at the same time it saw its net promoter score (NPS) rise by 6.3% — a great sign when it comes to customer loyalty.
Similarly, UrbanStems needed a low-cost way to better visualize and track its shipments and prevent late delivery — a major problem because for the online florist because it deals in perishables and experiences high sales during holidays. By partnering with Convey Discover, UrbanStems can now see all of its shipments that are predicted to miss their estimated delivery dates and take immediate action to correct course.
If you’re looking to experience best-in-class shipment tracking software, consider .