Making Customer Reordering Easier | How-to Guides for running your business from Business.com

What keeps customers coming back to your business time and again isn’t your charm or their loyalty. Ease and convenience play a bigger part in keeping customers happy. To keep customers happy in the lifecycle of an order you need to:

Provide merchandise quickly.
Allow the customer to track their order.
Keep inventory on hand.
Offer personal customer service for troubleshooting, tracking and fulfilling the order.
Maintain good records of customer orders to aid the reordering process.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Use technology wisely

Use your database or contact management software to track customers' past order histories. By studying past buying habits, you can foresee future needs and provide personalized customer service. Set up your system to let you know when to send email or postcard reminders to customers when it's time to reorder.

I recommend: FileMaker Pro and Microsoft Access allow you to collect customer data and analyze it. Clientem is order management software that allows you to import customer names from ACT, Outlook and Excel and track orders.

Add functionality to your e-commerce site

A shopping cart that recognizes repeat customers simplifies reordering. It can speed the checkout process so customers don't have to enter all their contact, shipping and billing information each time they order. Shopping carts that allow customers to review their own purchase history make it easy to zero in on items they want to reorder. Further facilitate reordering with shopping carts that allow customers to use any form of payment, including credit card, PayPal or check.

I recommend: Check out shopping cart software from Smart Shop, Monster Commerce and X-cart.

Offer 24-hour telephone orders

Customers often think about reordering products after your normal business hours so offer 24-hour support.

I recommend: Instead of having a round-the-clock staff, consider switching your phones over to an in-bound call center that will take customer orders outside of normal business hours. Tel-Us Call Center provides the service to small businesses. To compare quotes from call centers, check out quotecatcher.com.

Provide excellent customer service

Many organizations make the mistake of providing excellent service on a customer's first order but not maintaining that same level of service on follow-up orders. Make sure everyone in your organization provides a consistent level of customer service for every order to make sure reordering is a pleasant experience for the customer.

I recommend: Bone up on customer service with online training, seminars, software and more from the Service Quality Institute. Learn the Three Essentials of good customer service from BusinessKnowHow.com.

Increase stock availability

When customers try to reorder an item only to discover that it's out of stock, they get frustrated and may switch to a competitor. Make the reordering process smoother by ensuring that you have items in stock. Use third-party fulfillment centers to increase the number of products you offer without having to warehouse them yourself.

I recommend: Find a national directory of fulfillment companies at the Mailing & Fulfillment Service Association (MFSA) Web site. Automate order fulfillment and warehouse management with COREsense software, which handles order fulfillment involving multiple suppliers.

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

Create a best practices handbook for order management and provide it to all staff that will be involved in the order life cycle to create continuity in customer reordering.
Don't ask for unnecessary information when customers re-order. Either in person or online, confirm shipping addresses before you ask them to input it. Oftentimes it will save a step.
Whether it's the first order or a repeat order, always include a statement or invoice, a contact phone number for customer service and a copy of your return policy with the order to make the process easier for the customer.

More Featured Listings

Order Management Software
Integrated SaaS ERP Solution. Supports All Back-Office Operations. Learn More.
www.NetSuite.com/OrderFulfillment

Order Entry Software Directory
Compare order entry software using Capterra's free, comprehensive directory.
Capterra.com

Mail Order Software Resources
Find mail order software. Search listings and reviews of retailers, specialists and services in your local area now.
JustClickLocal.com