1. Check your email everyday. You do not want to get behind on an order. You can also see all orders that you receive online in case you miss an email. Everyday that you delay shipping an order increase the customer's anxiety by 30%.If a customer has not heard from you after 3 days, they are likely about to cancel their order.
After an order is placed, Bridge will email you asking you to acknowledge the order (aka ensure that you're seen it) and take the needed steps on it (such as shipping it). You must ensure that you receive these emails and that you react to them. This will ensure that you know about orders.
2. As you progress thru an order's status steps (e.g. acknowledged, pending payment, waiting to be shipped, shipped, etc.) you will want to update the order's status at each step. This keeps your books 'clean' so that any employee can look at the system and know what an online order's status is.
You should educate all of your employees to handle online orders. There should not, for example, be just one person in charge of online orders. Reason: if this person is out for the weekend or on vacation, your store can't let online orders wait days to be addressed.
3. As soon as you learn of an order, call the customer to thank him or her for the order. During this call, provide the customer with an estimate of when the item will arrive. This helps set reasonable expectations. The biggest complaint that customers have is that their expectations were not met; therefore, be sure to set reasonable expectations for him/her.
4. If the order is to be shipped, email the customer a tracking number. Customers, in this day and age of Amazon, expect a tracking number.
