Returns & Exchanges
Returns and Exchanges
Returns and Exchanges are an aspect of business that are often times the most overlooked and provide among the best opportunities to far exceed customer expectations.
- As an example, we will look to one of the world’s foremost retailers with the best reputation for customer experience, at least in the United States, Nordstrom’s. As of just a few years ago, Nordstrom’s had business operating systems that supported in-store retail purchases, call center services and online shopping. Their biggest problem at the time was that none of these systems talked with one another. Moreover, for any customer who purchased product in more than one way (store, phone or web), they had a separate customer records (in upwards of three different customer records).
- Nordstrom is known for their in-store sales concierges who go above and beyond to provide the best possible customer experience. Let’s say Jane buys $500 worth of clothing from Jim, her sales concierge, gets home and realizes something just isn’t right. Instead of returning to the store she just came from, Jane calls the call-center receives and RMA and her replacement items are in the mail before she knows it.
- At this point Jane is content since something she wasn’t happy with is being replaced. Is “content” what a company like Nordstrom’s is going for though? Probably not.
- What about Jim, her concierge? Jim has no clue Jane was even unhappy after she left the store. The ideal scenario is that once Jane calls the call center to return product, she was unhappy with, Jim would be notified and would receive a task item to call Jane once delivery of the replacement was confirmed by the carrier.
- Without Maestro, scenarios like this simply aren’t possible since most business operating systems do not talk with one another making data islands critical choke points in any organization.