Fulfillment And Customer Service

Okay, you’ve started to build an inventory, listed your books, and seen your first sales come through. That’s the fun part. Now comes the part where you earn the money you are making.

In order to succeed at online bookselling, it is absolutely necessary that you establish a consistent daily routine for confirming and fulfilling customer orders. It may be possible to limit the routine to every other day if sales are slow and your other responsibilities dictate, but tending to these chores daily is better because it will allow you to fulfill orders more promptly, stay ahead of any problems that may arise, and avoid needing to do the kind of mountain of fulfillment work that will rise to greet you on Monday morning if you have a brisk sales weekend and you haven’t focused on fulfillment since Friday morning. Whatever your approach, try to ship as many as possible of your orders within 24 hours, and your customers will love you for your promptness. Amazon Marketplace or zShop sellers are required to ship within two business days of an order’s receipt, and at Half.com sellers are required to confirm all orders within two business days and then to ship within one business day of confirmation. But you shouldn’t settle for being “as good as you have to be,” when you can be “as good as you can be,” without any more work.

Try to make your shipping routine as simple, sensible, and automated as possible. You can rely if you wish on the “Sold and Ship” emails you receive from Amazon and other venues, or in Amazon’s case you also have the option of downloading a fulfillment report that you can open into Microsoft Excel.

Note, in the table at the left, that Margaret’s email confirmation message includes the delivery confirmation number right off of Endicia or USPS Shipping Assistant. Personally I like this touch and the fact that it gives the buyer some peace of mind, but some sellers avoid giving out Delivery Confirmation information in the confirmation email because they fear both that buyers will not understand the distinction between a Delivery Confirmation Number and a Tracking Number (DC does not ordinarily provide the same tracking detail that is available with true tracking), and also because Delivery Confirmation only confirms that the package was delivered, not that it was delivered correctly.

Customer Service

Once you have completed your confirmation messages, your contact with the customer is complete in the vast majority of cases. But occasionally a problem will arise, and over time you will find that your business will run much more smoothly if you develop a consistent, friendly, and focused approach to all customer service issues and apply it without prejudice or any negative attitude. Even though you may pour your heart and soul into your business, it will do you no good to take customer service issues personally. Having a consistent approach and a clear customer service policy will help you to maintain a friendly demeanor with all your customers and to avoid stewing over the more difficult ones.

A well thought out approach to customer service ought to include several public pronouncements that are clearly stated in appropriate places such as your Amazon Marketplace storefront and several internal policies to back them up. For public consumption, you should address the following, and rather than suggesting specific language here I recommend you review other storefronts’ policies for a sense of what works and what appeals to you, and then decide what will work for you:

· Packaging and condition: Let your customers know that you will take care in packaging their books and that you adhere to high standards for rating and describing your books. If you are a member of any trade associations you may want to post this information as well, since it can help to reassure prospective buyers that they are dealing with a professional.

· Promptness. If you are able to ship every order within 24 hours of its receipt, this is an important commitment to share with your customers.

Returns and Refunds. Prospective buyers often want to know up front that they have the right to return items if they are not satisfied. Sometimes booksellers are hesitant to “lead with their chin” when it comes to proclaiming a “No Questions Asked” return policy because they are fearful they will become target practice for

unscrupulous buyers, but with very rare exceptions book buyers are a fair and friendly bunch who are unlikely to try to take advantage of booksellers. The best practice is to clearly state a balanced returns policy so that customers know what will be expected of them in order to obtain a refund, and also know that they can expect that refund promptly if they meet these responsibilities. Frequently you may feel that a customer is seeking a refund to redress a mistake that really was his own responsibility, but in most cases it is simply not worth the time, effort, and money to argue with a customer after an initial statement of your point of view. If you feel that an Amazon Marketplace buyer is blatantly trying to defraud you, you have the option of directing them to Amazon’s A-to-Z Guarantee program where they may seek a refund directly from Amazon. In such cases it is important to document your communications and to be prepared to respond in a non-defensive fashion to Amazon’s inquiries to you. Using the A-to-Z Guarantee program is especially important if you suspect that a buyer is carrying out a pattern of internet fraud and is likely to victimize other sellers, because Amazon maintains records on these buyers and has been known to enforce a “three strikes and your out” policy with respect to buyers.

· Reshipments. If a buyer claims that a shipment has not arrived in a reasonable period of time, much of the time you will find that the buyer is looking not for a refund but for the book. In such cases you should have a policy that calls for you to verify the shipping address, to ask the customer to check both with his local post office and elsewhere in his building if there is any chance that the shipment is being held in a office mailroom or by a neighbor. If you are then able to offer the customer a re-shipment either from your existing stock or by getting a colleague to drop-ship for you, this may be the best outcome for all concerned.

· Communication. E-mail your buyers when you ship their item (see section on Confirmation Emails” above). Let them know it is on the way, and by what method you have shipped it. If you drop-ship or are shipping from an address or city unfamiliar to your buyer, notify them via e-mail of the package origin or "ship from" address. Keep in mind that deliveries may be delayed because of added security measures. Above all, keep communicating with a buyer who is concerned about a shipping delay or lost item, and make it easy for the buyer to keep communicating with you.

Customer Feedback and Customer Complaints

Entire bookshelves full of books have been written about the basic fact that e-Commerce accentuates the importance of customer service because the Internet is so transparent that a few disgruntled customers can really do a job on the reputation of any online business, and the same is true for online bookselling. It is absolutely essential to excel consistently when it comes to four basic issues: condition, packaging, shipping time, and communication. If you excel at these, you will almost definitely be able to maintain a good strong customer feedback record that will be visible to prospective buyers on Amazon Marketplace, eBay, or Half.com if you sell on these venues.

However, be prepared for the likelihood that only somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent of your customers will leave feedback for you, and among these most sellers believe that the disgruntled customer is far more likely to leave feedback than the satisfied customer. Consequently, sellers frequently try out various strategies for improving their feedback by increasing the percentage of satisfied customers who leave feedback and even by trying to suppress the percentage of disgruntled customers who leave feedback. There are also plenty of sellers who consider it unseemly to lobby for feedback in any way. As you determine how you’d like to approach this question of business culture, you may want to consider some of the approaches that sellers have taken to influence their customer feedback ratings and provide a little “spin control” for negative ratings:

· Include a request for customer feedback in confirmations emails.

· Using the Endicia Postage Log status reports to confirm shipment arrivals, send another “arrival confirmation” email immediately after a customer has received his shipment, and include a request for customer feedback.

· Respond to feedback on their online storefronts, explaining any negative feedback or misunderstandings.

· Respond to buyer’s feedback with email.

· Respond to buyer’s feedback with feedback on the buyer.

All this being said, the best way to deal with negative feedback is to avoid getting it. At the first sign of a problem involving a buyer, you should shift into high gear to pre-empt problems and to bowl your buyer over being disarmingly gracious and understanding while responding promptly in a friendly and thorough manner to every contact. As a result of these efforts you will receive better feedback and more sales, and the small time or expense involved in sending a few emails or even making a refund or reshipment will be more than offset by better sales and fewer complaints in the future. All other things being equal, a higher feedback rating translates into more sales, and a poor feedback rating translates into more questions and complaints as buyers become more easily concerned at any hint of a problem and are less likely to give a seller the benefit of the doubt if a Media Mail shipment takes a few extra days.

Downloading a Fulfillment Report·

Go to Your seller account (from your “Your account” page, of course)·

On the Your seller account page, under Your Inventory, click on Download fulfillment and listings reports ·

When this page comes up, click on Generate reports now ·

When prompted, give your password·

On the Generate Reports Now page that comes up next, scroll down to Order Fulfillment Report, click on “Yes” and click on the “Preview” button at the bottom of the page·

On the next page, click on the Generate Reports Now button·

On the Your seller account page, under Your Inventory, click on Download fulfillment and listings reports·

When this page comes up, click on Pickup generated reports·

On the Pickup Generated Reports page that comes up next, click on the Order Fulfillment Report for the current date when it appears (You should get an email with the title Notification of Order Fulfillment Report Completion when the report is ready to download, or you can check by refreshing the “pickup” page from time to time; these reports usually appear within 15 minutes of your request)

In response to prompts, download and save the file in a place where you will be able to locate it on your computer, with a file name you will recognize.

When you are given a prompt that the download is complete, open it with Microsoft Excel, and then re-save it as a spreadsheet.

You will then be able to make a copy of it and edit as you wish for other purposes.

Dealing with Incorrect Addresses If you use www.Endicia.com or another Internet postage provider, you will be required to verify a buyer’s address electronically and automatically in the process of printing your label. Once in a great while, the buyer address that is transmitted to you through Amazon, Half.com, eBay or another venue will be unverifiable through the post office. If this happens, here are a few suggestions: · Check first to see if the address is formatted correctly: truncated street address lines and apartment numbers or corporate names in the “wrong place” sometimes seem to stump the USPS computer. · Email the customer to verify the ship-to address, and don’t fret if it takes the customer a couple days to get back to you. Sometimes buyers take a vacation, sometimes they only use a computer at the office, and in any case they are usually less likely to spend as much time online as you are. If they get back to you and verify the address is accurate, you may just have to go back to the 20th century and ship the item manually. · If a buyer does not respond to email, try sending a quick postcard asking that he contact you immediately to verify the address. This is what you would do if you were L.L. Bean, so try it.

If none of these approaches works, it’s time to cancel and refund the order. Include a nice note in the refund message field, spell out your willingness to hold the item for a few days in case you hear from the buyer, and also give a call or email to Customer Service to the venue that transmitted the bad address to you, so as to document the situation in the event of bad feedback or a complaint.

A Great Confirmation Email

We’ve ordered dozens of books from other third-party sellers, and still count this email, excerpted here with the permission of CyberSolutions’ Margaret Craig (www.amazon.com/shops/cybersolutions) as the best confirmation email we have ever received:

Thanks so very much for your purchase! I received your order confirmation today for your Amazon.com Marketplace purchase and your item was shipped today by way of Media Mail with delivery confirmation # 0280 5213 9070 1234 5678. Shipment can be confirmed at www.usps.com or by calling 1-800-222-1811.

Media Mail can take 4-14 business days and in some cases outside the continental US to take up to 30 days
Priority Mail is expected to arrive in 2-3 days but is not guaranteed.
Global Priority is expected to arrive in 4-7 days but is not guaranteed.

Packages mailed to destinations outside the continental US can take longer than 21 days and can take as long as 30 days to arrive such as Hawaii, Alaska and APO, AE or FPO. (Even Priority Mail).

Keep in mind that all deliveries, even Priority Mail may be delayed due to added security measures.

If for any reason your buying experience was not enjoyable, please e-mail me at msc5866@aol.com first to resolve and I will do whatever I can do to correct the problem if possible. Your satisfaction is my main concern. Comments on your buying experience with me can be left by going to www.amazon.com/buyer-feedback

Thanks again for your purchase and I hope to do business with you again in the future. If you would like to check out all my other items for sale, please go to: http://amazon.com/shops/cyber-solutions or feel free to e-mail me as I may have items not yet listed or that are listed on a site other than Amazon. Or if I do not have the item, I could possibly help you find what you are looking for.

Margaret Craig
Cyber Solutions