Common Ecommerce Customer Complaints (and How to Avoid Them)

When customers love the things you do, they’ll tell anyone who asks how great you are. When they hate things you do, they’ll tell everyone—without being asked. Online consumers’ grievances tend to revolve around many of the same issues, regardless of the product. Below are some of the most common ecommerce customer complaints and how to avoid them.

Received the Wrong Product

If you’re having a rash of erroneous shipments, it’s time to slow down your processes and check each package one by one before shipping. If your organization is too large to do this, you’ll have to institute a stricter set of checks and balances to ensure orders match up before sending them off to the customer. Have your shipping department double-check everything to be certain every product ordered is on the manifest and in the package. If an error slips through just the same, own it immediately and make it right as soon as possible—with no additional charges.

Goods Damaged in Transit

Test ship items to yourself before offering them to customers to ensure they will make it through the process unscathed. When you offer new products, experiment to find the lightest packaging you can employ without risking damage. Doing so will cut shipping costs and eliminate the complaint before you get it. This is particularly critical when your products are delicate.

As an example, if you sell cosmetics from home, many items are on the fragile side. Do everything you can to make sure they’re adequately protected in transit and you’ll minimize damage-oriented returns.

Cumbersome Checkout Process

Do everything possible to reduce the amount of information a customer has to supply to make a purchase. Some information you need to have, other information is helpful to have. If you try to make the customer give you both, you’ll lengthen the completion process, possibly frustrate them and give them good reason to abandon their cart. Make the “nice to have” information optional and mark it as such on the form to let the user know they don’t have to fill out every single block. They’ll be grateful.

Convoluted Return Policy and Procedures

Unless you’re dealing with a product that comes into contact with the human body in an intimate way, you should offer at least a seven-day return policy if the customer tries it and doesn’t like it. The terms should be spelled out very clearly; along with the exact procedure they must follow to execute a return. If you need them to get a return authorization number, or if the product should be returned to an address other than the one from which it was shipped, you must let the buyer know what to expect—and live up to it.

Unresponsive Customer Service

Members of your customer service representative (CSR) team should be fluent in the language of your main customer base and capable of answering every call with a smile on their face—literally. Callers “hear” smiles and respond accordingly. Your CSRs also need to be ingrained with a healthy respect for the customer. After all, your patrons are directly responsible for your revenue and brand reputation. If they don’t buy, your business will eventually die. Always maintain a service-oriented attitude and do everything possible to ensure their needs are met (without giving away the store, of course).

Left unaddressed, these five common ecommerce customer complaints could sink your business. The key to overcoming them is to place the customers’ needs at the center of everything you do. Ask yourself how you’d want to be treated under similar circumstances and afford your customers the same regard.