So you shipped all your packages out of your warehouse (or ours) and you think everything should be smooth sailing from there. The package is on its way and the customer has been sent the tracking information, there’s no way they could have any further questions, right?
Wrong
Your customers are monitoring the tracking page like Peter Thiel’s lawyers on Gawker. They have email and phone updates enabled and if anything happens they are going to be contacting your customer service department to ask what is going on. You will need to be able to understand these questions and provide the best answers you can to them. Most of the questions you will get are going to be about a delay in the expected arrival date, “Tracking says my package should be here today but it’s not”. Since you are both looking at the same tracking information you won’t be able to get any more actual information from the tracking page than what they can see. What you can do is be better informed about how to handle it. Here are some quick tips on answering these common questions.
Q) “Where is my package?”
A) Please check the tracking number provided for the most up to date tracking information
Q) “The expected delivery date was today but I did not receive anything”
A) The expected delivery date is not a guaranteed date, if it has been only within 24 hours since it said it should arrive please give it till tomorrow for it to show up.
Q) “My order says that it was delivered but I did not receive anything”
A) If the tracking states that the package was delivered and confirmed please contact your local post office, they may of either misplaced the package or accidently marked it as delivered when it might be getting delivered the next day.
Conclusion
Even though you and the customer have the same amount of information available, you are able to calm them down by ensuring them that there are reasons for the mishap that you have dealt with before. I have shipped 10’s of thousands of orders and it is rare for these situations to be bigger than just a delay in the expected arrival date.
