July 2022 – January 2023
Exchanges & Returns Transparency
Exchanging and returning online orders is a reality of the e-commerce landscape, and by improving the transparency of the pages, the overall experience is elevated and customers' trust in the brand is improved.
We updated the customer experience to provide greater transparency to help customers understand the progress of their returns and exchanges. This approach included a new progress tracker, an overhaul of the content design and further architectural pages to reduce friction.
Opportunity
One of the biggest pain points from NPS feedback is about finding information about exchanges, returns and refunds. Customers will often contact Customer Services to find information we could show them, we want to provide more transparency for open exchanges, returns and refunds.
EU 2023:
€ 400m
Cost of returns
22%
Return rate
2.4%
Exchange rate
€ 30m
Value of returns
Our team knew that customers frequently called CS to initiate exchanges, returns or to find information about an exchange or return in progress. While we would have limited impact on the core reasons for initiating an exchange or return, the functionality is expected and if customers have a good experience with us it can contribute to them shopping with us over a rival brand or retailer.
+36
EU NPS Topic 'Returns': Jan 2022
+44
EU NPS Topic 'Returns': Jan 2023
+12 *
NPS Yoy improvement
€ 5.90
EU: Cost per call to CS
We use NPS to track the overall customer experience of our customer journey and while we use the scores as part of our KPIs, we know they are indicative rather than definitive. We consider NPS scores with CS contact figures (for relevant queries) and their associated costs to measure the impact of our releases in the post sales customer journeys.
Order details page, before & after
Customer problem:
You should update return statuses, exchange statuses etc… I’m having a hard time getting any updates on two exchanges. Both returns were received but I don’t have an update on the exchanged products at all, and I can’t get hold of anyone in customer care!
adidas customer, 33 – United States
I need a real time update on exchanges. Sure, exchanges are free but it takes over a month to get the exchanged item. There was no update from the warehouse when they received the returned item. How am I supposed to know what’s going on with my order?
adidas customer, 29 – United States
Pain points
During the process of online exchanges or returns, we have observed our customers can find it difficult to navigate and understand the associated detail pages. This can lead to frustration or confusion pushing customers to call customer service instead of solving the issue themselves.
Customers prefer to resolve issues themselves, so improving the user experience and reducing the need for customers to call will enhance their perception of adidas. We know that customers who have a good experience returning items from online purchases are more likely to shop again.
Insights from customers via NPS feedback and user testing in the last 18 months. Broadly, they fall into 3 categories; transparency, time to complete and available support.
Focus areas
01.
Low Transparency
Customers consistently complain about a lack of transparency and not understanding, or completely missing, the status of an exchange, return or refund.
The ‘Visual order tracker’ component was added to the order detail pages at the end of 2022 contributing to reduced calls to CS and improved NPS scores for returns and exchanges. (EU +22 points since September 2022)
02.
Speed of refunds and release of exchanges
Customers also perceive the length of time taken for a return or an exchange as too long and are frustrated by this.
More research is needed to know if we meet the deadlines we set ourselves when paying refunds or releasing exchanged items. However, we are working on reducing the time it takes to issue refunds to ‘trusted’ customers through our work with Forter (3rd party risk management).
Faster release of exchanges has also been rolled out in the US with a +7 point improvement in NPS for refunds in the US.
03.
Poor access to help and support
Customers also complain that it is difficult to contact customer services if they are unable to find the information they are looking for or are unsatisfied by the status update they see.
We have recently released updated help tiles that are specific to the task the customer is undertaking. These tiles are more discoverable, scannable and consistent in their placement within all Order Management customer journeys.
Is this worth solving?
With the current customer experience, calls to customer services about order statuses could be reduced with clearer order information on order, exchange and return detail pages. From a business perspective, reducing calls to customer services would save money and give agents more time to help with more complex requests.
As a customer, improving transparency reduces the chance of frustration that can come with calling customer services. We believe that improving the experience in order management will build trust and ultimately loyalty when they see that we will look after them in the post sales experience, raising the potential lifetime value of that customer (CLTV).
Process
Stakeholder interviews and constant working sessions with product, design and engineering.
Journey mapping and desk research to understand our flows and potential opportunities, we established assumptions and questions for further research.
User testing (unmoderated with Usertesting.com) to understand motivations, any usability issues and to confirm any assumptions we have.
Screenshots from discovery boards in Figjam. These were created with close collaboration with the content designer and then further co-working sessions with engineers and product owners. The design process was frequently critiqued with the wider design team to involve fresh perspectives and keep the wider Lower Funnel team aware of changes coming to the post purchase customer journey.
Design
Introduction of a visual progress tracker for exchanges and returns
A variation of this has existed on our order details pages for some time, providing a simple overview of the status of the customer’s order. Using icons, a clearer information hierarchy prioritising the estimated delivery date and a short written description, we can provide a snapshot of the return or exchange in progress.
This results in customers being more informed of any issues with their order helping them to beware of and solve issues with or without CS faster. Improving the transparency also helps customers plan when they can receive packages more effectively.
Simplified product and customer details
We often heard that it was difficult to find information about the status of their exchange or return but we still needed to make sure that it was clear where a refund would be paid to and where an exchange would be sent. We identified areas where we could make improvements to the presentation of customer and product details, helping to reassure customers, building trust.
Tie-in with transactional emails
Throughout this project we were also exposed to inconsistencies and poor heuristics with the emails we send customers regarding exchanges and returns. We devised a modular content led approach to rebuilding the emails that we send customers, moving away from the thousands of templates that are difficult to manage and unpleasant to read.
(Still in progress - planned releases for Q3 2024).
Re-structure of exchange and return order page architecture
User feedback, NPS reviews and our own analysis of the previous exchange and return page structure showed us that we needed to improve the navigation of exchange and return detail pages. We had previously decoupled the exchange and return detail pages with unclear navigation between them. The new structure has a single entry point and only show content relevant to the customer and the status of the exchange, return or mixed exchange and return in one page.
Content audit and updated instructions
Working closely with engineering and content design, we overhauled the instructions we gave to customers, making it much shorter and clearer while providing obvious entry points to help and FAQ articles where more information could be found if the customer needed it.
The old page designs contained instructions for every step a customer might need to take and was not always aligned to what was available in their country with the delivery partners available.
Pure exchange visual order tracker
Pure return visual order tracker
Mixed exchange and return detail page. Exchange in progress, return received and refund in progress.
Mixed exchange and return detail page. Exchanged item shipped, return received and refund in progress.
Impact
Success for this project has come from a more strategic approach with the entire post sales customer experience. We have been able to build a more transparent exchange and return experience by using the same components and communication methods we use for normal order tracking.
Extending this visual and communication style across the site and emails also combines to create a more coherent experience overall. Our overall approach to reducing the amount of content but improving the consistency and quality has contributed to positive results.
In any case we have seen positive impact from this project. Reducing calls to CS whilst improving the NPS of the Exchange and Returns topic has been very satisfying, validating the more strategic approach taken.
€ 867k
Cost saving from reduced CS calls. EU Yoy Jan–Nov 2023.
-19%
Fewer calls to CS related to returns and refunds. EU Yoy Jan–Nov 2023.
+12
NPS Yoy improvement, topic exchanges and returns. EU Nov 2023.
+9
NPS Yoy improvement, topic exchanges and returns. US Nov 2023.
Next steps
Continued collaboration: Although emails are a significant part of the exchange and return experience, we have not been able to deliver the designs shown here. The team working them have had other priorities and so we are still waiting for the first examples to be built.
Rejections: We will be adding new grading processes to some of our warehouses where we can refuse refunds or exchanges due to poor quality returns. The challenge of building this information into our flows is a huge opportunity as it will reduce returns abuses that are more common we thought.
Reviewing content: Content for these pages is key to improving the transparency, although we have positive feedback and results so far, we need to be mindful that different markets and customer needs appear all the time. We can always improve the instructions we show as well.