Reverse Logistics: Strengthening Customer Relations

The growth of e-commerce has changed the way Mexico demands and understands logistics, with buyers consuming at a much faster pace and without ever visiting stores. These new trends are bringing new challenges in terms of shipping and bottlenecks but a challenge that many have overlooked is returning products, said Jonathan Esses, CEO of Segmail, to T21. Segmail’s data indicates that many online sellers see a monthly return rate of 20 percent.

The main reasons a customer might return a product, according to the Mexican Association of Online Sales’ (AMVO) Logistics KPI's Report, include: the product was damaged by a parcel, 50 percent of cases; the product was missing parts, 33 percent; there was an error in the order form, 29 percent; the product was not given to the actual customer, 28 percent; the client did not need it, 28 because; and the product did not resemble the one advertised, 14 percent. When the customer has trouble returning the product, it increases their dissatisfaction with the company.

What is Reverse Logistics and How Can It Help Avoid This Problem?

Popular belief holds that reverse logistics only handles the return of a product. But reverse logistics stands for all of the operations related to the reuse of products and materials in a supply chain, which could include “recycling, reclamation of raw materials, refurbishment and reselling of items that have been restocked,” explains Globaltranz. It is not just customers returning their items but actually taking the product back one step in the supply chain, which could be customer to distributor or distributor to manufacturer.

 “This is a service that usually nobody wants to provide because a common belief is that once the product has been shipped that is the end of the company’s service. Reverse logistics is very important but unfortunately, many companies do not pay as much attention to this area. A quality reverse logistics service provides a significant opportunity to build client loyalty,” said Marcos Sulkini, CEO of Promologistics, in an interview with MBN.

This line of work is of extreme importance to the company, as it entails different elements necessary to organize the shipping of the defective product, testing, dismantling, repairing, recycling or disposing of it. According to Globaltranz, this way companies can retain and use it and prevent unnecessary waste. Both traditional logistics and reverse logistics allow distributors to maintain a positive relationship with customers and a happy client can be a returning one.