COD (CASH ON DELIVERY), commonly known as ” CASH ON DELIVERY.” COD has appeared frequently in the e-commerce industry in recent years, especially in cross-border export of e-commerce. Based on the low penetration rate of online payment in emerging markets, when the profit margin of some e-commerce sellers on third-party platforms is thin as a blade due to various factors, the trend of de-plating becomes increasingly apparent. Specifically, more and more cross-border e-commerce sellers began to re-emphasize shopify and social e-commerce. The COD model relies on these two to emerge as a mode of operation for cross-border export e-commerce. In short, foreign consumers place orders through the e-commerce website firstly, and then collect the payment and shipping charges on the spot when the logistics company delivers the goods, and finally return the payment to the e-commerce seller. The current COD logistics model is mainly concentrated on emerging market countries such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East, with Southeast Asia primarily focusing on Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Indonesia. However, under the COD cross-border e-commerce operation model, the logistics process faces several significant problems:
How to reduce the express rejection rate or increase the sign-off rate?
Under the COD e-commerce operation mode, consumers have relatively low trust in the sense of responsibility of the transaction. When the parcel arrives overseas and is delivered to the consumer by the local end dispatcher, it often takes one or two weeks. Therefore, the consumer sign-off rate will decrease as the time required for delivery increases. A high rejection rate will result in high delivery costs waste. This article will be discussed from the perspective of the customer service call center.
The market with a strong demand for COD logistics model has a common feature, that is, the local network and payment and logistics infrastructure facilities are relatively backward, especially the payment methods in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and other countries, online banking and mobile payment have not even spread. Therefore, the most uncontrollable part of cross-border e-commerce is the delivery, especially in emerging markets and less developed countries. Callnovo learned that some Chinese cross-border e-commerce companies have a refusal rate of more than 90% in the African market and therefore sought Callnovo to provide its African contact center to design and deploy professional solutions. Besides, e-commerce sellers in this process are challenging to know the status in real-time after their goods arrived in the destination country, so it is impossible to follow up and reach every transaction.
The current market average sign-off rate of the COD e-commerce model is only about 60%, and the sign-off rate of more than 70% is considered to be very successful.
An expert who has long been concerned about the COD e-commerce model said that “to achieve the success of the COD e-commerce model, it is necessary to strengthen the attention to the details of the service provider’s process. Such as the time and efficiency of the initial delivery, the various capabilities of the delivery service provider. ”
Callnovo is the benchmark service provider for China cross-border e-commerce global overseas customer call center. In the Chinese market, we focus on providing complete cross-border outbound professional customer service solution for Chinese companies (including native-level customer service representatives in more than 30 languages, global cloud communication platform and CRM customer relationship management system). The following is a brief overview of the critical dimensions of several services: the significant value that Callnovo can bring to COD’s cross-border e-commerce industry:
1. Turn blind delivery into delivery appointment
Blind delivery refers to the fact that the parcel arrives at the site, the courier is dispatched directly to arrange delivery, and the courier delivers it according to the consumer information. The delivery appointment means that the package enters the customer service process after reaching the site, and the parcel is dispatched by the customer service specialist after the appointment is made by telephone. Due to the prior communication through the customer service, only the orders determined by the consumer can be released, so the signing-off rate of the scheduled delivery is significantly improved. This process allows saving a massive amount of workforce and transportation costs for overseas COD logistics companies, thus successfully reducing the logistics costs of cross-border e-commerce sellers.
2. A professional local customer service specialist provides screening orders and authentication services to ensure that the address is authentic:
Since online payments are not required, in some cases, some regions and countries may have a high percentage of fake or junk orders and even provide incorrect addresses and phone numbers. For example, it is more evident in less developed countries such as African countries. The customer service representative will confirm the information for each order before shipment. Because local customer service is familiar with local traffic routes and address information, so they can quickly identify and screen orders.
3. If the first scheduled delivery is unsuccessful, the goods will send back to the customer service process again and make another appointment:
The unsuccessful delivery is often caused by the consumer unable to receive phone calls or an unsuitable schedule. This is a widespread phenomenon. After re-entering the customer service process, the local customer service specialist can change the contact time and make another appointment, which can reach a considerable proportion of successful delivery transactions. For higher-priced products, customer service staff will provide three appointments to achieve the highest transaction rate.
4. Timely follow up the abnormal shipments, and provide rejected order feedback to e-commerce sellers promptly, thus forming valuable data information:
Each refused order has specific conditions and reasons, and consumers may not fully disclose their intentions. Professional customer service specialists can obtain real reasons through detailed communication and send to the e-commerce business headquarter timely with all the feedback. As a result, the headquarters can accurately grasp big data based on market feedback, and make corresponding countermeasures at the fastest speed or optimize the adjustment of overseas COD business processes.
5. Customer service staff conducts modest upsells and cross-sells:
Regardless of delivery appointment call or product satisfaction survey call, a trained professional native-level customer service staff can further guide consumers to achieve double or even multiple sales or related purchase products, such embedding customer service process is a valuable resource for COD cross-border e-commerce.
- A complete CRM system can smoothly handle the flow details of the entire process of information
Professional global customer service outsourcing companies can customize CRM systems for cross-border e-commerce customers or interface with ERP systems of cross-border e-commerce customers through API interfaces to achieve a full and real-time circulation of workflow process information. Take one of the actual case scenarios deployed by Callnovo in 2018 as an example:
When an Indonesian consumer browsed facebook, he became interested in the products of a cross-border e-commerce company in China. The consumer clicked and went to a self-built station to place an order. The new order immediately entered the e-commerce background, as well as informed the consumer on the front page, that he will receive an order confirmation call within 3 minutes. At this time, the information of the order is also sent to Callnovo’s CRM platform in an instant, prompting an Indonesian native-level customer service representative there is a new order that requires confirmation. At this time, the Callnovo Indonesian Call Center team in Jakarta, Indonesia, clicked on the consumer’s phone number and contacted him to confirm the order. A few days later, the product arrived on a small island in Indonesia from Ningbo, China. Before the departure of the local Indonesian courier, the system automatically sent a message to the team of Callnovo Indonesian Call Center in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Indonesian representative once again clicks on the consumer’s phone number to confirm the delivery time and informs the consumer to prepare cash for the product delivery. The entire process is unobstructed, and the cross-border e-commerce headquarters manager in China can view the time points, CRM records, and call recordings of each link through the cloud. The e-commerce headquarters are strategizing, and the information is accessible instantly.
7. Perfect cloud communication platform for handling communication details
In the actual scenario, some cross-border logistics companies and cross-border e-commerce sellers request to use the artificial intelligence voice prompts to automatically dial or send text messages in a way that delivers delivery notifications (for example, in some countries like the Middle East, Russia, and other places, it is possible to provide packages to community convenience stores by region), or they want to send a variable URL link to consumers for more details. In addition, some cross-border e-commerce sellers have a larger market span, for example, they have market in Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as in Russian. At this time, the Caller ID for outgoing calls or text messages requires to be customized to ensure that the caller ID of the country where the consumer is located can be displayed to the greatest extent, so as to prevent the consumer from misjudged it as junk or fraudulent information, and to avoid the possibility of merchant losing their orders.
In the context of the mobile Internet, cross-border e-commerce, demographic dividends in emerging market countries, and the upward trend of consumption power, the COD business model is worthy of attention from Chinese cross-border e-commerce sellers and timely follow-up. E-commerce and logistics companies already on the cross-border COD roads also need to focus on continuously optimizing the details from the beginning to the end, rationally using the latest IT information technology, and hiring local native-level customer service personnel with no cultural differences to provide grounded services and increase product value.