Return portal
4 min
Sendcloud’s return portal puts your return process on autopilot. It makes life easier—not just for you, but also for your customer. This is great for your overall customer experience. When someone has to make a return, you can bet their overall satisfaction is on the low side at that moment. When you make this generally unpleasant process as smooth and simple as possible, they’ll be left with the impression that your brand is trustworthy, caring, and well-organized. This does wonders for customer retention and word-of-mouth marketing.
Now, let’s see how the return portal works in action.
To return an order, a customer needs to enter their tracking number and the postcode their package was delivered to. This way, Sendcloud identifies which order is being returned and will automatically fill in the required information in the following steps.
Next, the customer chooses the products they want to return. Using Return Rules, you can specify certain products that aren’t eligible for returns, or even block returns from a specific country. But as long as the items in question aren’t ruled out by Return Rules, the customer won’t have any problems here.
Now the customer fills in the return reasons—that is, why they’ve decided to send back this particular order. You’ll be able to review this information as part of your aggregated data in Sendcloud Analytics. That way, you can identify common return reasons and do your best to prevent them in the future.
Next up? Refund methods. Let customers choose one of 3 different ways of getting their refund: Item exchange, Money back, or Store Credit. Of course, it’s up to you if you want to make all three options available. You can choose to offer just one or two.
And finally – return method.
If you have the drop-off point method enabled, for instance, the customer will automatically see the suggestion for the drop-off point closest to their address. They can always choose another point from the list, if they want. Your customers will also be able to see the cost of the return—which you defined in your settings.
Next, the customer will verify the details are all correct, and confirm the return. After that, they’ll receive an email with the return label or a QR code for their return.
Now that we know how it works from the customer’s side, let’s figure out how to set up your return portal in Sendcloud!
First, make sure you’ve added a return address in the Settings, under the Addresses tabs. This is the address where your returned orders will be sent. If you don’t enter this info, you won’t be able to publish your portal.
Once you’ve got that set, move over to the Return Portal tab. Here, select the right return address and the email address where you’d like to receive notifications about incoming returns. If you don’t want to receive return notifications, just leave the field set to “None”.
Next, fill in the number of days you’ll give customers as a return period. Remember to make sure this is the same as what’s included in your return policy.
If you’re going to charge your customers for return shipments, now is the time to add the cost. This is the amount that will show up to your customers in the return portal, as we saw earlier.
You might also want to add links to your Return Policy and Support pages, so that customers can access these easily in case any questions come up.
Now, Sendcloud lets you offer four types of return methods. However, not all of them are available in all countries. For example, to let your customers arrange a pick-up at their locations, you need a direct contract with GLS. Currently, this is only possible for domestic returns in the Netherlands. Similarly, labelless returns at drop off points work only with DHL Germany.
Ok, it’s time to choose the refund methods you offer and the return reasons that work for your business. Remember—the return reasons will be available in your Sendcloud Analytics, so this is a great opportunity to learn something about your customers’ return habits.
The last thing you need to do is select which carriers you want to use for your returns. Just keep in mind that in order to be able to use the carriers you have direct contracts with, this needs to be set out properly in the contract.
