Why vendors need an automated product returns solution - RMA Software

With the economy going more digital every day a clear and seamless return policy is necessary to retain existing customers and acquire prospective customers. A significant percentage of consumers say a clear Product Return Policy influences their decision to buy from a vendor. Consumers today are very concerned about potential return hassles and are not comfortable buying from vendors that don't have a clear return policy. Having full transparency of your returns process will gain the loyalty of existing customers and the trust of new ones.

Another important point is that returned products cause an impact on the efficiency of your organization. Automating your product return procedure will improve the operating efficiency as the employess are less distracted. Think about the time your team spends on talking to customers who ask about the return policy and what the status of a returned item is.

By following an automated workflow process and showing that online to your customer the customer is up to date where the product is in your flow. You are completely transparent and any employee answering the phone is quickly able to see where you are in the flow.

Documenting returns also helps you to analyse root causes of returns Consolidating all of the information into single view enables you to see where the issues are and take the appropriate action. The system can work for you as the first line gate keeper. Identifying which products return more often and why. It will also identify quickly if certain clients return more often than others. Giving your account team the opportunity to sit down with your customers.

A good RMA tool offers a solution to monitor timelines and escalate if timelines exceed response times. This provides you with a measurable, repeatable service process for your RMA providing continuity to your end user community. Addiitonally, this level of monitoring and data capture enables you to continually improve your RMA process to ensure the highest customer retention possible.

And last but not least.. especially in online sales a return policy is mandatory by law if you sell to consumers. Consumers must have the opportunity to return online purchases without a reason within 14 days after purchase.

1. Form Designer

The admin of IncidentMonitor RMA offers graphical web form designer which allows you to design your own unique web forms with different type of fields you can create and drag and drop in. Think about check box fields, free text fields, drop down fields, multi-line text fields, etc. Fields can be enriched with information buttons which can pop up html web pages to give additional information. Each designed form can be published to the end user community. As you can link security roles to the form or even to section in a form you can make sure that you want to show what you need to show to each type of user.

2. Workflow Designer

The application offers a workflow designer which allows you via graphical window to build up your process flow. Process flow steps can follow each other in parallel and serial order. You can use choices, define criteria which decide which path to follow and you can work with approval steps.

IncidentMonitor RMA offers a predefined workflow which is ready to go. See the image below.

3. Role Based Security

Defining who sees what is key in RMA. Especially if invoices and cost are involved. You want to make sure that the employees will see what they need to see and if information is confidential this should not be shown to the people in your company who should not see this. IncidentMonitor RMA offers an advanced secure system that allows to define your own unique security roles. As with the predefined ready to go workflow this is as well preconfigured for ease of use.

4. Multilingual support

If you work in an international organization it can be key to publish your RMA forms in multiple languages and to send out your notifications in multiple languages. IncidentMonitor RMA offers this solution. One form can be published in multiple languages. Notifications can be configured in the languages you need. This way you can offer one single solution to the multiple countries you are active in.

5. Service Level Management

IncidentMonitor RMA comes out of the box with an advanced Service Matrix. This matrix offers a solution to define your own unique Service Level Agreements. Accompanied with the service level rules the Service Matrix offers a solution that sends out notifications, alerts, and can escalate to different teams or levels in your organization if agreed service levels are breached.

6. Customer Survey

Understanding what the customer thinks of your service is key to your service improvements. IncidentMonitor RMA offers a simple to configure customer survey template that sends out questionnaires to your customers every time a case closes or every x time a case closes.

7. Web front

IncidentMonitor RMA offers a web front end accessible to your users via various browsers. As we work with security layers you can show on the web what you want to show per type of user. End users who are logged in have the ability to check the milestones of your process flow if allow them to see that.

8. Integration

Integration can be key to companies who need access to multiple tools in the organization. For example to your warehouse or your accounting software. IncidentMonitor offers the key components to talk to other tools. This allows you to keep control and keep track of the procedure within IncidentMonitor RMA while at the meantime other tools can be consulted without leaving IncidentMonitor.

9. Reporting and business intelligence

Knowledge of what is going on and how your organization is performing is important for your business. IncidentMonitor RMA offers and advanced Dashboard and many different reports to keep up to date with your team. Reports can be scheduled and automatically emailed to your stake holders. New reports can easily be added to meet your requirements.