Mindera slashes online order returns time
Saving a major UK retailer 819 hours a week in staff time.
Mindera created a minimum viable product designed to significantly reduce the time it takes store staff to process online order returns.
The challenge
A major UK retailer recently approached Mindera to help simplify its online returns process to improve the customer experience and save store staff valuable time.
The retailer’s stores handle 75% of returns for web purchases. This totals over 1.2 million transactions a year. Each return was taking store staff three minutes to process, in addition to in-store returns, which were dealt with using a separate system. The retailer was looking to accelerate this process.
The solution
Mindera worked closely with the retailer’s technology team to create and test a minimum viable product (MVP) that would significantly reduce the time it took store staff to process online returns.
The results were so exciting that it was decided to take the concept into production.
An MVP is an early version of a new digital product with enough features to be launched quickly to test its core functionality and gather user feedback early in the development cycle. This helps validate a concept and make informed decisions about future development, avoiding the risk and expense of building a fully-fledged product.
The Faster Web Returns MVP was developed and tested. The results were so exciting that it was decided to take the concept into production.
The results
Thanks to Faster Web Returns, the retailer is now able to:
- Process online purchase returns just like in-store returns, without the need to use different apps and log-ins.
- Handle multiple items in a single order together, reducing screen reloads and eliminating distractions from customer GDPR information.
Faster Web Returns saves over 34 days in staff time a week across a retailer's UK store network.
This has slashed the time to process each online return to just 1 minute from the original three minutes, saving the retailer 819 hours a week in staff time – that’s over 34 days – across its UK store network.
Faster Web Returns also improves the customer experience by enabling shoppers to return items simply by scanning their 11-digit order ID barcode. This is similar to the receipt scanning used for in-store returns, making the whole returns process more inclusive and efficient.