A subscriber opens a box and one item is missing. She contacts support and is asked to confirm her order number, photograph the packaging, confirm she has checked inside the filler and wait for the warehouse to check the pick.
The item costs very little. The process costs more than the item, takes four days, and she cancels a subscription worth many times both.
1. Do the arithmetic first
The cost of replacing a small item against the cost of losing a subscription. Once that comparison is made, the correct policy is obvious.
2. Resolve immediately and apologise properly
A replacement dispatched or a credit applied on the first contact. Speed is what converts this moment into loyalty.
3. Do not require proof for low value items
Set a threshold below which you simply replace. It removes the process entirely for the majority of cases.
4. Ask for photographs of damage, after resolving
Useful for improving packaging and for supplier conversations. Requested after the customer has been made whole rather than as a condition of it.
5. Offer a choice
Replacement, credit or the item in the next box. Different customers want different things and offering the choice costs nothing.
6. Make it self service
A form or an assistant that handles it without a queue. Most of these contacts arrive in the evening when a box is opened.
7. Track the patterns
Which items go missing, which arrive damaged and which suppliers are involved. The individual case is small and the pattern is not.
8. Fix the packaging where damage recurs
A repeatedly damaged item is a packaging problem being paid for as a customer service cost.
9. Handle the allergen and safety cases separately
A wrong item reaching somebody with an allergy is not a missing item problem, and it needs immediate escalation to a person.
10. Be careful with repeat claims
A small number of customers claim frequently. Track it, and handle it with a conversation rather than by tightening the policy for everybody.
10b. Give the customer something for the trouble
A replacement puts somebody back where they started and does not acknowledge the disappointment of an incomplete box. A small credit, or an extra item in the next one, costs very little and is what turns a complaint into the story somebody tells about good service.
11. Explain the substitution policy
Where an item is replaced with something else because of stock, saying so in advance prevents a customer reporting it as an error.
12. Close the loop
Tell the customer what happened and what you have changed. A subscriber who hears that their report improved the packaging becomes an advocate.
13. Connect it to the preference system
Missing and unwanted items are related problems, as covered in customisation and preference questions.
14. Watch the cancellation risk
An unresolved problem is one of the clearest predictors of churn, which is why the mechanics in skip, pause and cancel questions for subscription boxes matter here.
15. Borrow the process from faulty goods handling
The wider approach is set out in warranty claims and faulty item questions done properly.
16. Handle it automatically and generously
An assistant that takes the report, resolves it on the spot, offers the choice and logs the pattern turns a four day grievance into a two minute exchange. Draft the standard replies with a reply generator, and the wider handling is in ai assistant subscription business. See features, start at try, and the sector view sits under ecommerce.