Customer Support Tip: Out-of-Stock at Retail Marketing

Customer Support Tip: Out-of-Stock

Published by Riley November 6th, 2009 in Consumer Brands, Fashion, Innovation, Personal Shopping, Reviews.

If a customer pays for a product only to find out later that it is on back order, they won’t be happy. They will either cancel their order or contact customer support to complain. Neglecting to notify customers that an item is out of stock is a customer service problem and makes for a poor user experience.

How to Fix It

Be up front with visitors. Tell them about your inventory level so that they can factor that into their decision.

ModCloth immediately tells visitors on its product listing page about the current inventory level. If an item is out of stock, the friendly orange (and not harsh red) text tells me right away. If inventory is low, I’m warned that only a certain number of items are left, in this case four. This nudges me to be snappy about my decision but doesn’t stress me out either. If the message had said, “Our stock will be out in 19 minutes,” I would feel like I’m diffusing a bomb on Mission Impossible. You have no reason to panic your customers.