When Returns and Refunds Become a Pain Point
Aline and Fabian founded emma & noah in 2018 in Düsseldorf. Their mission: To bring sustainable baby products to market that put sustainability first. Instead of following trends and fast fashion, they focused on durable, high-quality products. Important promises that ultimately led to rapid growth of the online shop.
However, growing orders became a problem for the small team. A manual returns process caused resource bottlenecks, sometimes delaying refunds. The result: Dissatisfied customers and a stressed team.
Today, many parents are true fans of the Düsseldorf-based online shop. Lucian Berkmüller, Head of Operations, tells us how they achieved this.
Lucian Berkmüller, Head of Operations
Returns Management with Typeform & Excel
emma & noah originally used an online form to capture returns. However, the form wasn't only found by emma & noah customers. "We regularly received returns from other companies that we couldn't assign," Lucian recalls. The team had to rely entirely on the fulfillment center at the time. "Our returns were scanned, assigned, and categorized by the fulfiller. All data was manually recorded in Excel spreadsheets. You can imagine how error-prone this process was."
The team not only created DHL labels manually back then, but refunds were also processed manually through Shopify after checking the Excel spreadsheet.
Returns and refunds thus became the biggest pain point for the entire operations team. During peak season, emma & noah couldn't keep up with returns processing. "Orders were growing and suddenly there were big backlogs," says Lucian. "We couldn't keep our promise to process refunds within a few days. That's when we realized something had to change. For the next quarter, there was only one goal: to make processes leaner and more efficient."
Communicating Instead of Coding: A New Solution in 6 Weeks
The team ultimately decided on a digital solution. "We looked at the 30 most well-known online shops and their platforms. 8returns had the best mix of UI, smart automations for refunds, and personalization options for us."
emma & noah started with 8returns in April. By May, the software was already implemented and live. "Communication with the 8returns team was great, as was the seamless Shopify integration. For us and our customers, it was a big change – we transformed the entire process. Today we know that the transition only had advantages," says Lucian.
Customer promises that are kept
Plenty of Room for Personalization
According to Lucian, the team didn't have to write a single line of code for the implementation. Lucian recalls: "Look & feel was very important to us – after all, customers shouldn't feel like they're leaving emma & noah for the returns process. We also needed special rules for particular edge cases. Creating these logics was complex, but after six weeks everything was set up."
emma & noah also use the Klaviyo integration for their marketing automations. "The email notifications are amazing. We've even been able to increase our revenue through additional touchpoints," says Lucian. One of many positive changes that digital returns management has brought.
Automation of Most Returns
At emma & noah, almost all returns are now processed automatically. "The number of hours we spend manually processing refunds has dropped drastically. With 8returns, everything runs automatically."
Lucian is particularly happy about the relief for the teams. "When a return comes in, it can be immediately assigned to the order. This saves the warehouse an incredible amount of work and reduces stress for the operations colleagues."
Higher Customer Satisfaction
For the emma & noah team, what matters most is how their customers react to the new process. Current Trusted Shops figures reveal this best. "We believe that a good returns process has a positive impact on the overall customer experience. Our reviews show this too. Within a few months, our average rating has risen from 4.4 to 4.6," says Lucian.
Fewer Support Tickets
Customer inquiries about the returns process have decreased significantly at emma & noah. "We only receive follow-up questions about complaints now. Everything else runs smoothly. Currently, we can cover the entire customer support with two working students, even though we continue to grow as a company."
The team is currently planning the integration of Shop Now and store credit. An opportunity to retain customers after a return. "These features are super powerful – we already know what other shops have been able to achieve with them. We'll definitely use the resources we're saving thanks to the current process for this." With this, the emma & noah team has achieved their goal of making processes leaner and more efficient.
