Conversion Tactic # 5: Order Confirmations and e-Receipts

In this installment of our conversion series, we will explore order confirmations and e-Receipts.

An emerging digital trend in the public sector are e-Receipts and order confirmations. Not only do you save trees by using paperless communications, you tee up another potential conversion point.

What are e-Receipts and Order Confirmations?

E-Receipts are used when a customer completes an in-person transaction and subsequently receives a mobile or email receipt instead of a hard-copy receipt. If you have ever purchased an item at Macy’s, Apple, AT&T, or even Old Navy, you are probably familiar with this type of digital transaction.

Similarly, an order confirmation is a transactional receipt most often used with online orders. It consists of an email order confirmation sent by the organization that accepts a customer’s order. Order confirmations are used as a tool to validate items purchased to avoid confusion and make sure that the original order correlates with the intended order.

What are the Benefits of Using E-Receipts and Order Confirmations?

E-Receipts have innumerate benefits to both the issuer and customer.

Organizations can save money on the expenses associated with receipts like ink and cashier maintenance. E-Receipts also reduce paper usage, which is not only a financial offset, but helps the environment.

Beyond this, e-Receipts and order confirmations offer greater accessibility and convenience to customers. Why?

• They can be easily searched in a customer’s email inbox.
• They don’t tear, fade, or disappear.
• They offer a fantastic way to promote added value content, products, and services.

While printed receipts and confirmations often include links to surveys, offer coupons, or offer additional organizational information, e-Receipts and online order confirmations provide additional value. They can be used to:

• Encourage customers to connect on your organization’s social networks.
• Promote additional items that are similar to items purchased (cross-sell) or more premier items (up-sell).
• Promote other actions to elicit higher customer engagement and loyalty.
• Lead customers to your organization’s website – including FAQs – decreasing the need for in-person or phone customer support.
• Capture a customer’s email address, sending email communications about offers, events, and important alerts.

E-Receipt and Order Confirmation Best Practices

Like any digital communications tactic, best practices exist that lend to the success of your e-Receipt and order confirmation campaigns. Here are seven tips to maximize your reach and impact:

1. Keep the Design Simple: Simplicity always wins in design. Use light boxes, simple calls to action, and white space to balance rich media.
2. Make it Secure: It’s easy for spammers and hackers to replicate e-Receipts and order confirmations, so make sure that you leverage a platform that is secure, and if possible include a barcode — which is nearly impossible to replicate.
3. Disclaimers: Legal compliance is a must for public sector organizations. To this end, boilerplate important disclaimers for greater customer transparency and legal compliance.
4. Opt in: Allow your customers to opt in to receive further messages versus automatically sending them emails.
5. Add Value: This is the marquee step to e-receipts and order confirmations. On top of the basic transactional information, include more information about related products, services, events, or content.
6. Create a Call to Action: Use call to actions and track actions taken through your marketing technology platform.
7. Connect: Make it easy for customers to reach out by including ways to connect with customer service representatives. Also, clearly display your organization’s social media profiles, so customers can carry the conversation to the social space.

How Do You Use e-Receipts and Order Confirmations?

Luckily, technology exists to make it efficient and easy to integrate e-Receipt and confirmations into your communications strategy. This technology integrates with transactional systems through an API or pre-built connector offering control over design, content, and timeliness to send e-Receipts and order confirmations.

E-Receipts and order confirmations provide another window of opportunity to convert your audience, grow your email subscriber list, generate additional revenue, and capture customer feedback.

With a well-vetted strategy and the technology to support e-Receipt and confirmation messages, you are on your way to reaching organizational goals, and having a more engaged, active, and informed audience.

Do you have first-hand experience using order confirmations or e-Receipts in the public sector? If so, connect with GovDelivery on Twitter and continue the conversation!

Stay tuned for our next installment of the conversion series on “web and portal notifications”.