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August 9, 2021
Aug 9, 2021

Bol.com service standards: everything partners ought to know

Pim de Vos
Written by
Pim
bol.com servicenormen

bol.com's partner platform has become quite popular in recent years. By the end of 2020, the number of partners was already at 40,000. To ensure that all these partners maintain bol.com's good name, a number of bol.com service standards have been drawn up. In this article, we tell you everything you need to know about these service standards.

What are the bol.com service standards?

The service standards apply to the entire partner platform. The better your business performs as a partner, the more likely your products will be shown in the buying block. In short: by providing good customer service, you score better on bol.com.

You can see how your company is currently doing by going to your sales account and navigating to the 'Performance' page.

For a complete overview of the service standards, you can take a look here. I have summarised the main points for you below.

1. Deliver on time

One of the most important service standards is obviously about delivery. Bol.com expects partners to ensure that at least 93% of all items ordered are delivered on time. Are three or more items delivered late in a week? Then you get a so-called 'strike'.

2. As few cancellations as possible

If three or more items are cancelled in one week, you will also receive a strike. By cancellations, bol.com understands two possibilities:

  1. When you cancel a customer's order yourself.
  2. When the customer cancels an order after the promised delivery date.

3. Add atrack & track number

A customer not only wants to receive his parcel on time, but also wants to be able to track it these days. That is why it is compulsory to add a track & trace number to parcel post. This is not compulsory for letter mail.

4. Good telephone accessibility

When customers have a complaint or question, they often pick up the phone. This is why bol.com attaches great importance to customers being able to contact you by phone during office hours (read: Monday to Friday, from nine to five). In at least ninety percent of all cases, you must therefore pick up the phone to achieve a good score.

5. A low number of customer queries

Bol.com says that the number of customer queries does not yet count when measuring your performance, but that a lot of value is attached to it.

Bol.com expects you to keep this number low by paying a lot of attention to the information you provide. Think about the product texts, but also the messages you send out about the shipment.

6. A high rating

Besides all the quantitative performance standards, bol.com also values customer opinion. Happy customers are more likely to come back and other customers often read the reviews before buying. To meet the service standard, your rating should therefore be at least an 8.

7. Fast response time

You only really make the modern customer happy with speed. That is why bol.com also measures response time. To meet the service standards, 90% of customer questions should be answered within 24 hours.

8. Low number of returns

If you are already active in e-commerce, you know that returns can be very troublesome. They hurt customer satisfaction and cost you and your team a lot of money and time. Therefore, bol.com also wants partners to keep the number of returns low.

So exactly how many returns can you process per month? That varies. Each partner has a personal 'dynamic norm'. You are notified by bol.com via e-mail when you receive too many returns. Currently, this is not counted in the performance score either.

9. An NPS pf 10 or higher

The NPS (Net Promoter Score) indicates the extent to which the customer would recommend your company to someone they know. When you close a customer query, bol.com can send out a survey after this to measure this. Again, this standard is not currently included in the performance score.

Tips & tricks for a high score

1. Use a customer service platform

With a customer service platform like Trengo, you can easily manage all your bol.com customer contact. This is because Trengo allows you to manage messages from all your channels in one overview with a team. Think of channels such as e-mail, telephone, live chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and thus also bol.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-K_mCiPJ_Y

In short: all the communication channels you need as a webshop in one platform. That way, you don't have to keep clicking back and forth between tabs and your customers get answers faster.

2. Optimise your information provision

Prevention is better than cure. Therefore, make sure customers have access to as much information as possible. This way, you reduce the number of customer queries and it becomes easier to provide the remaining customer queries with quick and appropriate answers.

Tip: keep accurate records of the customer queries you receive by using labels. In a customer service platform, you can assign these labels to every message you receive. For example, you can label questions as 'product information' or 'delivery'. Do you get a striking number of messages with one label? Then you might be able to improve the information provision.

3. Ask satisfied customers for a review

As mentioned, a high customer review rating plays a big role in meeting the bol.com service standards. Try to give customers who have indicated that they are happy a nudge in the right direction. You can do this, for example, by asking them for a positive review after a customer service call. You can speed up this process by putting this request in a quick reply. That way, you don't have to write the request over and over again.

Become a star player on the bol.com partner platform

By delivering great service, you as a partner can steal the show on bol.com's platform. To do this, you must first meet bol.com's service standards. To make this process easier and less time-consuming, you should use a customer service platform like Trengo for this purpose.

Curious about how it works? Try Trengo for free.

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Pim de Vos
Written by
Pim
Senior Content Marketer

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