A Return To Origin (RTO) happens when a shipment or order cannot be successfully delivered to the customer and is sent back to the fulfilment location.
An order can be marked as RTO due to the following reasons:
The customer's address is incomplete or inaccurate.
The customer's address is out of the delivery area (ODA).
The customer is unavailable at the time of delivery.
The customer refused to accept the order.
The customer is unable to or refuses to pay the cash amount due at the time of delivery.
The customer has requested an order cancellation.
The customer wants an open-box delivery.
In this article, you will learn how to track and reduce RTO orders.
Tracking RTO orders
You can view and track orders marked as RTO on your workspace. To do so, you need to follow the below-given steps:
Step 1: From the header, navigate to Orders > All Orders.
Step 2: You will be redirected to the Orders page. Click on More Filters.
Step 3: Select the Return Type as Courier initiated return and click on Apply.
All the orders which were marked as RTO will be visible here. You can also view the reason by navigating to the Returns tab for the order.
How to reduce RTO?
Reducing RTO is crucial to minimise costs, maintain customer satisfaction, and enhance revenue and operational efficiency.
You can reduce RTO by implementing the following:
Enable Risk Score: Risk score can help you identify orders that are highly likely to fail delivery. This feature enables you to auto-identify such high-risk orders and take proactive measures to ensure successful delivery. Learn here how to enable risk score.
Implement Customer Shipping Notifications: Keeping your customers updated about the status of their orders in real-time is an effective way of reducing RTO.
This transparency can significantly reduce the chances of unsuccessful deliveries due to customers being unavailable or unaware of the delivery. Learn here how to manage customer notifications.
Increase customer engagement rate for failed deliveries via WhatsApp: Using WhatsApp as a mode of communication can help your customers take immediate action on any failed delivery attempt, which is communicated to the courier partner in real-time.
This swift response can significantly reduce the time delay between the failed delivery attempt and the customer action, thereby minimising the likelihood of RTO occurrences. Learn here how to enable WhatsApp.
FAQs
Will I be charged for RTO?
Yes, you will be charged for RTO as per your order form.
Can I revoke RTO?
Yes, you can revoke an RTO only if
It is not an OTP-verified cancellation.
The order has not reached the maximum delivery attempts.
To revoke an RTO, you need to reach out to the Eshopbox support team. Learn here how to raise a ticket to Eshopbox support.