A family-run business with more than a century of history, Paper Mart prides itself on providing its shoppers with an exceptional customer experience from start to finish—it’s why they make such a huge effort to pack and ship out 99% of the orders they receive by 5 p.m. the same day. 

In fact, Paper Mart’s order fulfillment process was so smooth, reliable, and consistent that their call center never struggled to manage the occasional “where is my order?” inquiry even in the midst of the busy holiday season.  

All that changed in 2020. 

“When the pandemic hit, deliveries were delayed significantly—we couldn’t even get FedEx to pick up consistently from our warehouse,” explained Allison McGuire, Vice President of Marketing at Paper Mart. 

The result of these fulfillment disruptions?—Higher costs, jeopardized revenue, and an off-brand customer experience.

Rather than let their reputation and revenue suffer, Paper Mart made the quick decision to evolve their post-purchase experience from a single, stand-alone email sent after label creation to a full-fledged partnership with Narvar, provider of the industry’s only end-to-end post-purchase platform. 

“We sent customers their tracking email because their order was packaged, labeled, and expected to go out on a FedEx truck that day, but because of all the supply chain disruption our customer’s shipment would sit in limbo for days.” 

Allison McGuire, Vice President of Marketing at Paper Mart

A wave of calls from concerned customers

‘Where’s my package?’ 

‘What’s going on with my order?’ 

‘When I click on the tracking link, where is the information about my package?’

A tidal wave of questions like these poured into the Paper Mart call center in late 2020, to the point that Paper Mart’s capacity to provide exceptional customer support began unraveling. 

“We started seeing public-facing reviews from customers upset about their order status,” said Allison. “So between our customers becoming unhappy and the sheer volume of inbound contacts to our call center, we realized we needed to make a change that gave our customers a better experience.”

“We started shopping around for post-purchase solutions and Narvar just seemed like the best fit.”

Allison McGuire, Vice President of Marketing at Paper Mart

A seamless customer experience

“Partnering with Narvar was a fairly seamless integration for us on the marketing side,” said Allison.  

What made it so effortless? As Allison explained, “Narvar set up most of the templates for us, which was great. More importantly, the user-interface makes managing the platform after the initial setup very simple—from emails to landing pages, it’s not hard to figure out.”

Not only do Narvar’s tracking emails and landing pages help drive a significant amount of traffic to Paper Mart’s digital properties (including more than 57,000 unique visits in just six months) but, critically, they push people to make secondary and tertiary purchases adding thousands of dollars to the company’s top-line revenue. 

“Narvar is actually driving sales. People will hang on to their tracking emails and, when they’re ready to buy again, they’re clicking through to place their next order.”

“By giving people exact dates and notifying them of any delays, Narvar really helps our customers understand when they’re going to get their package.”

Allison McGuire, Vice President of Marketing at Paper Mart

Using ratings to make meaningful change

“We care about the customer’s onsite experience. We care about their interaction with our call center. We care about what happens when a package leaves our warehouse and the customer’s overall post-purchase experience as well. Which is why ratings are one of the things we appreciate most about Narvar,” said Allison. 

“Customers can rate our post-purchase experience and that’s very interesting for us to see. It gives us real insight into how upsetting it is for customers when an order is delayed or doesn’t arrive as quickly as it normally does.”

Using insights collected via post-purchase feedback, Paper Mart intensified its approach to customer education and expectation setting, while amplifying its communication frequency. As a result, Paper Mart is seeing continued improvement in its customer feedback and a steadily increasing star rating from its shoppers. 

‍"Narvar allows us to set expectations early…and customers are happier at the end of the day as a result.”

Allison McGuire, Vice President of Marketing at Paper Mart