Nobody has ever run this study, but we’re willing to bet that 0% of wholesale distributors enjoy managing vendor credits and return authorizations. And if you’re an industry insider, you know why!
The whole process involves countless moving parts, from following up with suppliers to carefully dealing with frustrated customers when delays occur. Without standardized processes and tech-powered automation, it’s difficult to streamline things—resulting in rework and confusion that impacts customer satisfaction.
The good news is that with a strategic approach and the right technology, you can streamline vendor credits and return authorizations to boost efficiency, customer retention, and profits. The following 7 steps will help get you there.
1. Create a Master Return Policy Sheet
“Systems run the business, and people run the systems. Documenting the systems allows ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results." — Michael E. Gerber (Author: The E-Myth)
This is especially true in wholesale distribution, where complex processes have to run like clockwork in order to maximize profits. Plus, it’s absolutely vital when it comes to RMA processing, issuing vendor credits, return authorizations, and overall post-sales process optimization.
If you don’t have a master return policy sheet that documents all your processes surrounding RMA processing, get all your stakeholders together, roll up your sleeves, and get started. Gather direct input from those employees who process your returns, and highlight every step involved in your distributor return process. Make note of any bottlenecks and areas for improvement.
Then create a document that is stored online and readily available to everyone in your organization who might need to access it. This will become your return policy bible, and it will serve as a resource for both day-to-day operations as well as your continued efforts to optimize returns policies and processes.
2. Use AI to Summarize Your Policies
Okay, so you’ve got your policies laid out in painstaking detail in your master return policy sheet. That’s a must-have for your stakeholders and strategists, but you’ll also need simple, clear policy summaries for both internal staff as well as customers.
AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude can help you create separate documents targeted toward different groups of employees, vendors, and customers. These language processing models can take large, intricate documents, extract what matters, and help you craft clear explanations.
Of course, you never want to take anything that AI pumps out and distribute it right away. AI’s creativity, which makes it amazing, is also the very thing that occasionally has it making stuff up.
For example, even though ChatGPT can summarize a transcript from a meeting, it might fail miserably if you ask it to count the number of words spoken by each participant. We tried that once, and it gave us 5 different answers. Eventually, we gave up! It can summarize the latest findings in astrophysics, but apparently, it still has trouble counting.
The bottom line is that whatever AI tool you use, make sure your stakeholders and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) scrutinize the material, revising and rewriting everything that must be changed.
Who knows what the future holds? Maybe the next version of ChatGPT will be able to produce perfectly tailored descriptions of return policy documents for each of your audiences. For now, however, whatever your favorite AI model produces should be seen as nothing more than a jumping-off point.
How prepared is your team to implement AI in your business? Check out our AI-Readiness Quiz for Wholesale Distributors. Discover how prepared your wholesale distribution business is for AI and take the first step towards a smarter, more efficient future.
3. Adopt Project Management Tools
Modern technology can help distributors manage RMA requests, vendor credits, and other aspects of their returns policies by allowing different departments to coordinate with one another. They offer visibility across workflows, allowing you to track each step in the returns process.
Here are a few popular project management tools that can help distributors manage returns:
- Monday.com is a highly customizable platform offering robust tracking and visualizations
- Trello is simpler and more intuitive than Monday, using a Kanban-style interface
- Asana strikes a balance between Monday and Trello, with structured task and project management features
Now, we’re a bit biased here, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that our very own Continuum platform is specifically designed to help distributors manage B2B returns. It comes equipped with tracking tools that offer powerful visibility, intuitive workflow design, and much more.
4. Automate Follow-ups
Automating email follow-ups with vendors will help keep your returns process on track and reduce processing times, which is great for maintaining customer satisfaction and ensuring customer retention.
You can automate email follow-ups with CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce, and you can also use the automation tools found in Continuum. Continuum interfaces with popular CRMs, which can work great if you’ve already got automation follow-ups in place. 
5. Streamline Data Collection with Electronic Forms
Collecting the right data from your customers and vendors is essential. Failing to do so results in needless follow-up and rework. You can use popular tools like Google Forms and Typeform to gather that information, along with the data collection forms in Continuum’s customer hub.
Of course, the right technology won’t do you much good without clear instructions that include reason codes and any other information that you and your vendors require. All this underscores the importance of clearly outlining each form’s requirements before taking them live.
6. Publish Clear Return Policies and Reason Codes
In our whitepaper outlining the state of distributor returns, we took a look at 75 North American distributors and analyzed their returns policies—and what we found was a bit shocking.
Out of all the distributors we reviewed, 20 did not list their return policies on their websites, while another dozen listed policies that were vague and unclear. Others featured extremely restrictive return policies, which may be negatively impacting their customer satisfaction and retention rates.
We can’t say with 100% certainty that overly restrictive policies hurt business for distributors because B2B returns haven’t been studied as extensively as B2C returns, but the B2C research shows that draconian return policies are bad for business. This likely holds true for B2B return policies, and wholesale distributors with overly restrictive policies will probably want to rethink them.
Whatever you do, we recommend publishing clear return policies on your website along with easy-to-follow instructions for initiating and following up on returns. Be sure to include reason codes in your policies as well so your customers won’t have trouble finding them and listing them on their return forms.
7. Leverage Returns Management Platforms
You can certainly build an effective returns management process using a mishmash of different technologies, from CRMs to project management software to form collection tools.
However, did you know you can find everything you need in a single platform designed specifically for streamlining wholesale distributor return processes?
Continuum is a returns management system created for B2B returns—also known as reverse logistics—by industry veterans who understand the complexities of moving products back up the supply chain. It allows your vendors, customers, and employees to track the entire returns process, creating visibility at every step.
Book a demo today to see how Continuum Returns Management can streamline RMA processing for wholesale distributors and manufacturers.
Comments