If my experience is any indication, the typical shipping box from an online retailer is filled with a seemingly random assortment of packing material. Sometimes, you get those air-filled plastic bags, while in other cases it’s bubble wrap or brown craft paper. Many of these materials can be recycled, so I usually fold them up and put them into the recycling queue.

However, after wrestling with what must have been a 20 foot long sheet of craft paper, I thought of an obvious question: why don’t I keep some of this packing material for future use? By doing so, I would save money and time, and get another use out of the existing stuff before it (hopefully) ends up in a recycle bin. So, I took my giant roll of brown craft paper, set it aside, and promised myself to consider reusing packing materials in the future.

From the retailer’s perspective, encouraging this type of reuse makes sense. It fits with the “green” initiatives that many companies are pursuing, and has the potential to help customers save time and money. But how can you convince people to use those packing materials again? Simple: just print a reminder on the inside of the shipping box. Or if that’s not possible, try putting the reminder on the outside of the box or on the packing slip. Even if only 5-10% of customers end up following the recommendation, it’s still a lot better than seeing all of that packing material get discarded after a single use.

Several weeks ago, I booked an airline ticket for a trip in early August. However, my plans changed, so I had to push the trip back to a later date. Everything went fine with changing the ticket, and I even received an email confirmation with all the revised details.

A few days later, the airline sent me an email to remind me that my trip was approaching, with the usual details about how to print a boarding pass and so on. However, there was one little problem: the reminder email referred to my original travel dates, rather than the revised ones.

For a moment, I was worried that the ticket was never really changed. Luckily, a quick review of my upcoming reservations on the airline website showed that the ticket was correct. And then I realized what must have happened: they’re scheduling the date and content of the trip reminders when you first book a ticket, and there’s something wrong with whatever process is supposed to change those reminder emails when a customer changes the original reservation.

To generalize this a bit, any trip reminder system should be smart enough to handle subsequent changes to the travel itinerary. By ensuring that reminder emails always reflect the most current travel plans, you’ll avoid making travelers nervous at the last minute, while increasing the overall trust and confidence associated with your brand.

About a week ago, I bought a piece of clothing online that I’m really happy with. So, I decided to check which other colors it comes in. The item I have is a dark gray, and the product line appears to include a light gray and a black option. However, there’s no way to tell if these alternate colors are actually different enough to be worth buying.

I ended up going to a local store to compare the various colors and buy the additional sets. However, this experience made me realize how easy it would be for an online retailer to solve the problem. If a product comes in more than one color, then each of the product detail pages should include a family photo of sorts. In other words, show all of the color options side-by-side in the same picture, with captions to help identify each color, and make sure the comparison photo is available on all of the corresponding product pages.

By giving shoppers this additional context, you’ll help them choose the right color for their initial purchase. At the same time, you’ll make it easier for them to buy additional colors that are very similar to — or quite different from — what they already have.

I go through a lot of raisins, so it makes sense to buy them in bulk. Not too long ago, I placed an order for a few large bags, and they arrived in good shape. Fast forward a few months, and the retailer only carried the same product in “can” form. The price was about the same, but as I learned, the product itself came with some caveats.

Raisins in a can would work fine if the can was at least moderately durable. These cans, however, were anything but. Rather than metal or plastic, each canister was constructed of a thin cardboard material. Half of them arrived badly damaged, and one was leaking raisins all over the shipping box. Clearly, this packaging option was greatly inferior to the soft-side plastic bags that were used in the past.

The takeaway here is rather obvious. Retailers should take the transit and delivery method into account when selecting which versions of a given product to carry. If one version of the product comes in durable packaging that’s hard to damage, and another is likely to break at the slightest provocation, then the durable one is the better choice. Sure, there are other factors to consider, like the package size and aesthetics. But all else equal, the best packaging for a given product is the one that looks the best when it finally arrives in the customer’s hands.

Every time I place a grocery delivery order, there’s one part of the process that feels a little bit off. Specifically, when the driver gives me the receipt and asks for a signature, it takes me an uncomfortably long time to verify that the amount matches what I was expecting. I finally figured out what’s causing the mental obstacle for me: the order of all the line items is totally different than what the company shows online.

In other words, things like the subtotal, delivery fee, fuel surcharge, coupons, and sales tax appear in several places during the ordering and delivery process. The way they’re presented — in terms of the order and even the naming — isn’t consistent. Whether we realize it or not, this makes things feel a bit out of place.

To remedy this issue, just be consistent in how you present receipts — on the web, in emails, and in person. Keep the order, names and labels the same. By following this simple guideline, you’ll make customers feel more comfortable when they view receipts and purchase confirmations, which removes friction from the shopping experience and encourages people to buy from you regularly.

When you’re shopping for clothing in a retail store, it’s fairly easy to try on an item to make sure it’s the right size. Since online shopping lacks this physical component, you generally have to make the same decision based on your prior experience with the brand, other customers’ reviews, and a very low-tech companion: the size chart.

I’ve seen size charts that range from extremely helpful — complete with tips on performing your own measurements — to those that are confusing and frustrating. But the presence of size charts on virtually every retail website shows that customers have come to expect this type of resource. And it makes me wonder: why don’t retailers provide these size charts in their brick-and-mortar stores, as well?

It really seems like a no-brainer: put up printed versions of the size chart in key departments and near the dressing rooms. Customers and employees alike can refer to them, and reduce the number of wasted cycles of trying on clothes that have no chance of fitting right. Plus, it provides additional continuity between the online, catalog, and in-store shopping experience. Considering how rarely these sizing guidelines change for a given retailer, making size charts readily available in retail locations should be a low-cost way to sell more products and create happier customers in the process.

While walking through an otherwise drab hallway that connects two buildings, I noticed that the building managers had done something interesting: they put up large-format photos and converted the hallway into an art gallery. A sign nearby explained that the photos featured local scenes. While that statement was accurate, the images looked like the type of stuff you would see in a tourist-focused brochure, rather than anything that would be new or different to locals.

A simple enhancement would make this type of hallway art gallery even more enticing. First, add signage encouraging the people who use the hallway to contribute their own photos or artwork. Then, display the contributed works on a rotating basis, or even let passers-by vote on which pieces are to be retained as part of a permanent collection. It’s a low-cost and fun way to get people involved in their surroundings, and should help foster the sense of community that’s often missing from today’s urban environments.

In what is presumably an effort to reduce the number of patients who make an appointment and then forget to show up, many doctors are using automated reminder systems. Typically, this takes the form of a phone call a few days before the appointment, in which a recorded voice asks you to confirm the date and time. I’ve also seen a variant where they send a printed letter a week in advance, in addition to calling you.

This is all fine and good, but it’s overkill in a lot of cases. For instance, if a patient has been with you for a while and has never missed an appointment time, do they really need to get a letter and phone call for every subsequent visit? I fall into this category, and find these types of reminders a bit annoying. After years of showing up on time, the implication that I would suddenly start forgetting about appointments is actually rather insulting.

What’s the solution? At the end of your normal reminder calls and letters, give your most punctual patients the ability to opt-out. For instance, you might say something like this: “If you have been on-time to your last 3 appointments and would prefer not to receive these appointment reminders, please let us know.” That way, you’re giving patients control over what would otherwise be a highly impersonal aspect of their experience, which should help build a greater level of trust and loyalty in the long run.

A few days ago, my icemaker stopped working. I looked in the user manual and online for troubleshooting tips, but none of them brought it back to life. Thinking that replacement was the most likely remedy, I wanted to find out what a new unit would cost, aside from labor. But this proved to be a fruitless endeavor.

As it turns out, the manufacturer, model number, and other details are nowhere to be found on the icemaker itself. The user manual — if it’s even the right one — covers a bunch of different models. So unless I actually de-install the icemaker from the freezer, I have no way of finding out which model I have, whether the same model is still available, and other important details.

I’ll probably end up calling a refrigerator specialist to diagnose the problem and install a suitable replacement. But it irks me that the whole process is obscured by such obvious missing data. And that brings me to my point: customers shouldn’t have to work so hard to figure out which product they have.

To remedy this, just put the model number, manufacturer, serial number and other key details in places that people will be able to find them, even after the product has been put into use or installed. That way, customers will thank you — or at least blame you a little less — when circumstances require them to look up the info for maintenance or repair.

If you’ve spent any time reading the customer reviews on a typical website, then you’ve probably noticed that many of the reviews are a grammatical and stylistic mess. And it’s not just a matter of word count: even the shortest reviews tend to be full of errors. Taken together, the poor quality of the average review certainly isn’t doing the website that hosts it — or the product or service being reviewed — any favors.

To remedy this problem, websites that allow for user reviews should screen the reviews in real-time to spot issues like these:

– Spelling errors

– Text written in all caps

– Web-centric abbreviations that don’t read well

Then, automatically fix the obvious mistakes, and show the user a list of suggestions for the rest.

Granted, this won’t catch 100% of the errors, and some users won’t bother to heed the tips that are presented. But given how sloppy the typical customer review looks today, any amount of improvement would be a welcome change.