With the explosive increase in purchases via bol.com, the pressure on your bol.com performance score is significantly increasing. Additionally, external parties such as delivery services are busier than ever, and delivery promises are therefore less often met. As a bol.com seller, you can suffer greatly from this with a sharply declining performance score and imposed strikes, which can ultimately even mean the closure of your account. In this blog, we explain how the bol.com performance score works and provide tips to meet these requirements.
Service Standards
Bol.com currently maintains 9 service standards that you as a seller must meet to receive the best possible performance score. And this performance score is of great importance because good service performances have a positive influence on your sales results and give you a greater chance of winning the buy block.
The 9 bol.com service standards, including the weekly standard and assessment, are:
- Delivered on time:
- Maximum 2 orders delivered late or a total of 93% of all orders delivered on time
- Cancellations:
- Maximum 2 orders or up to 2% of all orders canceled
- Track & Trace number (for all package shipments)
- Telephone accessibility
- In 90% of all call attempts
- Customer questions (dynamic standard)
- Percentage of customer questions compared to the number of orders
- Rating score
- An 8 or higher
- Response time
- With at least 10 customer questions
- 90% of customer questions answered within 24 hours.
- Returns (dynamic standard)
- Percentage of returns compared to the number of orders
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) after customer contact
- NPS of 10 or higher
- Currently not included in performance scores
The mentioned standards can be relaxed by bol.com when multiple bol.com sellers are disadvantaged due to large-scale busyness or disruptions. For example, the standard for 'delivered on time' is always lower than the mentioned 93% around the holidays, with bol.com monitoring this weekly.
Performance Scores
Weekly, you as a seller are assessed on the 4 most important service standards:
- Delivered on time
- Cancellations
- Track & Trace
- Ratings
Your performances from the last 6 assessed weeks are included in the performance score. This score is recalculated every Wednesday.
The performance score can be rated from “poor” to “excellent.” This score has a significant impact on your sales on bol.com, especially in the battle for the buy button.
If you use Logistics via Bol.com (LVB), possibly in combination with your own shipping, these 2 performance scores are calculated separately for the products to which they apply.
Monitoring Process
If you do not meet the service standards 'delivered on time', 'cancellations', or 'response time' within one week, you will receive a strike from bol.com. This starts a monitoring process in which bol.com will look more closely at your performances for a period of 24 weeks. Although you would prefer not to see it, it can of course happen that you perform less well for one or a few weeks during this period. This will lower your performance score, but it will not have further consequences for your account
With 5 strikes (within 24 weeks), your sales account is temporarily closed, and bol.com would like to receive an improvement plan in which you indicate how you will improve your performances. After this, your account will usually be reopened.
With 7 strikes, your account is permanently closed. After this, you can no longer sell via bol.com.
After 24 weeks with a maximum of 6 strikes, the monitoring process automatically ends, and you start again with 0 strikes. With the next strike, a new monitoring process starts again.
Policy Points As a last resort for the best possible service on the bol.com platform, bol.com uses policy points against violations by sellers. Think of fraud or imitation articles, but also unauthorized added promotion of your own webshop to an order.
In the sales account, you will find a section called 'Policy Points' under the heading 'Performances', containing your total number of points. You start with 100 points, which you can see as a credit. For each violation, policy points will be deducted. At 0 policy points, your account is permanently closed, including the closure of all other sales accounts you have registered under the Chamber of Commerce number.
After a period of 365 days, the deducted points are returned to your account.
Read more about the total of 10 violations at: https://partnerplatform.bol.com/en/need-help/performances/policy-points/
How do I ensure an excellent performance score?
More important than the explanation of the performance score is, of course, how you as a seller can best meet it. Below we provide some advice and tips that will make it a bit easier for you as a seller, but still get your performance score to 'excellent'!
- Ensure a correct inventory level To avoid cancellations, it is wise to build in a safety margin of, for example, 2 or 3 in the height of your inventory level. You can conveniently set this with feed optimization tools such as EffectConnect or Channable. This prevents you from not being able to deliver one of these orders if, for example, an order from your website is placed approximately equal to a bol.com order.
- Set a realistic delivery promise The delivery promise you indicate must be 100% achievable. If this delivery promise is not achievable due to busyness or understaffing in your warehouse, adjust it immediately and prevent getting a strike. You can also adjust the delivery promise per product. Also, take a good look at which delivery days you have set. For example, if you have indicated that you also deliver on Saturday, this day will of course be counted in your delivery promise. If you are unable to ship your products for a while, for example due to illness or vacation, temporarily close your bol.com store. Despite the missed orders in the short term, you ensure that your account remains healthy in the long term. Tip: Since March 2021, bol.com offers the option 'shipping via bol.com' for Dutch sellers, allowing you to ship your orders at attractive rates without being responsible for the carrier's performance. You are only assessed on the standard 'handed over on time'. More information about this new service and the competitive shipping rates can be found at: https://partnerplatform.bol.com/en/need-help/ordering-and-shipping/shipping-via-bol-com/
- Respond to customer questions on bol.com as quickly as possible It is self-evident to pick up customer questions as quickly as possible, at the latest within the 24 clock hours.Tip: When a question takes a little longer to investigate, it is wise to send a short response to the customer as soon as possible (Thank you for your question, we will get back to you as soon as possible). This ensures that your performance score is not negatively assessed, as you do meet the response time. Tip: When a question is resolved outside the chat, for example by phone, indicate 'Close as resolved' at the bottom of a customer question as soon as possible. This way, your performances are not negatively affected.
- Respond to a negative rating Make sure to respond to a customer who leaves a negative review or rating. This way, you as a seller learn what can be improved, and perhaps you can still positively influence the customer. After customer contact, you can then request a new rating, after which the customer will hopefully adjust their rating more positively.
- Ensure excellent product information to reduce the return percentage Returns bring high costs as a seller, but they can provide you with a lot of information. Therefore, always review the return reason and determine if you can further improve your product page with this information.
Need help with your bol.com performances?
Follo supports various customers in making their bol.com account a success, where bol.com service performances are of great importance. Is your performance score currently insufficient, or do you have a general question about the bol.com performance score? Then definitely contact us, we are happy to help you further!
