Why WISMO matters and how Dr. Squatch improved theirs

Dr. Squatch, the men’s personal-care brand founded in 2013, has always faced a challenge on the DTC side: Its bar soap and other products are relatively heavy, meaning shipping is expensive. A typical order is roughly $30, with fulfillment and shipping costing the brand around $10.

“That’s a very large percent of sales that we dedicate to fulfillment costs, so anything we can do to reduce that is to our benefit,” Karl Mecklenborg, senior director of strategic operations at Dr. Squatch, told Retail Brew. The company used to cut that cost by using “economy shipping carriers,” but that led to headaches because the “service variability was very wide,” he said.

To address shipping snafus, Dr. Squatch switched its third-party logistics (3PL) provider a few years ago, gaining access to a larger number of carriers and doubling its US distribution centers from two to four.

Mecklenborg has been with the company for four years; two years ago, he took over the customer experience team, and something many outside of retail have never heard of reared its ugly head: WISMO.

When a customer contacts a company and poses some version of the question, “Where is my order?” they become part of its WISMO rate. When Mecklenborg took over the team, a WISMO query occurred for roughly 4% of orders. That seemed high to him and, worryingly, like a possible canary in a coal mine.

“It’s indicative of operational issues,” he said. “Oftentimes, it’s something that isn’t obvious at first glance.”

The 3PL switch had made delivery faster and cheaper. But the larger network of carriers made it harder to keep customers apprised—and the WISMO rate barely budged.

“We thought that delivery time was the ultimate metric,” he said of the company’s mindset a few years ago.

That’s when it dawned on Mecklenborg that while the company had tackled the delivery problem, another problem remained: communication.

Knowing better: Christine Loh is chief product officer of AfterShip, a post-purchase software provider.

“Where-is-my-order tickets and handling shipping exceptions” come up as “a top pain point” among AfterShip’s retail partners, Loh told Retail Brew.

AfterShip pulls tracking information from multiple carriers into a single branded page, so customers don’t have to visit a shipper’s or carrier’s website to find their packages. Using customers’ zip codes and carriers’ delivery records, it estimates arrival dates, monitors shipments, and sends milestone emails when orders leave warehouses as well as delay notices when packages hit snags.

A new offering, AfterShip Intelligence, is a suite of AI tools that AfterShip claims can better predict which orders are likely to have problems, recommend resolutions, and even—subject to its clients’ approval—draft messages to customers that keep them apprised.

Such proactive communications can soothe consumers before they amp up into WISMO mode.

“If we know something’s going to be late, we should tell you ahead of time versus you monitoring and chasing down the information,” Loh said.

Ship shape: Mecklenborg brought in AfterShip in 2024, shortly after he took over Dr. Squatch’s customer-experience team. The platform helped Dr. Squatch consolidate tracking information from its expanding list of carriers on one branded page, update delivery estimates, and send customers updates at each stage of an order’s journey.

When it comes to WISMO, the results were dramatic for Dr. Squatch: From early 2024 to early 2025, the brand’s WISMO rate fell 25%, from roughly 4% of orders to 3%.

“I’m not saying we’re perfect today, but we have taken very large strides,” Mecklenborg said.

AfterShip claims to have helped other brands achieve even larger WISMO reductions in case studies on its website. Electronics accessories brand Mous reduced WISMO queries by 54% after partnering with AfterShip; online fashion retailer Moda Operandi reduced theirs by 65%.

“When you have a good delivery experience, whether it is delivery, return, or customer support, it helps build brand trust, and it does increase customer loyalty,” Loh said.

Mecklenborg linked the improved communication and lower WISMO rates to an improvement in Dr. Squatch’s net promoter score, a metric based on customers’ likelihood of recommending a company, which Dr. Squatch measures through post-purchase surveys.

“Our net promoter score was the highest it’s ever been, especially from new customers, which in the past had issues with bad delivery on their first orders,” Mecklenborg said.