The Golden Mile (part 1)

IMRG predict that 820 million parcels will be delivered this year, with 10% failing to reach the internet shopper at the 1st attempt. Out of these 82 million deliveries that have/will fail, I have experienced 10 failed deliveries in the last 3 weeks. Given the fact that I have been at home for the majority of the time and contactable at all times, shows that e-commerce providers are failing their customers at the final point in their purchasing journey.

Key points of failure:

E-Checkout – This critical part of the customer journey needs to clearly state delivery costs, delivery mechanisms and delivery timescales, to provide the customer with 100% confidence that their parcel will arrive when they are in a position to receive it.

E-mail - Needs to provide the customer with specific information relating to their parcel, and not trying to offer additional products and services. Post delivery communications should additionally act as a way of completing the journey and provide an opportunity to maintain the relationship.

Customer services – Service needs to be pro-active, with the customer being the priority, regardless of weather the parcel has been delivered or not. It is frustrating as businesses go out of their way to sell you something, and then seem to forget about you once they have received their money.

Why do so many e-businesses throw good money in the bin?

It appears to be common for businesses to take a customer centric approach to the design and execution of their e-commerce offering, whilst treating the order management element of the process as an internal I.T. service, where often the customer gets forgotten. Recent research by Google concluded that of the 48% of shopping carts abandoned, nearly 70% of these were down to delivery concerns.

With Christmas approaching, success at the front door may well become critical to success.