There is an increasing trend for every shop and e-commerce outfit to want to be like Amazon.
It is understandable for e-commerce to have them as their idol, but why do bricks-and-mortar stores look up to them?
The genius of Amazon is that they have been able to separate the store experience into two independent acts: shopping and buying.
Shopping is the age-old activity, customers like to browse and pass the time, but that’s not how retailers make money.
Amazon caters for the power buyer, the time-short - those who need something now. Cost is less relevant than availability and on-demand delivery is paramount, Amazon can fulfil this availability with increasing speed. From a ‘slow’ 3 day delivery window to now same day(1), they are close to fulfilling our utmost desires by shipping it before we even need it! Maybe one day we’ll have to return goods to NOT buy them, totally reversing the roles between shopper and retailer.
We are not there (yet) but what we can learn from Amazon is that they are in control of getting the products into our hands on-demand and at speed, whilst telling us what’s happening.
Using technology, they have trained us to expect transparency in the delivery process. They have contributed to us moving from an era of trust to one of continuous verification. We are not re-assured by the fact that it will be just delivered on a particular day, we want to know at what stage it’s at in the delivery process and we need a precise ETA. Without it this, we become anxious and annoyed.
Trained by every other experience, our generation has become reliant on this technology and we are demanding the same access to information for all our needs: transparency for food, groceries, taxi, repairs (why is my locksmith not there yet at 3am when I called them 20 minutes ago?), etc…
Should all services adapt to this on-demand generation?
The question should be: Why is this transparency technology not more prominent already?
Technology is not the issue. At Localz, our SaaS platform provides the software stack that allows companies to deliver all the transparency their customers expect and even more. Not just content with providing the equivalent of Amazon in communicating the delivery or job status to your customers, we use advanced location technology to bring the service even closer to the customer. We can help you deliver to your customer whenever they want, wherever they are!
We are already powering some of the “Your DPD” (2) app features that have greatly improved the delivery rates. (3)
So when over 2 billion people have access to and use smartphones (4), why aren’t all service and delivery companies providing this service already? The answer is always the same, software.
The dreaded software implementation phase has been limiting turning this vision into reality, not by technical feasibility, but through difficulty in taking a standard legacy approach to integration.
If you’re still leaving ‘sorry we missed you’ cards, suffering from large call volumes to your contact centres seeking more accurate ETAs and wasting millions of pounds/euros/dollars from having to reschedule, you need Localz.
At Localz, we are setting the new industry standard of customer experience and efficiency with the leaders in services and logistics to provide the best experience for both drivers and end-customers. Our focus on simplifying the integration with existing enterprise systems through instant-on APIs and Software Development Kits has massively shortened the time and reduced the risk in getting the system live.
For more information, contact Localz : hello@localz.com