Customer experience isn’t just online, it’s everywhere

It’s no secret that consumer habits have changed in recent years with the eCommerce boom. The ease of online shopping has triggered a big jump in customer expectation, while quick and easy access to online price comparisons and reviews have challenged brand loyalty. Increasingly, it is the customer experience and delivery options that drive online sales.

Retailers are investing in their online presence - implementing solutions to ensure better forecasting of stock, more flexible delivery options and a truly personalised experience. Customer’s offline interactions are often front of mind but with home delivery the last mile has the final word.

The challenge for many retailers now is that the quality of the overall customer experience is increasingly a distributed one, with multiple organisations assuming responsibility for different aspects of ordering, delivery time slot booking, distribution and returns. So how can retailers ensure that the most recent interaction a consumer has with its brand is something it’s in control of, without adding cost and eroding profit margins?

The answer lies in adopting an ethos of collaboration throughout the supply chain, and enabling this through real-time information sharing. From pulling together disparate aspects of the supply chain via integrated transport management and route planning, to building a more collaborative, community-based approach, it is the ability to utilise and share accurate real-time information across the supply chain that will provide retailers with the visibility needed from transport operators to better manage assets and expectations.

Retailers, along with their third party carriers and subcontractors, must adopt this approach to ensure customer satisfaction, while also driving efficiency and reducing costs. By leveraging real-time information and real-time demand, Descartes solutions can facilitate advanced route optimisation options across a wide variety of planning scenarios to offer customers choice and convenience - from territories and master routes through to extremely dynamic routing environments. Retailers can create end-to-end visibility, from initial pick up through distribution centres, hubs and cross tracks to the last mile, thus transforming performance.

Customer experience isn’t just online and it isn’t only the retailer that it’s reliant upon. It is, however, the retailer’s reputation it ultimately reflects. Retailers must regain control over the end-to-end customer experience, but, to do so, they must outsource their operations without abdicating responsibility.

To speak to a member of the Descartes team about how a collaborative approach could benefit your business, contact us.