Is home delivery important?

Home Delivery is a brand investment.

Delivery needs to be viewed as a brand investment and not an inconvenient process/cost. Your customers experience has to be good as repeat business depends on it.

For decades businesses have focused their efforts upon the customer experience. The choosing of a product from the store, the relationship they have with the call centre, the colour of the environment and the layout of their store. All investments to help customers enjoy the experience of shopping and browsing products designed to ensure that they will subconsciously remember you when returning again and again.

This is further explored with the product itself - whether own brand or not, the shape of the packaging, its colour, features and carefully selected display location. These are all investments that, along with your store experience, would rarely be challenged as excessive or unnecessary. True they need to be conducted or created within a budget; however, they are not driven by cost alone.

So why is it then we have a purely cost driven strategy for the delivery of products to customers homes?

Yes, the retailer will always consider the experience the customer has through their delivery channel, but it normally stays within the confines of delivery performance to timescales. From this, they immediately consider the cost of shipping, some try to conduct the entire process with least cost impact to the business. Unfortunately the true overall cost of a poor delivery service is rarely known or considered.

Delivery is not seen as a customer relationship building experience. It should be. If you invest the effort in making delivery as attractive and enjoyable as the shopping experience then the customer will stay happy. Not as is often the case - utterly disappointed, having had the perfect shopping approach to then be left to the four winds when delivery comes round.

A customer disappointed by the delivery process is likely to tell far more people of your failings than if they didn't like your store layout!

Delivery is the most far reaching channel

Just how much do you spend each year on protecting the values of your brand? How much do you spend on creating a brand image and identity? Why would you not want to protect this throughout the whole customer experience?

And how much do you spend competing against the performance or preference claims of your competition?

It seems as much as 30% of your marketing budget is applied directly to this problem and a further 20% could be attributed to strengthening the brand through associated promotions.

Add this to the investment you have created in-store - the look and feel of the store layout, the materials used in the shelving, the labelling and the approach taken by your employees and you have a huge investment in your brand.

And, just like a house of cards, all this work collapses, when having had a great buying experience you fail to meet customers expectations when you deliver. Potentially wasting a great deal of money.

A recent survey has shown that very few companies view the home delivery experience as an extension of their brand. Most just think of it as a necessary service giving little thought to the potential damage that can be caused to the brand.

Few consider that if you understand the service subtleties that are required during the home delivery process, then brand values can also be explored, enforced and probably more effectively delivered.

Stop thinking about delivery as just logistics. It is the most far-reaching channel for your brand.

Delivery - Your brand is only as good as the last touch point

Customer loyalty is a fickle thing. As part of your brand strategy you will always manage your propositions and brand association components to create that ultimate relationship and loyalty. Therefore you must ensure this carries all the way through to the last touch point / contact with your customer.

This passion for your product or your brand is vital to your success. It has to be sustained throughout the whole retail experience and whilst loyalty will overcome the occasional failings of your product or service it doesn't extend to the way you manage and perform your home delivery service.

Age old, loyal to the bone customers, threaten to cancel orders and even vow they will never return - despite years of buying relationships - over a mere single failing to meet their expectations for home delivery. As much as 38%* of customers who have had a poor home delivery service vow and never do return to the retailer who has failed.

All lost and never to return just because of a poorly executed home delivery service.

Great home delivery starts with understanding your customer requirements: their need for home delivery to be handled in a specific fashion or timescale that is inline with their life styles. Get this right and they go out of their way to bestow gratitude.

Above all, you will be confident that the last touch point you had with your customer was a good one. You have performed to their expectations and soundly re-enforced your brand, its values and the long-term relationship until the next time you meet.

Using Axida's home delivery software HDi you can ensure that the progress of each order is monitored, highlighting problems as they occur, ensuring customers are aware of difficulties before they happen. To find out more, please contact us.

Home delivery. You're only as good as the last experience. An experience that no longer stays in store!

*source IMRG Consumer Delivery Survey 2010