A Seamless Customer Experience?  – A Click and Collect Fail!

So much buzz about seamless customer experience. So much talk about omnichannel presence. And yet sometimes the experience the shopper receives is far from seamless. As an example, I’m going to use a recent shopping experience with Harvey Norman (a large Australian retailers with a presence in many parts of the world, selling appliances, consumer electronics, bedding – pretty much anything for the home) –  and use this to see what can be done by brands and retailers to create a seamless customer experience.

The Promising start to the Seamless customer experience

I was in Singapore on business, my wife was joining me, and it was her birthday. Time was short, so the idea of doing some product research online, then going to the store to pick up the goods was perfect. The promise of any ‘Click and Collect’ service is absolute convenience: no waiting in for a delivery and no wandering around stores to find products. For this particular shopping mission, this seemed perfect. No waiting at the hotel, and I knew I wouldn’t have time to go to stores and hunt around. What could be better than ‘Click and Collect’?

The online experience was pretty good. I could find what I wanted, and was told that while the items weren’t available at my nearest store, they were available at another store, not too far away. I worked out that I could easily pick them up in between a couple of meetings, and so I ‘clicked’.

A Seamless customer experience is supposed to be more convenient

The Harvey Norman store I visited is in a mall and spread over three floors. I searched the ground floor for the ‘Click & Collect’ collection point, and then eventually spied a sign – “Online pickups third floor”. Third floor? How is that convenient? Nevertheless I went upstairs, scoured the bed department, and eventually found the collection point tucked away in a corner of the store.

“I’m sorry, you need to collect these items from the individual departments” I was told by the Associate on the desk.

So much for a seamless customer experience!

So this hyper-convenient ‘Click and Collect’ service means that I have to go up three floors, then go back downstairs, navigate the store to find the appropriate departments, then find a member of staff who can find my order. That’s more complicated and time consuming than an old-fashioned store-only shopping trip!

One last fail

So my ‘seamless customer experience’ was hardly satisfactory, and I’ve been patiently waiting for Harvey Norman to send me an email to ask me about my experience. So far, they haven’t – so I can only assume that they don’t actually care very much whether the experience was good or bad.

So what lessons can brands and retailers learn from Harvey Norman’s ‘Click and Collect’ fail?

Organization silos create customer experience silos

I have no idea how Harvey Norman structure their business, but I’d bet they have a separate team managing their online business. There is, theoretically, logic in that – they can hire online and e-commerce experts and have them focused on delivering a fabulous online experience. And to be fair the online part of the experience was pretty good. But shoppers don’t want an excellent online experience: they want an excellent customer experience, period. The ‘Click and Collect’ team seems to believe that the job is done when I check out on the website. Nothing could be further from the truth. There appears to be no vision of the entire customer journey at all. Without that vision, how can the business create a seamless customer experience?

A Seamless customer experience must come ahead of operational expediency

The order collection point is on the third floor – at the customer service desk. This location might be OK for customer service, but for an online collection point, it makes no sense at all. I assume that the customer service desk was always in that location, and it was just the easiest place to manage order collection from. Easy for who? The retailer, not the shopper!

Invest in what shoppers want from their seamless customer experience.

Its sometimes expensive to commission shopper research, especially if we wanted to explore shopping journeys across online and offline. But it doesn’t cost much to email a survey asking shoppers about the experience. You’ve already got the email address, for heaven’s sake!

Walk a mile in your shopper’s shoes

As I’ve said before, there is no substitute for getting out from behind your desk and visiting a store. Look at the world from a shopper’s point of view. Actually do the shopping journey and see what it’s like. You’ll be surprised how much you can learn. And while you are at it, go and experience what your competitors offer – or go and shop at a completely different outlet.

Shoppers expectations are getting higher and higher. That might not be fair, but it isn’t helped by retailers and brands making promises that they can’t deliver on. This was a simple shop, and simple steps could be taken to improve the experience for the shopper. But that will only happen if marketers and managers begin to look at the world through the eyes of the shopper, rather than the view from the board room.

If you’re interested in seeing the world from the shopper’s point of view, we offer guided ‘retail safaris’ in many countries. Experience the store from the shopper’s point of view in the company of a real shopper expert. In a day, we guarantee we’ll find significant ways to improve the shopper experience, and your sales and profit! If you’re interested, get in touch!

Image: Flickr