Does customer service even matter if you are the cheapest?
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"Morning mate. Returns?"?
"Yep. Service Desk."?
"Where's that?"?
"Far back corner of the store."?
Great. Where all good service begins.?
It was Sunday 11am and I was doing a favour for Sarah by returning one of her many Kmart fever dream purchases. I know. I'm a saint.?
Little did I know that the service desk was the returns desk AND the click & collect desk AND the photography desk AND the lay-by desk. It is an impressive collection of services which must be difficult to hire for because there was one team member serving and a line of over ten customers spilling into the air fryers. I should have brought my bacon and eggs.?
As I was standing in line, I was reminded of Seth Godin who I saw in a live broadcast earlier that week at the Mailchimp conference.?
"Customer service is a choice. It’s either part of your strategy or you’re paying for your mistake."?
I was confused as I was bustled mid-aisle by the Sunday throng of ravenous Kmart shoppers. Was Seth wrong here?
Kmart certainly doesn't seem to be paying for it in foot traffic. And if you look at the numbers, they're certainly not being punished financially. Last year, they grew sales by 5% and profitability by 27% - a clear stand-out in the Wesfarmers group.?
Are low prices enough for customers to tolerate lousy customer service? Will this tolerance last forever or will it catch up to them? Am I extra grumpy shopping on a Sunday morning??
Luckily, I had plenty of time to ponder this as I navigated the middle store checkout maze, self-scanned my items and dug out my receipt to prove I didn't steal my air fryer as I walked out.?
Cheers?
Bushy
ECOMMERCE NEWS FROM THIS WEEK
?? It's Q2 results season in the US, and there were a few announcements that should catch retailers attention. Meta publicly stated their ambition to take Advantage+ to the next level with GenAI for real-time creative and their plan to develop their own customer service chatbots using product catalogues from brands. Amazon said customers "are looking for deals" (i.e. Temu is a pain in the butt). Snapchat dropped that they had 11m paying subscribers - blowing Meta and X out of the water as a % of users. Etsy launched a membership program - cute.?
?? Scary local numbers from the round-up of Amazon Prime Day. According to Salesforce, Australia was the only country to hit double-digit growth - up 19% YoY. New research from Roy Morgan shows 7.9 million Australians shop Amazon at least yearly - up 1.1 million from last year. The only comparable retailer Australians shop more frequently at is Kmart... KMART!!!
?? Search remains the most fascinating customer acquisition frontier. This week Google Lens to desktops for product discovery. At the same time, OpenAI announced that SearchGPT is coming - waitlist now available.
领英推荐
?? What's so non-AI that it is AI cool? A white paper. Lily AI has released the 2024 Retail AI index, naming the top retailers utilising AI tech. Amazon, Walmart and Stitch Fix top the list. Skip to slide 20 for six pages of real retail AI use cases with links.?
?? Glossier had fun launching its Boy Brow Arch product. Before the product hit shelves worldwide, they placed posters up in NY, LA and Chicago. The QR code on the poster took customers to the Glossier store on the Shop app to buy. Shop used its geo-location to limit shopping to those near the posters.?
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That's it for this week! I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reply to this email or contact me on LinkedIn.
Nathan Bush is an independent Australian ecommerce consultant specialising in ecommerce and omnichannel transformation. With availability starting in September, now is the perfect time to discover how Nathan can elevate your team and drive business growth. Hit reply or send him an email to explore the possibilities.