It doesn’t matter which sector you operate in. Companies are confronted with a singular challenge: Exceeding customers' ever-changing demands in an era of unprecedented expectations.
Customers expect more flexibility, responsiveness, and personalization from all their digital shopping experiences because of the experience set by larger retailers like Amazon and Target.
The result for companies that fail to prioritize the customer experience is clear: they risk falling behind.
To avoid this fate, leading organizations recognize that delivering exceptional customer service must be more than a set of processes—it must become a mindset.
Delivery Solutions' Ed Ward, VP of Client Relations, and Bobby Arkus, Sr Manager of Enterprise Accounts, sat down with our team to share insights into how we’ve built a customer-centric culture that is fueling success for our clients and, by extension, their customers.
One surefire way to form a culture of exceptional customer experience is to have experienced team members on the front line. Key customer-facing team members deeply understand the specific challenges and requirements of the customers and industry verticals you’re working within, which can dramatically transform the relationship.
The result is more tailored, effective solutions and personalization of the experience, greatly increasing revenue. McKinsey reports that fast-growing companies achieve 40% more revenue due to offering personalization during the customer journey.
As Ed explained, "Our team really tries to get to know that individual customer in that vertical and understand where they stand amongst other potential competitors in their space, other people they work with so that we really can understand what their business goals are."
This vertical expertise allows Delivery Solutions to shift from a transactional relationship to a consulting partnership.
"It's about not necessarily treating a customer how you think they want to be treated,” Bobby noted, “But getting to know them and understanding their exact needs so you are treating them that way."
While our focus on personalized service is vital to our process, it isn’t always possible to accomplish everything through one-on-one conversations.
That’s why we strategically implement pieces of technology into our systems to ensure that each aspect of our operation enhances the experience for our customers. In November 2022, every sector had a huge influx as companies looked to add AI into their workflows.
We wanted to do more for our customers than tell them our software is AI-powered. Instead, the Delivery Solutions team talked to our customers to ask them exactly what they were hoping to see in an AI solution that would directly address their pain points. Since then, we’ve implemented AI and machine learning technologies to accomplish specific use cases.
As Ed explained, "We can go out and do that kind of rate shopping for you and use AI and ML to then look at potential orchestration savings you can have if you use one delivery provider over another, or if you use one provider at one distance and another provider at a different distance."
This capability allows Delivery Solutions to match our clients with the optimal delivery partners based on weight, size, and location. Manually managing this process would be incredibly time-consuming and inefficient for the customer.
Additionally, since our end customers expect to be able to track their packages at every step, it was a top priority for our product team to implement real-time tracking and communication tools. This way, everything is controlled from one place, avoiding software hopping that reduces a team’s efficiency.
Our approach to continuous improvement involves leveraging direct feedback from our clients. "We never want to make a massive change at Delivery Solutions without running that by a customer first,” Ed said. “I think, you know, we're not building the platform itself so that I can use it. We're building the platform so our end customers can use it."
We employ various feedback mechanisms, from on-site visits and quarterly business reviews to surveys and direct communication.
By actively engaging with customers and incorporating their input, the company refines its offerings and addresses evolving market needs.
As Bobby explained, "The best collaboration is taking the time to be face to face and making sure that anything they're saying, we can react in the moment. We can tell them, ‘Hey, this is why we were going that route, but what can we do to improve on it? How can we work together to make it better?’"
This collaborative approach has helped Delivery Solutions maintain long-term relationships with its customers. "I never want to lose a customer,” Ed told us, “I know that it happens. But in a perfect world, I won't lose a customer in five years. I say that because I have many, many customers today that I’ve been working with for five years now. Not only that, each of those clients are advocates for Delivery Solutions."
In 2020, every organization had to reinvent how it interacted with the supply chain. In 2024, they’ll have to rethink it again due to climate change, disrupted trade routes, and growing geopolitical tensions.
As these situations continually shift, the best thing any company can do is support its clients and enhance their ability to adapt and support their end customers through periods of disruption.
One such example was the sudden closure of the delivery provider Point Pickup, which left many retailers scrambling to find alternative solutions overnight. As Ed recounted, "Some of these customers, we were able to get them up and running seamlessly to where, you know, the 10 o'clock made reservation or delivery went out to pick up now, but then by noon, it went to a whole new provider that they were never even working with before."
Once again, this emphasizes the importance of leveraging industry relationships and expertise. Because we had industry experts and partnerships in place, our teams could shift them to new DSPs without their end consumers noticing.
After all, the customer isn’t concerned about who exactly delivers the order. They care that the order arrives intact, on time, and is a frictionless experience. As Bobby emphasized, "It's about having that flexibility, but it's about making sure that each customer can get their order no matter what the occasion is."
Customer expectations will continue to evolve, and new challenges will arise. Every brand must remain agile, adaptable, vigilant, and, most importantly, willing to invest in its customers, listen to them, and help.
It’s not about a single customer experience; it’s about evolving with your customers.