Furniture and appliance retailers can now compare their fulfillment and customer experience standards against industry KPI benchmarks by accessing Package.ai’s new groundbreaking report.
Customer experience and delivery expectations have risen dramatically as a result of the boom in online shopping. While this is heavily impacting a significant portion of retailers, sellers of high-value goods, such as furniture and appliances, are even more vulnerable to the upward shift in consumer expectations.
Big-Ticket Purchases Under Pressure
High-value retailers are distinct from general retail due to the comparatively lengthy process consumers go through before making a purchase. Customers can hesitate before buying big-ticket items and need to feel more reassured. High-value retailers can help ease customers into their purchasing decision by focusing on relationship building. Meeting their customers’ experience and delivery expectations is now key in maintaining these relationships in an era of plummeting consumer loyalty.
Operating in an industry with no industry benchmarks on which to score themselves, and with many relying on third-party logistics service providers, high-value retailers are struggling to provide the seamless fulfillment process their customers now demand. As a result, they are seeing falling levels of customer satisfaction and retention.
Focusing on Optimum Performance Rates
To successfully transition towards providing a true customer-centric experience, retailers need to be able to benchmark. This will enable them to understand how their metrics compare to the industry norm and the levels they can expect by optimizing their performance.
Take delivery confirmation rates as an example. Even though they act as a direct indicator of expected delivery success rates, furniture and appliance retailers appear content with relatively inefficient levels.
Package.ai’s research shows the industry benchmark Delivery Confirmation Rate is currently 50%.
This signifies overall poor-levels of customer engagement. Improving this can drive customer communications throughout the delivery process to help ensure fulfillment success.
Retailers who automate customer communications can increase their Delivery Confirmation Rate to 85%.
Moving beyond one-dimensional push notifications to more engaging interactions with customers by using automated chatbots can radically improve this metric. Doing so will allow for more personalized messaging and will encourage higher response levels. This is just one example of the benchmarks that furniture and appliance retailers can use to drive improvements in their operations.
Discover How Your Performance Ranks
With a focus on establishing industry benchmarks, to show retailers the KPIs they should be achieving, Package.ai has launched its State of Fulfillment and the Customer Experience in Furniture and Appliances Retail report.
This report details existing standards within the high-value retail and home service fulfillment sector, and what levels of improvement are possible, by analysis of the performance of 50 high-value retailers.
This groundbreaking overview of the sector sets out specific benchmarks retailers can focus on improving to successfully transition towards providing a true customer-centric experience:
Fulfillment metrics
– Delivery confirmation
– Failed delivery
Customer satisfaction metrics
– Post delivery feedback
– Post-delivery customer happiness
Marketing and sales metrics
– Customer Reviews
– Post-Delivery Upsell/Marketing Offers
Retailers who fall behind industry standards are putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage, while those who strive to achieve the levels that are attainable will establish themselves as best-in-breed in the sector.
With customers demanding higher levels of service, don’t be left in the dark as to the improvements you can make to your operations and how to make them. Take the opportunity to turn your customer interactions and fulfillment operations into marketing and sales opportunities, while building deeper customer relationships, by downloading Package.ai’s State of Fulfillment and the Customer Experience in Furniture and Appliances Retail report now.