E-commerce study reveals disconnect between customer experience and supply chain teams

Convey, Inc., a leading provider of delivery experience management software, has announced the results of a study on eCommerce parcel delivery goals and challenges.

The study reveals that while eCommerce customer experience and supply chain teams are aligned on key strategies and metrics to improve order delivery outcomes, they are disconnected on the plans and tools to achieve their goals.

Conducted in partnership with Worldwide Business Research (WBR), the study surveyed customer experience (CX) and supply chain professionals (SC) at 150 eCommerce companies in the U.S. and Canada with more than $25 million in annual online revenue.

Alignment on priorities and metrics

SC management and CX teams universally agree on the top delivery priorities and how progress is measured. Results revealed:

• 48% would like to reduce “Where Is My Order” (WISMO) calls
• 87% want improved access to delivery analytics
• 84% want improved in-transit shipment visibility
• 81% would like to improve the customer returns experience
• Both groups also agree on metrics for analyzing the customer delivery experience. The most common metrics included the cost to serve (78%), ship to delivery times (68%), order-to-ship time (60%) and Net Promoter Score (53%).

Disconnected teams and lack of plans risk customer experience

When asked how they identify various in-transit issues, the majority of customer experience teams believe their company has access to software that provides visibility, while supply chain teams are 45% more likely to rely on spreadsheets and manual processes.

When asked whether or not they have a plan to address delivery challenges, supply chain respondents are 48% less likely to have a plan to solve the issue.

Despite a common commitment to providing an outstanding customer experience, there appear to be cross-team misperceptions about the resources available to achieve those common goals, giving SC and CX professionals a false sense of confidence.

“The study highlights an important disconnect between supply chain and customer experience teams that must be addressed as brands make strategic investments in delivery experience,” said Kirsten Newbold-Knipp, chief marketing officer at Convey, Inc. “While both groups strongly agree on the top delivery priorities, unfortunately, when it comes to execution against these goals they have vastly different impressions of what tools and processes are available to tackle the problem.”

Delivery experience management enables teams to take action in a streamlined and consistent way, simplifying communication between brands, carriers and customers for systematic improvement.