As the daily headlines keep reminding us, most e-commerce companies are having trouble making money delivering books, toys, and CDs by mail. If they think that’s difficult, let them try delivering a fresh tomato in a blizzard.
That’s the task faced by online grocers, arguably the toughest e-commerce category of all. Given the expensive infrastructure needed to operate an Internet delivery service and the notoriously thin margins of the grocery business, it’s not hard to understand why they’ve suffered mightily. The valuations of two giants in the grocery-delivery space have deflated as investors have fled: Peapod’s stock price has plummeted from nearly $15 to under $1; Webvan, which traded at more than $20 earlier this year, sank as low as 28 cents recently. Most analysts expect that only one or two Internet grocers will survive. That said, the market they’re competing for could be considerable. Forrester Research has predicted that grocery customers will spend $27.1 billion online by 2004.
Webvan believes the key to bagging that market is customer service.
“Our mission is to be the last-mile leader of Internet commerce, and we own the whole process from order to delivery,” says Amy Nobile, manager of public affairs at Webvan. That mission is getting tougher all the time as brick-and-mortar grocers start to get into the online order-and-delivery game. But the ability to bring the world to customers’ door differentiates Webvan from other e-commerce companies. If nothing else, Webvan will never be another faceless virtual company.
Mike Gonzales, Webvan director of customer service, says it’s all about the human touch. The company has given its couriers mobile field devices, empowering them to take returns on the spot and record customer comments and complaints. That feedback is routed back to delivery centers the same day. “Our couriers get rave reviews from customers,” Gonzales says. “Right now, we’re on an initiative to train them to seek customer feedback more actively. We train them to help customers make orders online, to explain the variety of products we offer, and to offer advice on specialty products, like custom-cut meats. If they can’t answer a question on the spot, our customer-service folks call the customer back from the office.”
That’s the kind of service that Anthony Parks, Webvan’s original customer-service director, always envisioned for the company. Parks left Webvan in April 1999 due to differences over customer-service strategy. But while he’s no longer with the company, Webvan seems to be moving closer to his original plan.
“My goal was to duplicate the shopping experience for customers in every way,” says Parks, who now runs his own consulting company, eCustomer Service. “Grocery shopping is generational. It’s a tradition. My mother took me shopping, and her mother took her.” Parks believes that preserving that emotional link is crucial to the success of all e-commerce. He thinks people want the convenience of the Internet without losing the feel of the neighborhood butcher or produce person. “And when you’re ordering over the Web,” he says, “the courier is the only point of human contact.”
