Connected Yet Unfettered

I'm working on an interesting project now that will enable mobile devices to link our customers with their order fulfillment. I've wanted to do something like this for some time, but inevitably would run up against concerns that customers won't want to play. With US Senators tweeting in the midst of congressional debate (shouldn't they be working??), perhaps the technology has passed into the realm of mass acceptance.

The project is enticing. We haven't been able yet to make a significant leap forward in the customer pick-up experience. Customer orders must be staged in warehouse racks, since the goods are bulky and easily damaged if left laying about. A customer may be picking up a single chair or an entire bedroom, or maybe several rooms' worth of furniture. Retrieving all of the order (or picking it, if the customer has just made the purchase) within a reasonable amount of time (from the customer's perspective -- which is just a couple of minutes) is really tough. As a customer, I really don't care what the warehouse has to do to bring my order to me. Why can't I have it NOW?

We've made incremental improvements over time, which no customer can appreciate. I recently heard from an unhappy customer who had waited 20 minutes on one of our busiest days ever. Think Christmas Eve at a toy store. That kind of busy. I had to check myself from celebrating that the customer had waited only 20 minutes -- last year, it could have been 3 times that. But, still not good enough.

Aside from the process improvements we're making in our Warehouse Management System, we're creating a mobile interface for managing the flow, and communicating via SMS with our customers. People find a wait easier to handle if they know what's happening. So this is like an interactive version of the software installation progress bar: if I know I have to wait another 20 minutes, I can go get a cup of coffee, or throw in another load of laundry; if I know I have only a minute remaining, I can start getting excited about using the new app. It puts me, the customer, in the driver's seat.

What I love about the solution is that it addresses the physical environment of the transaction: not only is the customer mobile (in her car), but the warehouse manager and staff are also mobile. Dock managers may currently walk over to a PC regularly (because the system they're using requires it), but their job is away from the PC, all over the dock and warehouse. If they can stay in touch with their staff, and their customers, while they're in their element, they will be so much more effective. Some day, I hope all managers will have the tools they need to stay connected while in the mix, away from their desks -- not just connected to their Outlook accounts, but really connected, so that they don't have to return to the office or boot up the laptop. In their element: that's where the business lives and where your customers are.