44: David Bishop on grocery retail strategy and execution that grows shopper loyalty

Digital Grocer Podcast

Sylvain and Mark kick off this show with a chat about hot industry news: Marc Lore is leaving Walmart and Instacart is hiring a veteran from Goldman Sachs as CFO.

The duo then welcomes back to the show David Bishop, Partner, Brick Meets Clicks, who’s here today to share key results from his firm’s latest survey: State of the US eGrocery Market, November 2020. David points out that:

“customer satisfaction is a leading indicator for repeat purchases. And it also tells us a lot of other things around the fulfillment methods and areas of opportunity that the retailers can really explore to continue to grow the business in a more sustainable way.”

In this episode, David shares his technique of “interrogating insights” to reveal the truth behind the stats:

“the real question is, do we believe the forecast going forward? How much confidence do we have in that? And that comes only from really interrogating insights. …you really have to start by asking the right questions and then understanding what those insights mean.”

The first slide to be interrogated looks at online shopping rates, which in David’s hands offer up important insights around acquisition and growth moving forward. Among them:

“We need to keep in mind, it's going to be harder to steal away customers from other retailers. And the simple reason is the other retailers are going through a very similar process where their customers are maturing. We now have the bulk of customers who are actively shopping online with grocers past their fourth order. And at that point, their likelihood to repeat is near certainty. It's 95%. The number of people who are considered first time orders … it's close to 15%. It used to be around 25% a year ago. And that's really key for driving top line growth because a lot of the growth accrues from onboarding that first time customer and bringing them to the more established fourth or more order. So it's an orientation where there's this kind of subtle shift from a thematic standpoint, from growing via marketing on the internet to really focusing on merchandising with your existing customer.”

Sylvain asks David what are the key things that retailers need to recognize in today’s online consumer? David’s response: “the expectations that customers have at your stores are being influenced by [their] experiences at others.”

The next graph compares customer experience scores for ship-to-home, delivery and pickup. David notes that while the “perfect order” rating for delivery was nearly equal to ship-to-home, pickup lagged significantly.

Why? To get to the bottom of this, David then deconstructs the third graph, Customer Satisfaction scores. He analyzes two friction points that customers encounter more with pickup than delivery: “Selected preferred time slot” and “received order in a timely manner.”

Combining a customer-centric viewpoint with his insider’s knowledge of the retail grocery business, David unlocks insights around the strategies and executions grocers can use to increase CuSat ratings and grow customer loyalty: Investing in pick productivities and proactive geolocation and communication tools to reduce friction on the customer.

“this is a retention tool. This is a way to maintain the satisfaction, especially if you realize that in some malls, someone's stopping at the Target, doing their drive up, and then driving right down to your store and having a terrible, long experience that's five, six, seven minutes long. If that happens, people aren't going to be as forgiving, going forward.”

The real magic lies in the way David dissects the stats, revealing strategic insights that can help you improve your pickup program and grow shopper loyalty. Check it out by tuning into the the episode.

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