As business owners we have commitments to our customers which contribute to defining our business’ perception or it may be a contracted understanding which you promoted over time. In most cases this understanding is expressed in your mission and vision statement. If we do not execute in the expected manner, we violate our customer service pledge with customers and the business suffers. The details of customers’ expectations are bound up in the term “customer service.” Customer service has a broad definition which relates to how you deliver your services and products on a timely basis, preconceived quality and design, and at the correct price.
Amazon.com has done an outstanding job of setting our expectations of the experience of ordering from them. We are taught through their marketing and their website features to expect that they will have the most complete merchandise assortment at the lowest price. Finally, they will quickly deliver to your front door.
The weekend news reinforced that Amazon continues to follow their vision statement:
“Amazon’s vision statement is to be earth’s most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
Amazon continues to do this. Over the past couple of years, they have “dipped their toe in the water” even for the grocery category by conveying to us that they can deliver this category with the same level of service their customers expect. At the start, they selected only a few grocery items, but with the announcement of the $13.7 billion acquisition of Wholes Foods, they started expanding their market share with a well-known grocer who was innovative as the first with organic products from top to bottom. A grocer whose clientele is a strong upper middle-class demographic which fits Amazon, and who was getting pressure from big box retailers i.e.: Kroger, Safeway, Walmart, Target and therefore was ripe for the picking by Amazon.
The acquisition of Whole Foods helps fulfill their commitment of being the most customer-centric retailer thereby satisfying their customers’ expected experience. When you view the acquisition, at first it does not seem to necessarily fit. Yet it really does help Amazon expand their customer service commitment. We all can see that Amazon’s strategic and execution planning is working well.
Are your strategic and execution plans working as well as Amazon’s?Elanstrategic can help with yours. Call Yale at or 952-960-6688 or email yale@elanstrategic.com.