BUSINESS HOW-TO MASSIVE CHANGES COMING TO AMAZON PRIME
THAT WILL INCREASE THEIR TAKEOVER OF THE WORLD!
Amazon recently announced that they’re making a massive change to Prime shipping.
Over the next few months, all Prime members will be upgraded from free two-day shipping to free next-day shipping. Amazon is expecting to spend $800 million in Q2 of this year alone to make the shift. Major retailers are in panic mode. Most have only recently caught up with free two-day shipping. Merchants who sell their wares via Amazon are going to become even more reliant on them, so if that is your game, you’re now all-in on Amazon, as it would be cost- prohibitive for any of us small fish to match free next-day shipping. “DON’T SIT BACK AND THINK THIS
of shit when he knocked on their door to partner, and now Blockbuster is out of business with only a single location remaining in Alaska. Don’t sit back and think this won’t touch you and your business. Amazon and many other online retailers are transforming the customer experience, and if you don’t act, you do so at your own peril. How do you start to change the customer experience? Start with the major holes. Where, what, or who are people complaining about? Where there’s smoke, there is almost always fire. What about your communication strategy? Are you still only calling/mailing or emailing customers when you want them to pay a bill or buy more of your products or services? If so, you need to change that now. Newsletters offer great opportunities to connect with your customers. (You can learn more by chatting with my team at Newsletterpro.com/ schedule) They’ll give you a custom roadmap for your business’s communication strategy when you call. I’ll leave you with this: I’m not telling you to do anything I’m not willing to do myself. I have an executive meeting later today with my team and on the agenda is this very topic and how we can improve our customer experience. You should have a similar meeting and take action so you don’t end up behind the eight ball. What could you do faster? How could you improve your phone skills and customer service training?
call-back time simply isn’t fast enough? How long until your 3–8-day ground shipping starts to generate complaints? How long until they realize the customer experience you provide isn’t up to par with what they expect and they start to look elsewhere?
As people get used to this new standard of service from Amazon, they’re going to expect more from you.
Think about it like this: When you get upgraded to a suite at a nice hotel or from coach to first class on your flight, you say things like, “I could get used to this.” Or think about Blockbuster versus Netflix. Can you imagine going back to $3.99 per day rentals and $3.99 late fees? Of course not! We’ve been shown a better way. As Amazon continues to improve its experience, it’s showing customers the better way. They’re training customers on how the customer experience should be. If your company falls too far from their standards, the customer will leave you for a competitor who can meet their expectations. It really is that simple. It may take a year or two for customer expectations to catch up, but it won’t take longer than that. That leaves you with a short window to adapt. Of course, you could think I’m full of shit and don’t know what I’m talking about. That has happened in the past. In fact, Blockbuster thought Reed Hastings, the founder and CEO of Netflix, was full
WON’T TOUCH YOU AND YOUR BUSINESS.”
But how will this impact your business?
There are many ways you could feel this impact even if you’re a lawyer, dentist, or plumber and don’t sell online products. Once again, Amazon is redefining the customer experience and customer expectations. With 100 million households using Amazon multiple times per year, how long until your 24–48-hour returned
–Shaun
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