THE CONVENIENCE FACTOR

By Alicia Chapman

Convenience is often an essential factor in how consumers make buying decisions. The last few years have compelled local businesses to evaluate their procedures and even add new innovative solutions to enhance the customer experience.

Consumers constantly look for ways to save time. Dennis Host, vice president of marketing and communications at Coborn’s Inc., sees this in the grocery industry. “More and more consumers today are doing a lot of their shopping online,” Host said. “Who would have ever thought that you would grocery shop online? But it became a thing and ramped up considerably in early and mid-2020 as the pandemic hit.”

Host said Coborn’s was grateful it already had a good online platform set up before the pandemic so it could easily transition. Now, even with consumers back in the grocery stores, the company still sees a lot of demand for online grocery shopping.

“In most of our locations, you can select between either home delivery, curbside pickup, or our grocery shopping experience in the store,” Host said. “But if you are a time-strapped young mom or professional, or on your way to the lake in the summertime or whatever, you can do your grocery shopping online in 15 minutes and hit the button. So that whole convenience of time-saving is a tangible and practical way for people to take advantage of what we offer in that space of making your life simpler.”

Banking is another industry focused on finding ways to make life easier for its customers. Most banks now offer mobile banking, mobile deposits, and one-stop bank locations.

“We’re always encouraged to be curious about new possibilities to create an innovative approach to do something that might enhance our customer experience,” said Ryan Coye, senior vice president of retail banking at Gate City Bank. One of the things Gate City Bank focuses on is anticipating its customers’ needs and how to solve a problem early on.

In addition to adding convenient bank products, Gate City Bank works to be accessible to its customers. All of the local branch locations are inside a Coborn’s or Cash Wise grocery store, which are locations many of their customers already visit. “Nowadays, people seem busier than ever,” Coye said. “So if you have an opportunity to provide convenience by something as simple as where you’re located, I think it makes sense to explore that. The best location for any business is where the customers are.”

Little Sister Bake Shoppe owner Megan Johnson understands the importance of being where the customers already are, since she doesn’t have a brickand-mortar storefront. “I am flexible about where I meet for customer pickups,” Johnson said. “I do a lot more pop-up shops than someone in a brick-and-mortar store would just because I don’t have those daily sales. So I try to make myself available; otherwise, I’m not at the front of people’s minds.”

Johnson also started offering cookie kits, where customers can decorate pre-made cookies at home. She heard about customers who wanted to make and decorate cookies with their children or families but didn’t always have all the supplies at home. Or they would start the cookies and their children would lose interest by the time the cookies had baked and cooled and were ready to be decorated.

“It’s something creative and fun and easy to do that doesn’t make too much of a mess,” Johnson said. “And those cookie kits are always really, really fun to do. You still get a mess out of it, but you don’t get as big of a mess as you would if you had to make the cookies from scratch yourself. So I take care of the really messy part, and you get to do the fun part.”

Like Johnson has learned, sometimes the best convenience is just being available and flexible. Coye knows just how frustrating it can be to get ahold of an actual person when calling a business. So many times, you get an automated voice messaging system when you just want to talk to a person. All Gate City Bank branch office phone numbers are listed on the website and answered by a live person.

Going an extra step and investing in the customer experience to make something convenient can make a big difference. It’s something Coborn’s Inc. sees. “We’ve invested back into our stores to stay current and relevant and deliver,” Host said. “Grocery shopping can, in many ways, be a chore. But we’ve tried to make it fun and experiential through the look of our stores, and certainly training our people to be knowledgeable and helpful and friendly.”

Meeting customers where they are is part of providing good customer support and convenience. “I think we always want to be where our customers are and meet them at that place,” Host said. “So whatever they need, whenever they need it, however they need access to us, we’re there. And that’s in physical store operations. It’s in online shopping. It’s on our website, and access to information. It’s through our rewards program. It’s through our mobile app where customers can track their order. They can clip digital coupons. They can click on their rewards progress. All of those things are designed as convenience tools to meet the customer where they’re at.”

Host anticipates many businesses, including the grocery industry, will continue to use technology to add convenience for the customer. Digital shelf tags are one of the new things Coborn’s is testing to continue adding shopping ease and convenience. Right now, employees are printing out all the price updates and sales and hand-placing them under each item. Having digital tags would allow the store to update prices faster and more accurately.

Using technology through digital shelf tags and self-checkouts allows businesses to use their human resources in places where they are better fitted. For example, employees can help customers find products or fulfill an online shopping order instead of changing out paper shelf tags.

It's essential to keep customers top of mind when determining how to add convenience to your business. Coborn’s’ Host outlined some questions to consider from a business perspective:

What are your customers looking for?

How are you able to adapt to the ever-changing needs of customers?

How can you provide the best quality service to meet their needs in a convenient way?

How do you make it easier for your customers to do business with you?

After you’re able to attract customers, how do you build loyalty to keep them coming back?

And don't be afraid to make mistakes in the process. It's nearly impossible to make some of the big changes without making some mistakes. Learn from those mistakes and move on.

“Sometimes it’s easier to just do it the way we always did it rather than adapt and adopt new ways of thinking and implementation and execution,” Host said. “But I’m always encouraged by seeing entrepreneurs and new young business owners who are willing to try things and take risks. And I think that’s an important piece of the entrepreneurial spirit to accept failure and build on what you learned from those missteps and mishaps.”

Many businesses work in what Coye described as commoditized industries. “There’s a dozen different places to get a burger from, for instance. There’s a lot of different places to bank. But at the end of the day, it’s all about the customer,” Coye said. “If you make all of your business decisions with the customer experience in mind, I think you’re going to stand out and have success because your customers have a strong relationship with you.”

Alicia Chapman is a freelance writer and owner of Bluebird Creative LLC, a content writing business specializing in helping small businesses share their stories.