Systemax has overhauled its Global Industrial e-commerce site, including improved experiences for online purchasing and product returns, says Chief Information Officer Manoj Shetty. Systemax has streamlined product reordering, introduced a chatbot and improved tracking for orders and returns.
FedEx has begun delivering packages on Sundays to accommodate the demands of e-commerce. Sunday delivery can cut one or two days from most shipping schedules.
Distributors should improve delivery, returns and other processes when attempting to optimize the customer experience, writes ActVantage co-founder Pradip Krishnadevarajan. For best results, categorize customers according to factors such as cost and profitability to determine which relationships should be prioritized.
Sales managers should ask potential employees about how they stay informed on industry news during job interviews, writes Carolyn Betts Fleming. Other good questions to ask include whether it's better to meet quotas or help customers attain their goals and how job candidates decide if a prospect isn't a good fit.
Marketers that rely heavily on cost-per-clicks will be spending 2020 focusing on utilizing artificial intelligence and related automation tools for decision-making and testing multiple social platforms to determine what's best for their particular brand, predicts Push Group's Charlie Carroll. He also predicts "consistent, strategic audience targeting," and a rise in chatbot and personalized content.
Be clear with a struggling employee about what's going wrong, work with them to identify problems and possible solutions, and praise them as they progress, writes Lolly Daskal. "Great leadership is having the ability to facilitate movement in the needed direction and have people feel good about it, so that even a struggling employee can feel empowered," she writes.
Organizations need to rethink strategy and executive compensation for an agile era in which multiyear strategies no longer make sense, write Barry Sullivan and Seymour Burchman, managing directors at Semler Brossy Consulting Group. Use your mission and vision statements to "specify which stakeholders you're trying to benefit; what outcomes you're trying to deliver for those stakeholders (not outputs from the company); and what you need to do to improve outcomes over time and better than competitors," they argue.
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