Author: Craig Hutler, Digital Product Manager for Kroger
Date: January 19, 2023
With an increase in customer demand for pickup, we are constantly striving to increase capacity and shorten wait times for our customers. By using Google Maps Platform to help power our On My Way initiative, we are able to implement process efficiencies and help lower our cost-to-serve.
In the first iteration, we relied on our customers to notify us by hitting the button when they were 15 minutes away, and their ETA would show up on a dashboard in-store. Then our associates would prepare the already-picked order. We realized that we were relying on our customers for accuracy, which meant they could actually be five minutes away (not the requested 15) when our associates are alerted. That means when the customer arrived, their groceries wouldn’t be ready.
We realized that to give customers the easiest, fastest pickup experience, we needed an integrated map within the Kroger app that allowed for a seamless shopping journey, from order through pickup. And Google Maps Platform delivered.
Now, we have an enhanced version of the pickup experience called Geo On My Way, which uses the Maps SDK for Android and Directions API. Without having to leave the Kroger app, customers can voluntarily send their device location directly to their local store at the touch of a button, giving associates an accurate ETA based on route and traffic. Ultimately, this helps optimize our in-store operations, reduce customer wait times, increase customer satisfaction, and deliver on our cost-to-serve metric.
Geo On My Way has improved significantly since its early days, and we’re still iterating and optimizing to continue reducing ETA errors. In the future, we plan to use geofencing to help us gauge when customers, who have opted in to share their location with us, enter the parking lot. This should provide even more meaningful insights to our associates and improve the customer experience.
Analysis:
I found this article interesting to see how two big companies could work together to improve the customer experience and how Kroger is using the new technology to improve the amount of time it takes to load customer vehicles. By the app providing Kroger with live updates of how far away the customer is, Kroger can modify their process to have the groceries out to their customers as soon as they arrive in the parking lot.
