Situation: Peloton, a maker of indoor bikes and also a tech company offering an interactive fitness platform with a growing community of more than 3 million people, has been facing extreme delivery delays. The WSJ article wrote,
The nine-year-old company has cited surging demand, shipping logjams, particularly at ports as the bikes are transported to the U.S. from manufacturers overseas, and weather disruptions.
Customers are waiting for their bikes for weeks or months, deliveries are sometimes cancelled, and payments are made before receiving the bikes.
Question: What can Peloton do to mitigate this delivery problem?
My thoughts:
Customer experience starts before they use the product. Interactions with the employees of the company, payment process, waiting for the product to be delivered, and unboxing are all part of customer experience. Thus, delayed and cancelled deliveries are a huge issue to a company.
There may not be much Peloton can do to increase or stabilize the supply of their bikes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, the company should pay attention to the customer-facing technology/strategy including:
1. Create a dashboard that shows where the customer's bike is--from Order Placed to Off to Delivery. Send out email notifications to keep the customer posted.
2. Let the customers choose to wait. It's also a gesture to the customers saying that we are sorry and appreciate their understanding.
a. Provide an incentive for a longer wait time:
i. Free workout classes. e.g., If a customer waits for two months to receive their bike, their class subscription is free for two months.
ii. Price discount