Balloon Pick Ups
“Your order is ready for pick up” is what the email read. Great! I wouldn’t have to pick up the balloons until the next day but it was good to know that they’d be ready for me. Another line noted “orders will be available for pick for up to three days”. Perfection! I’d be there tomorrow.
The next day rolled around and I went to the party store to pick up the balloons I had ordered online, through a browser, with a credit card, without having to talk to anyone, customized easily. The store had just opened and with a diarrhetic and vomiting three year old heaved over my shoulder (I was called to pick him up from camp 5 minutes after I dropped him off), I proceeded inside to pick up the balloons.
“Here’s the QR code.” I had my phone ready with the email. It took two attempts to scan.
“Oh, sorry, they’re not ready yet. You’re supposed to call to let us know when you’re going to pick them up. Oh, and there’s an extra charge for helium for these balloons. Oh, do you also need weights for them?”
Now I needed to decide again, negotiate, pay, and worst of all, wait. The store staff was kind and apologetic. After 15 minutes waiting outside in the car, we were able to pick up the balloons and with the help of a clerk, load them into the car.
The experience illustrated to me that while certain areas of e-commerce have been smoothed out and made ubiquitous and boring, such as credit card capture, processing, confirmation, receipt generation, tax and shipping calculations, encryption, etc, other areas that involve the automation of processes are still disconnected. Is a work order being created? Does it include instructions and timeframes? Does it allow for editing and communication?
These are the spots that consultants make a lot of money off of designing but that ultimately lead to much less pain down the line and differentiation from competitors. The ugly parts, the hard parts to automate, are the final mile that makes all the difference.
