Both types of customers benefit from Grainger’s mobile apps, which includes a new app for the iPad. The new app provides real-time product availability, detailed product pages to provide customers with key information to help select an item that fits their needs, and a single-page checkout that includes customer information. Field workers can request purchasing approval for needed items, while purchasing agents can approve the requests without logging on to Grainger’s website, even if they’re away from their desks. Anyone ordering from the website can also use the handy click to chat or click to call buttons to directly connect with a Grainger customer service rep for help. In fact, the website alerts Grainger’s staff when a customer is having a problem with an order, so a customer service employee can step in with a chat or invitation to offer immediate help. 

Grainger’s successful development of its e-commerce division has enabled it to grow its online business more than twice as fast as its base operations, increasing it 23 percent in one recent year to help the company reach more than $9 billion in annual revenues. Many of Grainger’s customers are in government offices or schools; in heavy or light manufacturing operations; or in retail, wholesale, fleet maintenance, or asset management. 

“We’re giving our customers more control,” the company’s vice president of global e-commerce says. “Our platform enables customers to manage purchasing and spending better.” 

Questions

1. Why is it important for W.W. Grainger to understand exactly who its B2B customers are? 

2. In what other ways can Grainger provide a good customer experience via its mobile apps and company website?