Virtual Shopping Assistant

Virtual Shopping Assistant

Aqua Group Grocery Inc. (AG Grocery) is a grocery store chain of 100 stores in the DC, Maryland and Virginia (DMV) region of the United States that is attempting to mitigate COVID-19 consumer difficulties by creating a virtual shopping assistant (VSA) service . AG Grocery is focused on adapting to the changing nature of the purchasing process used by customers. The grocery sector has had to rapidly adapt to changing conditions. Many stores have reduced hours to allow time for store cleaning, required customers to keep 6 feet of distance from one another, instituted one-way only aisles inside their stores, set maximum occupancy limits, and closed salad bars and deli counters to attempt to limit potential customer exposure (Martin-Neuninger & Ruby, 2020). The current pandemic calls for businesses to be innovative in establishing different ways in which customers can use to make their purchases. Adoption of virtual shopping assistants eases customers buying process, helps in decision making, creates interpersonal relationships, and builds customer loyalty.

Project Overview and Purpose

The project was triggered by the need for efficiency and safety in business during the COVID-19 era and the increased use of online shopping. Our company is looking to develop a Virtual Shopping Assistant platform to assist consumers in viewing and shopping online from their homes, while also ensuring that the firm conforms to the Covid-19 restrictions. This additional service offers efficiency in shopping for customers, and provides essential services from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Online shopping services have been on the rise for the past six months, therefore more VSA users are expected in the coming months. Customer retention is the key purpose of this project, as AG Grocery hopes to capitalize on the increased demand for virtual shopping experiences due to the pandemic. By making the process as efficient, personal, and customer-centric as possible, AG Grocery hopes to continue to have a demand for this service even after the pandemic passes.

Project Scope Statement

 

The project will help the company to develop good customer relations by ensuring an efficient ing system where consumers will be able to acquire their products at their home comfort without endangering their health and those of the company employees. Just as before, customers will still view the product options and select their desired brands. This service will allow us to both continue our business during the pandemic, but also serve the needs of our communities. It will aid us in nurturing our relationship with stakeholders beyond our shareholders, creating a person to person connections between our employees and community during a time of great isolation. Past research has shown that this model of generating goodwill within the community surrounding the business generates increased success over the long term rather than simply focusing on short term gains (Sheth, 2020). VSA will establish a strong level of confidence and trust between customers and AG Grocery by developing a reliable platform for ing, reviewing, and paying for ed goods.

Project Objectives

 

The objectives of the VSA service are as follows:

· Ensure the health and safety of employees and customers by following the CDC guidelines for PPE. Distribute PPE equipment and implement procedures such as placing signage to indicate flow of foot traffic and marking distanced spots for VSA grocery pick-up in to accomodate COVID-19 restrictions.

· Develop a website platform that enables customers to schedule a time for their VSA experience at their convenience with ease.

· Foster positive customer relationships through the customer feedback collected from the system. Numerous feedback forms will be instituted so that customers have the ability at multiple points in the VSA experience in to have their opinions heard. The website platform will have a customer feedback form that the customer can have access to at any time. Zoom has a polling and feedback option at the end of every Zoom meeting that the customer can be prompted to submit at the end of their VSA experience. All feedback will be reviewed by the project team and considered for future implementation. This ensures that the customer feels as though their opinions are valued by the organization, and that AG Grocery is focused on the customer’s experience, thus strengthening customer satisfaction.

· Ensure customer trust through ease of purchasing at Virtual Shopping grocery stores by training all grocery staff with solid customer service skills so that customers have a positive and enjoyable experience. In to have effective retention of customer confidence, VSA staff must foster trust in their relationships with the customers.

Project Deliverables

Project deliverables are the results of a project that is being worked on and entails the entire process of the project itself. In this case, the project deliverables include:

· Efficient in-store technology for VSA staff members installed in every store, including tablets and tablet holders, label-printing produce scales, charging stations, and wireless barcode scanners.

· VSA appointment booking addition to the AG Grocery website, complete with a scheduling tool, input screen for credit card/banking information, and customer feedback form.

· Phone communication option for customers to schedule appointments in the event that they do not have access to the webpage.

· Expanded grocery pick-up area within the AG Grocery stores to include VSA pick-up.

Project Requirements

 

The project requirements for the VSA service implementation are as follows:

· A number of financials are required for both materials and labor in to execute the VSA service. Each of the 100 stores will need to be stocked with materials such as tablets (8 per store), wireless barcode scanners (8 per store), and label-printing produce scales (3 per store), Enterprise Zoom accounts (4 per store), power strips (2 per store), and WiFi boosters (5 per store). As far as labor financials, web development specialists who worked on the original AG Grocery site need to be contracted to build out the additional scheduling functionality. For staffing, employees will be pulled from other areas that are less busy, allowing us to utilize current staff and forgo additional expense. A detailed breakdown of project financials can be found in the project budget section.

· The second project requirement is building out the AG Grocery website to include the VSA scheduling service. Necessary components to the website addition include the ability to pick appointment time slots, schedule grocery pick up time, and securely input credit card info. Developers must include an option to bypass and pay in store during grocery pick up. In the event that the credit card is declined, the developers will include a functionality that will trigger the site to send an email to reschedule. In the event that a customer is taking advantage of the service by abandoning the video sessions after seeing product options in the store, the web developers will include a functionality that will block users if they abandon carts more than 4 times in the middle of a shop. A customer feedback form must be included on the site as well for customers to access at any time.

· The third requirement is having the grocery pick-up area so that customers have a designated location to pick up their VSA-shopped goods. The regular AG Grocery online pick-up area will be updated to include information that VSA pick-up will be there as well. This requirement involves updating signage for the regular online pick up area to state that VSA pick up is included in that area as well. Additional cubby and storage space will be designated to separate grocery s by customer, and distanced waiting spots will be added to the infrastructure that is already in place in to account for increased foot-traffic at the pick-up counter.

Project Milestones

 

The milestones for the VSA project can be broken up into five phases. Amongst the stores, the process will be phased in 25 stores at a time. Milestones are integral to the success of a project because they allow for the project team to have specific, designated points in time during the project that allow for progress to be monitored. By breaking up a large new service roll-out into manageable groupings, the project team is able to closely monitor the progress and success of each store’s execution of the VSA project. The designated start date for initiation for this project is October 5th, 2020.

Milestones for this project include the following:

· Milestone one: Ordering of all physical materials needed as well as securing the necessary Zoom accounts and website development needs. The anticipated completion date of milestone one is October 12th, 2020

· Milestone two: phase one of the rollout completed. Phase one entails receiving equipment and installing into the first 25 stores. During this phase, managers and staff are trained on the new program procedures and technology. Once all equipment has been installed and staff training programs have been conducted, phase one has been completed. The anticipated completion date of milestone two is November 26th, 2020

· Milestone three: phase two of the rollout completed. Phase two is the roll-out of the next 25 stores installing equipment and training staff. Once this phase has been completed, a total of 50 AG Grocery stores will have the VSA service ready for operation. The anticipated completion date of milestone three is January 12th, 2021

· Milestone four: phase three of the rollout completed. Phase three brings the installation and training procedures to the next section of 25 stores in the region, bringing the total up to 75 of the total 100 AG Grocery stores having received VSA implementation upon completion of this milestone. The anticipated completion date of milestone four is February 26th, 2021.

· Milestone five: phase four of the rollout completed. Upon completion of phase four, all 100 AG Grocery stores will have the proper equipment and staff training in to implement the VSA service. The anticipated completion date of milestone five is April 13th, 2021.

 

Project Assumptions, Constraints, Risks and Concerns

 

There are a number of assumptions that were made in the structuring and planning process of this VSA project. Assumptions are as follows:

· This project operates under the assumption that pre-existing grocery staff in every location is capable of taking on additional training in to provide excellent customer service with this new, technology-driven service. The main goal of this project is customer retention therefore it relies heavily on the VSA staff being exceptional at customer service.

· This project also assumes that there are people who are interested in an additional service outside of just standard online ing. This is a specialty service so the customer has to pay extra in to use it. There is a minimum convenience fee of $5, and then an additional $20 after the first hour of shopping. $20 will be charged for every additional hour of shopping. The goal of the lower convenience fees relative to other premium services is that more people will be interested in trying it out, and the hope is that we continue to create more revenue by having an increased number of VSA sales per store in our chain.

· It is assumed that AG Grocery will be able to obtain large s of materials, such as tablets and label-printing produce scales, by the designated time frame. The hope is that by staggering the store implementation into phases of 25 stores at a time, some of the risk of material delay is mitigated.

Constraints are an important piece of a project to consider as well. Constraints for the VSA project include:

· Budget constraints. Because AG Grocery is already an established grocery chain with consistent revenue, there is room for the project team to establish a contingency budget if needed. However, the goal is to still keep financials within the budget constraints in for this service to be financially profitable.

· Time constraints. This new VSA service needs to be implemented across the chain of 100 VSA stores. Therefore, there are time constraints for how long each of the four phases needs to take in for the project roll-out to stay on track.

· Customer satisfaction. Because this project purpose is centralized around customer retention, customer satisfaction is a significant constraint. Through completed feedback form information and Zoom post-call polling information, the project team needs to make sure that customer satisfaction is staying relatively high. This will be an ongoing constraint that will continue to be revisited. As criticism is sent through these feedback mediums, the project team will review it and determine its validity and need for change in to make sure that customer satisfaction is staying within a positive range (75% of feedback should be positive).

As with any project, there are risks to consider throughout the planning and execution of the project. The risks and concerns are as follows:

· The VSA service is highly reliant on having reliable video signals throughout the store. As mentioned in the financials, extra money will be spent to boost WiFi signal throughout the store in to mitigate this issue.

· The video signal presents an additional risk of ending the call entirely. In the event that the call is dropped due to technological issues, the staff will be trained to try to reconnect up to five times. If the internet and/or technology still is not cooperating at that time, the booking fee will not be charged and the customer will be prompted to reschedule at a later date.

· Due to the nature of the VSA service, there is the possibility of a customer seeing available products in the store and then ending the video conference to go pick up the product themselves. To mitigate this, during booking, the customer’s card number will be required information so that even if they end the call mid-shopping session, the customer will still be charged the booking fee. Customers who abandon 4 carts mid-shop will be blocked from using the service in the future.

· As with any situation in which banking information is involved, there is the risk of customers’ financial information being hacked and taken. In to lower the chances of this risk, the web developers will build out a secure system for the VSA addition to the site in to prevent hacking.

· There is the positive risk of exploiting technology developments that might occur as a result of nearly everything going virtual. Zoom and other virtual platforms have taken off due to COVID-19. Current VSA plans on using the regular Zoom options that are available. Because of significant efforts being put into improving virtual experiences, there is the potential positive risk of having more technology options to enhance the VSA experience.

Project Organization

At AG Grocery, our organization is made up of a very selective group of people that have been together over 18 years. We have delivered numerous projects together and with our latest program we plan to achieve another phenomenally successful service for the organization. Below is the team that will allow our customers to enjoy the pleasure of shopping from their couch with an eye on their groceries like if they are in our store!

 

Meet the team:

Adrian John – (The Sponsor) As the Managing Director of Marketing for AG Grocery, Adrian is responsible for directing all project management services within the local market area. He is responsible to ensure that AG Grocery continues to provide superb shopping experience to our customers. The Virtual Shopping Assistant service has been created to meet our current environment, and will be sustainable in servicing our customers for years to come. Adrian will be responsible for updating the Board of Directors on the progress of this investment while getting updates from the project management team on the status of the 100 stores we plan on turning over throughout the year. Adrian will also make sure that this new product is advertised properly to our customers.

Cynthia Saale – (Project Management Lead) As Vice President of Project Management, Cynthia is responsible for project management at AG Grocery throughout Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia. In this role, she brings almost 18 years of project management experience. Cynthia works hand in hand with General Contractors to ensure the successful build-out of projects ranging in size from 1,000 Rentable Square Footage (RSF) to 130,000 RSF. It is that experience that will ensure that VSA becomes a success under her leadership. Cynthia will be providing overall budget and schedule updates to the sponsor on the projects. She will also be reporting anything that will not allow us to meet our goal of delivering VSA to all 100 stores. Cynthia will hold bi-weekly regional meetings with Holly and Jess to go over any new implementation or scope changes on all VSA projects.

Jess George – (PM) Is the Senior Project Manager for the Virtual Shopping Assistant project. Her role is to manage all the projects up to permits and VSA implementation in the Maryland and Virginia area. She will be managing the vendors and making sure communication is clear with each of the store managers. As project manager, Jess will be reviewing shop drawings, change s and invoices from the vendors. Jess will be provided appropriate level of on-site supervision to ensure project performance criteria are being met. During the project Jess will identify and address areas of concern regarding potential liabilities and risk. Jess will be reporting to Cynthia and will provide weekly updates to her. At times, she will meet with the sponsor as well. Jess will also be working with Holly Wellington on identifying resources and budget for these projects. Jess will have weekly project meetings for her projects.

Holly Wellington – (APM) Is the Assistant Project Manager on the Virtual Shopping Assistant project and will be working with Jess. Interacting with other project managers helps to create a positive influence for fulfilling the various needs of the project (PMBOK, 2017). Holly’s role is to work on schedules and budget with the general contractor and Jess. She will be responsible for managing the implementation in grocery stores in the Washington DC area. Holly will also hold weekly construction meetings with the vendor, contractors and consultants for each of her stores. Holly will report to Jess and Cynthia.

Tolu Adedeji – (Operations) As the Vice President of Operations, Tolu will be responsible for overseeing the operational policies and guidelines for the organization. She will be meeting with all store managers throughout this program to make sure that each grocery store continues to function properly during the construction phase. If additional staff are needed, Tolu will be responsible to make sure these needs are met. As the stores go through their renovations, the store managers will be communicating with her on any problems that may impact the day to day business. Tolu will make sure that enough notifications are sent out to customers letting them know of the new services and will provide authorization to the store managers when to release keys and codes to the construction vendors providing Virtual Shopping Assistance in store upgrades. Tolu will also be responsible for Training. Tolu will be reporting directly to the Managing Director.

Tiffany Moore – (Project Coordinator) Tiffany’s role is to make sure that all budgets are entered and tracked in our project management system. She will be the point of contact for any vendor payments. Tiffany will help with the contracts being created and work with procurement to get them signed and back to the vendors so purchase s can be processed. Tiffany will input all the purchase s and change s from the project managers. This will help free up some time for the project managers to be in the field working on the projects. Tiffany will also be reaching out to the vendors on completion of each project to make sure all payments are processed. This will allow the projects closing out in 60-90 days after completion. Tiffany will be reporting to Tolu.

AGG is a mid-size grocery store company that serves only the Mid-Atlantic region, making this hierarchy effective given the company size. Each department will have their own role to play with our CEO making all final decisions.

Work Breakdown Structure

· Project Management

· Appoint a Project Manager and an Assistant Project Manager

· Outline financials

· Clear expenses with finance

· Hold a charter tollgate meeting with the sponsor to approve budget, financials, and timeframe

· Project sponsor updates executive management on project status throughout

· Break into phases of rolling out at 25 stores at a time, total of 100 stores

· Weekly meetings with grocery store managers to go over project schedule and check in on progress

· Hold a sponsor change control meeting any time a change arises in to ask for approval from sponsor

· Website

· Outline needs to our current web designers

· Appointment time slot booking

· Schedule grocery pick up time

· Secure credit card info input on site

· Option to bypass and pay in store during grocery pick up

· Send an email to reschedule if credit card is declined

· Customer feedback form on site

· Block users if they abandon carts more than 4 times in the middle of a shop

· Ongoing tech support enlisted as needed, per sponsor approval

· Phone appointments

· Over-the-phone schedule option if customer doesn’t have internet

· At appointment time, customer can call the VSA over the phone and use the service without video

· Equipment

· WiFi boosters

· Tablets

· Tablet stands

· Scanners

· Label-printing produce scales

· Ongoing repair and replacement of parts, per approval of sponsor

· Charging Stations

· Designate location in every store

· Set up power strips, chargers, and tablets

· Installation

· Mount tablet stands onto designated shopping carts

· Place scales in produce section

· Distribute WiFi boosters throughout each store

· Beta test software

· Purchase and distribute Zoom accounts

· Train managers

· Incorporate feedback from managers about software and capability

· Grocery Pick-Up

· Update signage for the online pick up area to include that VSA pick up is included in that area as well

· Designate additional cubby and storage space to place separate grocery s

· Mark additional distanced waiting spots on the route to the pick-up counter to account for increased traffic

· Grocery Staff

· HR meet with all customer-facing grocery staff to reiterate customer service practices

· Train staff on Zoom and VSA services and practices

· Launch

· Weekly check-in meetings with grocery store managers

· Project Manager handles material aspects of the project launch

· Assistant Project Manager handles IT aspects of the project launch

· Customer feedback

· View Zoom poll feedback, customer feedback form on website

· Analyze rebooking percentage analytics

· Ongoing analysis of feedback to make adjustments as needed