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2024 is expected to be the year when drone delivery finally takes off.
How is this year different?
Well, most regulatory hurdles have been cleared, opening the door for retailers, medical centers, and logistics platforms to start offering drone deliveries.
A visual observer is required for every mile during testing. Last fall, the FAA authorized some drone operators to conduct BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) flights. Now, companies like Zipline, Wing, DroneUp, and Amazon are about to take off.
The FAA is committed to developing a standard set of rules for BVLOS operations to make such delivery routine, scalable, and economically viable. Axios.
Amazon already operates drone fulfillment test centers in 2 communities: Rockford, California, and College Station, Texas. This year, the company will add a third site in the United States and two sites in Europe for further testing.
Zipline has logged more than 60 million commercial autonomous flight miles and continues to expand.
Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has completed more than 350,000 deliveries. It plans to use artificial intelligence to improve operational efficiency, including deciding where to safely leave packages (which they all will likely do).
Walmart is offering delivery within a 6-mile radius of its supermarkets in Dallas and Christiansburg, Virginia.
There are fewer cars on the road? perhaps.
Noisy drones hovering near your home? perhaps.
Are consumer demands getting higher and higher?really
Catering to the Accidental Narcissist
Innovations in customer delivery are welcome. It will also continue to fuel “accidental narcissism” in consumer behavior, meaning excitement will fade away. Anything new that comes out quickly, no matter how good or fast, inevitably gives way to “Impatience is a virtue.”
Zipline CEO Keller Renaudo Cliffton predicts people will go from excited to empowered in a matter of days.
“People went from science fiction to entitlement in seven days,” Clifton shared with Axios. “
I've seen this happen time and time again during my time as a lead analyst. “For seven days, it was pure magic. Then on the eighth day, they looked at their watch and said, 'You're 30 seconds late,'” he continued.
He is right.
In my early days of research around digital CX, mobile CX, and digital anthropology, I published a study visualizing a new type of consumer that I called Generation C Or connected through generations. This is not a demographic group, but a psychographic group, where people share number- and action-first behaviors and interests, leading to similar patterns. The research also identified a new customer journey beyond the traditional “cluster funnel,” which we at Altimeter call “ Dynamic customer journey. This research was so profound it inspired the direction of my book, End of Usua businessI, What is the future of business?and X: The experience of business meeting design (Listed in chronological order).
The nickname “accidental narcissist” playfully describes how people change because of who they are.
For example, use “time study” I worked with Rakuten Ready, and we learned that while BOPIS and Curbside were new and exciting at the time, when consumers visited for the second or third time, the parking spaces weren’t close enough, the times weren’t fast enough, and the lines weren’t long enough. It's short enough, and employees don't pay enough attention to digital priority consumers. We heard, I'm not kidding, “I don't want to be with those sims.”
Nothing is more important than pickup speed.Photo credit: Jack Nunn
The same was true when I studied whether users were waiting too long for an Uber before launching the Lyft app. These numbers have dropped significantly year over year. I know people who carry two phones and they open both apps to see which one is faster. They'll cancel another driver's trip when it's clear who will be arriving later (note: I don't support this behavior, but it's proof of “accidental narcissism”.
For example, to this day, Uber advertisers still use traditional billboards and signage to calculate average wait times in cities.
The same goes for Uber Eats and Door Dash. “Impatient is a virtue” is one of the key observations that led to innovative user experiences such as tracking a car as it drives!
The minute I saw I could try drone delivery, I jumped on a plane (sorry neighbors!) and by the third time, I might start complaining about its time record. 😉
DALL-E TIP: You are one of the best nature photographers in the world. You were in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, taking photos of new homes being built near a large plain. Then you look up and snap a picture of a drone delivering a package to a nearby home. Share that photo with me.
