Learn More with Carrot Academy

As we’ve rolled out resources to improve quality throughout this year, we’re looking for more ways to help shoppers who strive to get better with every order. From the moment they place their order to when they unload their grocery bags, customers rely on Instacart to deliver not just a perfectly ripe avocado, but also a top-notch experience.

At Instacart, we’re always working to offer the resources you need to provide exceptional service for the customers who rely on you. That’s why we’re introducing Carrot Academy, a new program that offers a suite of optional lessons designed to educate shoppers about quality and help you learn best practices for delivering the best possible customer experience.

Lessons to Help You Improve

Carrot Academy is a new resource for shoppers to learn how to become grocery pros and deliver exceptional service with every order. With a dozen helpful lessons, Carrot Academy provides in-depth advice on the best way to pick, pack, and deliver with quality.

To access Carrot Academy, shoppers can visit the “How Am I Doing?” page in the Shopper app, and select “Improve your skills with lessons.” You can also click on each section of customer feedback — communication, replacing items, quality of items, or finding items — to find lessons tailored to each of those areas. Maybe you’re highly rated on finding items, but customers have noted your communication could improve — clicking on the “communication” section will take you straight to the “Intro to Customer Communication” lesson within Carrot Academy.

To date, we’ve been piloting a few of these lessons across North America. 96% of pilot shoppers said they would recommend these lessons to another shopper, and more than three-quarters said they had learned something new. Now, every shopper across North America will have access to a dozen lessons on topics that are most valuable to shoppers and customers.

Finding the Best Replacements

In a recent survey, shoppers indicated that choosing replacements was the number one area they would most like resources to better understand how to improve. Customers care deeply about the groceries that are selected for them, and when their preferred item isn’t available, selecting a great replacement goes a long way towards their overall satisfaction with the delivery.

To help both shoppers and customers have the best possible experience, we’re rolling out a six-part deep-dive course about replacements, offering countless tips on how to select the best replacements across a variety of subjects. Deep-dive lessons include size, flavor, and brand, to help shoppers understand the best approach for picking out another variety if a customer’s preferred option isn’t available.

Shoppers can also access deep-dives on a variety of health preferences that can be extremely important to customers’ diet needs. These health preferences include common allergens and sensitivities, such as gluten or nut-free; animal vs. plant-based diets, such as selecting another type of vegan sausage instead of a full-meat one; or food production methods, such as organic or non-GMO.

When you deliver with quality, you are not only making your customer’s day, you are working towards higher ratings and more positive customer feedback. As the shopper community continues to put quality first, we look forward to continuing to grow Carrot Academy, introducing new courses to help shoppers learn and improve quality across the Instacart platform. In the months to come, we’ll be rolling out even more deep-dive lessons on the topics that matter most to shoppers and customers.

Instacart

Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,400 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 80,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.