The work of drivers and couriers is the most important part of online sales. Courier delivery is very much in demand, but it carries risks: the quality of this service always depends on the individual and his actions. For the consumer, delivery, although it does not become the main factor in making a purchasing decision, is nevertheless important.
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Studies show that more than half of customers will go to another store if they are not satisfied with when and how their goods were delivered. Besides, sometimes interaction with a courier is the only experience a customer has with a brand after placing an order on the site.
Here are common problems that can arise in courier delivery and ruin the shopping experience, and here are ways to solve them.
Communication Problems Between Customers and Couriers
Communication breakdowns are common not only in online casinos, like in Canada casino online or in a marketplace of online goods, but also between couriers and customers are among the top complaints from customers. 7% of customers who leave delivery reviews say that the communication is not polite enough, and 9%, on the contrary, praise couriers for being polite. This is the third most cited criterion among all positive reviews.
Inappropriate courier behavior is a less common complaint than failure to meet delivery deadlines, but it has great reputational risks: information about such cases immediately spreads to social networks and the media. In 2019, US Foods conducted a study of the U.S. food delivery market. It found that one in four couriers had at least once tasted some food from an order while they were carrying it, and one in two wanted to do so. Yet only one-fifth of customers were suspicious of the couriers’ behavior.
How to Fix It
Carefully design the onboarding and onboarding process for couriers. It’s important that couriers gain an understanding of the company, its services and values. Information that is important for new employees to know usually includes sections such as:
- How to collect and deliver shipments.
- How to accept payment.
- How to handle different situations with a customer (for example, if a customer doesn’t accept an item).
- How to use a mobile app and other necessary services).
- How to make routes.
- What is considered a violation and what can be sanctions.
- What basic safety rules exist.
- How remuneration is formed and how it can be influenced.
- What to do if you have problems and where to go for support.
Training videos, instructions, tutorials, tests and even gamification can be used for training. It’s good practice to motivate experienced couriers to share their tips with newcomers.
Delivery Outside of the Promised Time Frame by the Courier Delivery
Delivery to the exact time is a trend, as a recent study by Data Insight shows. It turns out that not always the faster the better, and a great many shoppers consider its predictability, the ability to schedule it, to be a much more important advantage. Perhaps the importance of urgency in many situations is exaggerated.
If the courier arrives earlier or later than the promised interval, it’s equally bad for the impression of the customer and even his willingness to buy the product, as the PIM Solutions research shows. After analyzing hundreds of customer feedbacks, the company found that customers complain most often about not meeting their delivery deadlines.
How to Fix It
Increase the transparency of the process – for example, introduce real-time monitoring of the delivery status. Monitoring can be carried out thanks to the synchronous operation of several system components at once: an application for couriers with all the necessary instructions for the customer, a service for logisticians with the status of all deliveries and a client widget where the customer sees his order and knows when to really wait for it.
A global Metapack study shows that for almost 70% of consumers, the ability to track their order is one of the top 3 most important factors when buying online. And according to Gorgias ecommerce customer service, “find out order status” is the most popular request they receive from users. So, the introduction of monitoring will increase the level of customer service and by 40%, according to our data, reduce the load on the contact center – reducing the number of appeals to clarify when the courier arrives.
A Cancelled or Rescheduled Courier Delivery
Couriers can complain about undelivered routes and return to the warehouse with undelivered items. This reduces customer satisfaction and repeat orders, and getting a new customer is usually 3-5 times more expensive than keeping an existing customer. The need to arrange for repeat deliveries also leads to additional costs.
The problem of undelivered orders is widespread. The Loqate company conducted a global survey in 2021, interviewing 3,000 consumers and 300 top managers of retail companies. It turned out that 99% of ecommerce players have delivery problems. A quarter of them admitted that more than 1 order in 10 could not be delivered on the first try.
Most consumers expect some sort of compensation after a failed delivery. More than half of the companies try to bring the order to the customer again, 36% pay for the extra cost of delivery themselves, 41% – offer a refund for it. In the States, businesses lose on average $17.2 on every order that failed to be delivered the first time, in Germany – €14.69, in the UK – £11.60.
How to Fix It
Automate the process of building routes. With the increase in the number of orders and the expansion of the staff of couriers to plan routes becomes more difficult: it is important to take into account so many parameters. For example, the quality of delivery is affected not only by the forecast of traffic jams, but also the optimal distribution of goods by car, taking into account its capacity, special equipment, the order of unloading, mode of operation of warehouses, etc. As a result, when manually planning routes, logisticians have to work for several hours to prepare routes for the next day.
Offer a transparent system of motivation for couriers. Some of our clients before completing a route show the courier how much he will earn by completing it in full.
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