How to improve your delivery service

Customer feedback for your delivery service not good? Don’t let it continue – here are six actionable ways you can improve your delivery service this week and stop your business from loosing repeat custom.

The delivery process is one of the last points of interaction between you and your customers. If it’s not a good experience, your customer will not forgive you easily, so make sure you finish your interaction with them on a high.

Here are six ways you can improve your delivery service.

Give shoppers a choice or estimated time of delivery

If your customers are able to choose a time for their parcels to be delivered it gives them a great level of control over the delivery process which they will appreciate. It will make your customers’ lives easier and keep failed delivery costs way down.

If this isn’t something you already offer as part of your delivery service, speak to your couriers and see if they offer the service – if not perhaps it’s time to speak to some other companies and find one that will.

Offer a sophisticated tracking system

This is the next step from letting people know when something will be delivered. Tracking allowed people to follow their parcel’s progress and see exactly where it is. Having this level of transparency in a delivery service creates trust and puts customers minds at rest.

There are a number of courier services that offer this – it’s just a matter of finding the right one.

“We have seen from customer feedback that offering a tracked service with a delivery time slot has improved the customer shopping experience,” says Ravi Karia, owner of Universal Textiles.

“We use DPD who are competitive but offer a good service with a one hour delivery slot, they also text the customer the delivery time and the customer has the option to change the delivery date if it is not convenient.”

Consider using drop-off lockers

The are a number of online retailers that are now offering to drop purchases off at designated collection points for customers to collect at their convenience. This means your customers don’t have to be at home to receive their parcels and don’t need to worry about missing the delivery.

Services such as Collect + and InPost allow merchants to offer local drop-off points for items to be collected.

“With our service, gone are failed deliveries which are a huge expense for a retailer and a massive inconvenience for customers,” says Simon Croft, MD of InPost UK.

“Customers can collect their items from our conveniently positioned lockers 24/7.”

Keep the costs down for your customers

The cost of shipping and delivery can be a huge bone of contention for online shoppers. If they see high prices they are likely to abandon their shopping for simply get annoyed at the price they are expected to pay.

You can try and make savings in your delivery service by talking to your existing providers or by shopping around. You could also look at using different couriers for different actions depending on where the savings can be made.

“Look at using other couriers where possible so e.g. use Royal Mail for non-mainland deliveries, offer the customer a choice of delivery options, like second class post,” says Karia.

“We use Royal Mail’s second class post untracked for orders under £20 and recorded delivery for orders  £20 and over. Also look at different suppliers, speak to DPD, City Link, DHL. You will be surprised at what they can offer you to win the business, they also offer very competitive international shipping options.”

Use technology to make sure you get addresses correct

Make sure that small mistakes don’t get in the way of a speedy and correct delivery by using addressing software.

“One small mistake at sign-up can easily result in a missed delivery, a lost sale – or worse, a lost customer for life,” says Guy Mucklow, CEO at Postcode Anywhere.

“One slip of the finger could spell the difference between Milton Keynes (MK) and a Manchester (M) postcode and have huge consequences for your ecommerce business. There is nothing more damaging to a reputation than dealing with an irate customer who has taken the day off to wait for a delivery that never turns up. It’s an expensive problem to put right and the reputational damage can be irreversible.”

Communicate before, during and after the delivery

Communicating with your customers and letting them know the progress of their purchase is essential throughout the delivery process but it shouldn’t end with the delivery itself. Follow it up with an email to make sure that the parcel got to its destination and that your customer is happy.

It gives them a chance to let you know if something went wrong in the process but on the other side of that, reinforces the point in their minds if the delivery was successful.