Why do home deliveries still disappoint the consumer?

Poor Home Deliveries Continue to Disappoint Consumers

Back in 2020 Which? The consumer research organisation released their research into Home delivery disasters during the Christmas Period. The research highlighted that a whopping 37% of online consumers had issues with their home delivery, almost 4 in 10, while (20%) 1 in 5, never received their delivery. They even listed the worst delivery companies in 2022. 

Retailers who depend on third-party couriers need to consider their customers’ full delivery experience, for a bad experience can lead to them losing sales and receiving poor reviews. 

Taking control of their customer's end-to-end purchasing experience, right through to delivery and collections procedure for returns should be a priority for any online retailer. Descartes conducted research with consumers in the summer of 2021, and again at the start of 2023. Having surveyed 8,000 consumers across ten European and North American countries it was discovered that 67% of consumers experienced a home delivery problem in the 3-month period surveyed. And 68% took some form of action against the retailer or delivery company. 

Why Improve delivery window time slots? 

Previously offering 5 hour time windows the next day, or all day appointments for the rest of the week (and notifying the customers the evening before, or morning of delivery) used to be considered acceptable…

But consumers now expect a different level of service, including smaller time windows (such as 2 hours) agreed at the time of order, either next day or in some cases several days out when it best suits the consumer to be at home. 

Offering consumers a choice of delivery dates and times is a sure way to improve customer satisfaction and reduce basket abandonment at the point of purchase. So how do you solve the dilemma of providing more delivery options with shorter delivery windows and adhering to your customer commitments, while simultaneously managing logistics costs and resources? 

Consumers want this level of delivery service because they are leading increasingly busy lives where convenience is king, and arranging their busy schedule around limited delivery options is not convenient for them.  They no longer want to wait in all morning for a delivery, they want to schedule the delivery time around what they are doing and when it is most convenient for them. 

How do you offer improved delivery window time slots for home deliveries? 

The answer is a solution that combines delivery appointment scheduling, route optimisation and digital proof of delivery that considers your delivery capacity at the point of sale and on order confirmation e.g. your real capability to deliver rather than a historical view of capability. Because the routing and appointment scheduling are part of the same software solution, this helps to provide greater visibility within the business and ensure that sales’ decisions also consider logistical delivery costs. 

At the point of sale the appointments offered are based on actual fleet capacity, considering customer service and profit. Descartes uses knowledge of already confirmed orders and routes to incentivise customers to select options that increase route density. This ensures all appointments are achievable (Don’t over-commit) and offers the full range of appointments (Don’t under-commit). 

If a driver is scheduled to service a specific area or neighbourhood, then appointment slots on the same day and around the same time in that area will have the most profitable score and could be offered to the customers with an incentive to select them, such as free delivery, or simply highlighting them as the “environmentally friendly” green delivery option. 

How does automated delivery window slots work? 

Descartes’ automated routing software adds the orders to routes at the moment of order confirmation through the use of real-time continuous optimisation. This approach provides earlier visibility of routes and load volumes for planners and helps to drive increased route density.  When compared to traditional “batch” solutions, it also means that orders can be taken for longer during the day and still produce optimal routes, this can be especially important when faced with late cut off times or high volumes of orders. 

Customer service offering is enhanced through providing visibility of live, real-time route data and accurate and reliable ETA’s. The route planning and digital proof of delivery systems are all part of the same solution and information collected on the mobile device (including GPS location pings) will update the system in real-time. This real-time feedback from the mobile GPS allows projected ETA’s to be calculated and can even automatically send out customer notifications that keep the consumer informed on their delivery. 

To learn more about the full power of a single application for appointment booking, route optimisation, digital proof of delivery and customer notifications, please visit our scheduling and routing section of this website.

Talk to our experts to optimise your home delivery