Ways to improve delivery efficiency
We live in a world in which so many companies are offering delivery options these days that people are expecting a highly efficient service right from the start. With Amazon leading the charge in the logistical delivery battle with their same-day shipping options, you need to be on top of improving your delivery efficiency wherever you can to compete with the major players in the industry. There are several different aspects involved in boosting your delivery efficiency, and we are going to be looking at a few of them in the following blog post.
Give a clear timeframe
When a customer makes an order through your website, they need to have a clear timeframe of when they can expect to receive it. Once you have made this commitment, you then need to do everything that you can to ensure that you hit it. While speed may not be the defining factor in whether a customer places an order with you, ensuring that you hit the window is vital. Otherwise, the client is highly unlikely to make a repeat purchase. Your reputation is highly important in the modern world of business. If you start to develop a bad one with regards to your poor delivery estimates, this can spread like wildfire with the prevalence of online review systems that are out there these days. It is better to under-promise and over-perform.
Organize your warehouse
If you keep everything in stock in your warehouse, it is important that you keep it as well ordered as possible. All of the products that need to be kept alongside one another because they are often bought together should be kept in this way. If there is a particular item that is popular at a certain time of year, it needs to be given pride of place. On top of this, you should put a system in place that ensures restocking is a highly efficient process. You do not want to find that customers are not able to make a purchase as they have been confronted with that dreaded ‘out of stock’ message or that fulfilling orders is a gargantuan task for your staff members.
Use technology to handle tasks
A lot of mistakes are caused by simple human error, and you can do everything possible to cut down on these by using technology to handle a number of tasks. For example, you can use a load board to help streamline your operation. When an order comes in, it should start to be processed straight away and you can also give customers a much-needed boost of confidence by updating them about each stage of the order and how it is progressing. Technology is your friend as long as you use it in the right way.
Review your delivery partners
The process of delivering a product to your customer’s door is not dealt with by a single organization. There are bound to be other players in the game. The more complicated the order and the longer the distance, the more likely it is that you are going to need to involve more organizations along the way. With this in mind, you should get into the habit of constantly reviewing your delivery partners to ensure that they are up to the task. If you are not happy, you need to let them know rather than letting the problem fester beneath the surface. You should always investigate what other options are out there, as you should know what they are competing against and whether they are now behind the times.
Ask for customer feedback
When you are sending out orders, you are only seeing one side of the process and you are not experiencing it from your customer’s perspective. Therefore, getting customer feedback can be invaluable as they will tell you how the experience of ordering from your company proved to be from their end. You can also check whether or not they felt that they were updated enough as there order was being processed and shipped. If there is one thing that modern customers simply do not like at all, it is being left in the dark – particularly once their money has been taken.
Launch regular reviews
Even if you have been doing very well with your deliveries up until this point, there is every chance that things can go wrong at some point. If this occurs, it is worth launching a review to work out exactly why the problem happened, as well as what you can do about it. If you leave problems to fester and do not address them directly, it is more likely that they are going to get worse and you are going to struggle to put them right again. Worse still, they may come back to haunt you in the form of negative customer feedback. During these review processes, you can start to work out where the errors are coming from. This is not meant to be a witch hunt, rather it is a legitimate way of seeking out how improvements can be made in your organization for the benefit of all of your staff members and your customers as well.
Reduce your paperwork
This point goes quite closely with made above about boosting your reliance on technology. While paperwork can serve a purpose in certain situations, it can also end up being time consuming and unnecessary in others. Therefore, if there is paperwork that simply does not need to be done at some point in the process, you should avoid it as much as you possibly can.
The past year in particular has seen a huge shift in the way we shop, and so much has been brought into the online world. Therefore, there has never been a more important time than now to improve your delivery system, ensuring that it is as effective as you can possibly make it. Ultimately, the process of launching a review in the first place is your first step. From here, you can then start to work out how you can make the necessary improvements to rise to the top of your industry.
