National Press take on online couriers & the Logistics Industry
It’s time for the annual slating of all the carriers by the National press, and this years survey, sponsor Citizens Advice. According to the Times article that you can access here:
‘Worst online couriers are named and shamed’: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/86d33d50-83ea-11ee-8006-26a8adc181a5?shareToken=39d66f47d730548f5c4ae5b3363eae71
The headline is the satisfaction rating of the top carriers is below three out of 5 with even the highest performers riding on a 2.75 out of 5. Looks awful, doesn’t it?
How accurate are the statistics?
It’s a consumer perspective and does not reflect the true performance statistics of the overall carriers. When you’re engaging in a snapshot audience, such as this, you are only gauging extreme opinions from people who are more than likely to have had a bad experience, which is why they are sufficiently wishing to comment.
To give you the industry insight on the reality of the delivery statistics of Evri, Yodel, DPD by just three of the surveyed carriers, who are carriers that we use daily as part of our multi-carrier solution. I can reassure all our clients that they are all performing in excess of 97%.
Now, if you think of the low cost of delivery and the multiple millions of parcels are being delivered every day the fact that mere 3% is mis-delivered it’s not a bad effort.
But we do understand that deliveries can be really important. It’s awful when you miss a birthday or an important deadline. So what can you do in order to make sure your deliveries have every chance of success?
Our top tips:
Properly address the package.
You’ll be surprised how many people might just have an address number and postcode with no road names. This can cause delivery delays.
Properly package the goods.
Do not try and fix two boxes together with a bit of Sellotape and expect both parts to be successfully delivered. Nor will wrapping a guitar in shrink wrap mean that your items will be safely delivered. The rule of thumb is box or bag what you can. Bagging is fine for small clothing and similar items then box with substantial filling anything that has the ability to get damaged, this will ensure the safe delivery of your goods.
Use the right carrier for the right goods and destination.
Different carriers have different assets. Some are really good at delivering to consumer addresses, some are really good at delivering to business addresses, some are really good at delivering to Scotland, and some at delivering internationally, as well as big, small, and every possible delivery permutation you can think of inbetween. All of this takes a lot of specialist knowledge and if you’d like a system that would help you select the right carrier automatically. Diamonds system, despatchlab, does all of this for you. It’s complex algorithms are developed to select the optimum carrier, dependent on all of the above criteria plus your own personal preference for carrier to automatically select the best method of delivery.
So don’t take everything you read at face value. The carriers outperform the aforementioned perspective every single day. If you’d like to support in managing your Logistics so you don’t have to have the headache of managing the Logistics, a chat with the team at Diamond would be good to sort you out in 2024.
