Customer experience surrounding parcel delivery; there's still a lot of room for improvement

But how important is a positive customer experience during the shipping and delivery of an order really for e-commerce entrepreneurs themselves? We investigated.

Ninety percent shop online

Online shopping; it's become indispensable. A staggering ninety percent of Dutch people make at least one online purchase annually, and over ten percent even do so weekly. More than forty percent of Dutch people made four to seven purchases in the clothing, accessories, shoes, and jewelry category last year. But ordering food online – from meal deliveries to supermarket groceries – is also popular: approximately ten percent order food or drinks monthly.

Insight and control

All these orders also need to be delivered. And things quite often go wrong there. Parcels are delivered late or get lost, delivery drivers claim no one was home and drop off parcels at a collection point or leave them unattended, Track & Trace codes don't work or don't work correctly. In 2018, seven thousand consumers filed a complaint with the Consumers' Association regarding parcel delivery. The recipient wants better insight into where the parcel is and when it will be delivered, and preferably also wants more control over the delivery time.

Delivery is often outsourced

But how important is a positive customer experience during the shipping and delivery of an order really for e-commerce entrepreneurs themselves? We asked seventy e-commerce companies. It turned out that, to begin with, only three of these entrepreneurs operate their own vehicles. The other entrepreneurs outsource delivery to a transport company. They therefore actually have no influence whatsoever on the customer experience, while the delivery experience is such a huge part of that amazing customer journey you want for your customer. And no, speed is not always the right answer. From research by GfK it appears that it's no longer about how quickly you deliver the parcel, but that the parcel is delivered when the consumer wants to use it and that you manage to surprise them during the delivery experience.

Customer cannot choose a time slot

Entrepreneurs with their own fleet indicate that they consider a positive customer experience around delivery to be important to very important. However, they do not use planning software or a planning tool, and therefore their customers cannot specify a time slot in which they wish to receive their parcel. Of the entrepreneurs who outsource their delivery, seventy-five percent state that their customers cannot specify a time slot. Over twenty percent indicate that their customers can specify a time slot, but the length of that time slot is unknown.

In brief

These are, in brief, the results of the study among 70 online retailers and e-commerce companies:

• Over 91% of the surveyed entrepreneurs state that they consider the customer experience surrounding delivery to be an important to very important part of their marketing and communication strategy.
• 96% of the surveyed entrepreneurs outsource delivery; 70% of these indicate that their customers cannot specify a delivery time slot, and that, in this regard, the entrepreneurs therefore cannot influence a positive customer experience surrounding delivery.
• None of the surveyed entrepreneurs who operate their own fleet uses a planning tool that allows the customer to specify when they want to receive their parcel

It can be so simple

Hopefully, we all agree that what the customer experiences should be magical. The moment of delivery proves to be crucial in this regard. Yet, few parties take on this challenge and ensure an amazing end to the customer journey. And that's despite how simple it can be. Would you like to know more about RoutiGo and how we combine route optimization and the best customer experience in one system? Feel free to contact us via the contact form or call us at 030 – 7600 018.