Why don’t I know when my parcel will be delivered?
We have all had the problem when we order something online but you have no idea of when our parcel will be delivered. So we have to wait in all day or ask it to be left in an unsafe place.
The driver knows when the parcel will be delivered and his phone knows where he is and almost exactly how long it will take to get to you. So why don’t we know?
I wanted to use delivery as an example as it is slowly improving but it is still a big annoyance for me and I know for many others.
So what is wrong?
Lets look at an the shopping experience:
- we go to the online shop.
- picked our product.
- merrily added it to the basket.
- we checkout and see the delivery time.
- then…. NOTHING!!
This is where our good experience ends. We have to just wait and at some point in the next week we will get our parcel. If we are lucky we will get an email in the next couple of days from a delivery company with a tracking number.
Is this really the experience we want from our deliveries in this data driven world?
So why aren’t these companies talking to each other?
Or. Why don’t companies spend money on getting the delivery experience right.
I think a lot of this comes down to current business teaching that says
focus on your core business and outsource the rest
This is great but I rarely see the supporting advice that says
when you focus on your core business you need to an expert at collaborating
Also, the problem is further ingrained in how we work in businesses. Right from the outside most businesses look inward with the following mottos:
- “How can we grow”
- “How can we be more efficient”
- “How can we make more money”
- Rarely do I see “How can we better share information with our suppliers”
Even if you do have data collaboration as a focus, your suppliers are likely to respond with “ you are much more advanced than we are we will add it to our wish list”.
I think it comes down to confidence in data.
When we share data we also share our data problems.
Organisations are normally so practiced at painting a perfect picture of a well oiled machine they cannot handle letting people see then as they truly are with data. And as we know companies do not run as smoothly inside as they would like us to believe.
So how do we fix this problem
Recognising that this will not be fixed quickly is key. There are no silver bullets here. This is something that requires business expectations to be changed and this takes time:
- Making delivery to the customer part of your complete checkout process.
- Adding the phrase “delivery is part of our experience” to your support mantra.
- Create a group in your business to discuss data sharing and start work on fixing your data issues.
- Setup and measure the basket-to-delivery and report as key performance indicators to the board of your business.
- Pick your delivery partner who can delivery on your customer experience goals.
This isn’t something that a single department in your company can do. The only way to achieve this is to ensue the entire business has this has the same goal.
I believe that once you make this change in your business then it will spread and you will notice that other areas of your business will start to change for the better too.
Note: I know that some online shops get this right, like Amazon with their Prime hour service, they I have seen as one of the exceptions.
