How to reduce missed deliveries and improve the customer delivery experience

2nd maaliskuu 2021

Missed deliveries increase your costs and negatively impacts your customers’ shopping experience. But what can you do about it, when it’s the customer causing this? Find out more in this blog post.

When your customer is not at home to receive their parcel, or they cancel their delivery or don’t pick up their delivery and it is returned to sender, this is called a receiver exception.

These cost shippers a lot of money due to extra handling, as carriers need to take the delivery back to the warehouse or terminal and try delivering it again or return it to the shipper depending on the type of receiver exception.

Even though it is the end customer that causes the exception, the shipper can still potentially lose goodwill e.g. if the recipient wasn’t at home to receive their delivery, and they have to wait another 2-3 days to receive their delivery. This will have a negative effect on their entire buying experience and could potentially harm your brand.

A study from ecommerce data expert, PCA Predict, shows that 78% of consumers expect the retailer to resolve a delivery issue, regardless of who’s at fault.

Receiver exceptions in numbers

Consignor shipment data show that the total number of receiver exceptions was 220,000 in Q4 2020.

Receiver exceptions are highest in the middle of the week: (Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays,) which naturally relates to the fact that these are the days when most shipments are delivered.

The number of receiver exceptions seems high. However, the number of shipments has also increased a whopping 32% in Q4 2020 compared to Q4 2019, because of the pandemic’s restrictions forcing us to shop more online.

Even though the pandemic won’t last forever, our new online shopping habits are likely to remain. That’s why developing a strategy to reduce the number of receiver exceptions is beneficial to keeping freight costs low and offering your customers a positive delivery experience.

Here are just a few ways in which you can do this.

Solution 1: Offer multiple delivery options

There can be many reasons for missed deliveries. A good place to start is looking at your delivery options.

Ask yourself the question – do you offer enough convenient delivery options to satisfy your customers?

50% of online customers abandon a checkout due to a lack of delivery options. It’s clear that they value freedom of choice and convenient delivery options at the right cost.

Consider your delivery options as a way of attracting customers. For example, why not offer a click and collect option in your online checkout? Both during and post pandemic, this is a convenient way to pick up orders.

Need inspiration? Our recent report contains examples of how retailers have evolved their click and collect offering in response to the pandemic.

Solution 2: Implement a multi carrier strategy

Using a small number of carriers limits the delivery options you can display in your online checkout.

In order for you to meet your customers’ demands and offer attractive delivery options, utilizing multiple carrier services is crucial.

Not only does a multi carrier strategy enable you to provide more convenient delivery options to your customers, it can also help to reduce shipping costs.

With the world’s largest carrier library, Consignor gives you instant access to hundreds of global, national, regional, local, and same-day delivery companies, so you have the flexibility you need to meet customer demand.

Solution 3: Provide real time order tracking

Customers expect instant updates about their deliveries, and they won’t be happy if you’re unable to provide the most up to date information about their orders.

By providing real time tracking you can reduce receiver exceptions, as your customer can be kept up to date about the progress of their order throughout its journey and can plan to be at home to receive their parcel.

If you want to get more insights into the latest shipping trends, check out our Q4 data report: State of Last Mile Delivery in Europe here.