PROFILE
delivery, but they expect it to be perfect.
Understandably, it’s one of those emotive
services – you order something and you
expect it to arrive.
The fact it might have to travel for miles
and go through numerous pairs of hands
and do all of that in a 12-hour period isn’t
really considered by the end customer and
we have to provide them with a seamless
journey every single time. All of these things
must be carried out in a way that gives
the customer absolute reassurance and
control around the parcel without adding
unnecessary additional costs. Those are the
real challenges around the industry currently.
The current state of the technology
landscape in Europe
My view is that it’s a mixed bag. When
considering my industry in particular, I
think the UK is at the forefront of the drive
of shopping through the Internet and as
such, I think we probably lead the way
with Europe in regards to service offerings,
customer configuration, assurance control,
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customer experience, that kind of thing.
We don’t always get it right, but I think
we are the trailblazers. When you look
across Europe, a lot of our competitors are
catching up but they’re not quite where
we are. I think this is because our market
is a lot more mature and that much more
demanding. It’s all very relative across
Europe; we take ideas from all over the show
– some come from the continent, some
comes from the states, some come from
the UK.
Utilising technology to enhance the
customer experience
We do this in various ways. The first is that
we try and keep the customer assured – we
try and provide tracking in real time. We
try and simplify our tracking events, so we
take the jargon away as it is unnecessary to
explain every leg of the journey but being
really clear is essential. Then we start to
introduce more of the expectation, so time
slots are being introduced now and when
parcels are delivered, we use a safe place
model. This means that we’ll provide a
photograph of the safe place and we’ll also
provide a geolocation to prove that we were
there, reassuring the customer.
If it’s a sign-for parcel, we’ll provide a
signature which all takes place in real time.
If a customer isn’t going to be home, it
introduces another level of anxiety for
them, so now we introduce control.
Late last year, we brought in diversions which
allow the customer to choose their safe place
or their preferred neighbour to leave their
parcel with if they aren’t home. Soon, we’ll
be expanding those diversions beyond the
home so you can divert to ParcelShop or to
an alternative address – we can even hold
the parcel for you.
Depending on how far that parcel is through
our network, we can provide you with extra
options. So, if the parcel is still at our hub,
it can reach anywhere in the country and
we can therefore allow you to divert to your
chosen address. We’re simply trying to
introduce as many controls as we can to give
the customer ultimate choice.
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