How to Maintain Reliability in Same-Day Delivery

When it comes to delivering important parcels, a vital characteristic of any logistics team is being reliable.

If you are known to be well-trusted and always get your deliveries where they need to be, in the time promised, it won’t be long before your reputation and customer base grows.

Like trust though, reliability is hard to build and very easy to lose.

Here at Quicker Same Day, we pride ourselves on always offering a reliable, accurate, and timely service, and we’ve created this guide into just how we achieve that.

Let’s take a look.

The Importance of a Reliable Same-Day Delivery Service

Being reliable is important in many different ways, including:

Growing Customer Satisfaction – Reliable delivery ensures that customers receive their products or services on time and in good condition, which is sure to leave them delighted and willing to return to your business next time.

Beat Your Competitors – If you always offer a reliable service, and some of your competitors struggle to keep up with your standards, then you’re sure to soon see their customers heading your way.

Better Brand Reputation – Through customer reviews and word of mouth, a reliable service will boost your brand. With every accurate and timely delivery you will get more people speaking of your business highly and this will help build your brand.

Increased Revenue – A dependable delivery service can lead to increased sales as customers are more likely to use your team for their delivery. Also, with fewer disputes, you will have to spend less time and money righting wrongs.

These are just a handful of the many positives of operating a reliable delivery service. There are plenty more where these came from, but for now, let’s look at how you can make your delivery operation reliable with these seven tips.

How to Make Your Same-Day Delivery Service Reliable

Be Realistic

The first step is not to over-promise when it comes to delivery timescales.

With same-day delivery, it can be a matter of hours until the parcel is in the hands of the recipient, but if you’re attempting to make your way across major cities such as London or Manchester at rush hour, or having to deliver to rural areas, this time may not be feasible.

It all comes down to honesty and openness, and if you can let a customer know a realistic time, they won’t be annoyed if it takes that time. If you promised it would arrive sooner, this is when issues arise.

Build a Trusted Team

A key part of being reliable boils down to doing the job in the right way.

This means that you need a team surrounding you who can achieve this. From the people in the office processing the orders to the delivery drivers themselves, everyone needs to be trained and educated in the best practices when it comes to reliable deliveries.

Training should cover all bases, such as customer communication, how to deal with issues and challenges, knowing the most efficient routes, and being effective at last-mile delivery.

Embrace Technology

In logistics, technology is your friend.

If you can integrate this into your service, you are sure to be able to provide more reliability.

This all starts with the delivery processing, and being able to act quickly when a delivery is ordered. An organised system will allow you to alert drivers quickly, and always make sure the most efficient choice is made to get the package where it needs to be in the quickest time possible.

Technology should also be used with the drivers, who can use up-to-date maps to always locate the quickest route. Order tracking is also important, and is a great way of keeping the customer informed of the estimated delivery time and any issues that may slow things down.

Maintain Your Fleet

You may have the best driver in the world, but if his vehicle breaks down whilst on a delivery, it’s going to cause a delay.

You won’t get a reputation as a reliable delivery service if this happens regularly, so you need to ensure your fleet is regularly maintained and always in the best condition it can be.

Vehicles should be regularly serviced and any minor issues dealt with quickly before they become something bigger which could cause long delays.

Your vehicles are a vital cog in your logistics service, so need to be treated as such.

Keep Updates Regular

A key aspect of reliability is communication.

If you can keep a customer informed on the status of delivery throughout the process, then this will be a big positive for them.

This way, they can keep track of how things are going, and any delays can be easily relayed so that if the worst does happen, at least they know about it.

Some issues can happen that are out of your control, and this will only make you look unreliable if you don’t relay this information to the customer quickly and allow them to plan for a later time schedule.

Respond to Issues Quickly

As mentioned above, issues do happen.

Whether it is a traffic jam, a burst tyre, or a misplaced or damaged package.

While every preparation should be taken to ensure these are kept to a minimum, in the case they do happen, any issue should be dealt with quickly.

If you can provide an explanation and fix the customer’s problem in the quickest timescale possible, they will appreciate this and in some cases, you may still be able to get the package to them in good condition and on the same day.

Always Look to Improve

The final step is to never rest on your laurels when it comes to reliability.

You should regularly review your processes and performance metrics to try and identify trends, bottlenecks, and areas that need improvement.

If any issues are spotted, try to implement changes that will help to make your service even more reliable to the customer.

This may be more training, better vehicles, or a change to the normal process.

Knowing where you are going wrong and acting on it is key to ensuring you always keep up high levels of trust and accuracy when it comes to a same-day delivery.