It is clear that home delivery by online and multichannel retailers is growing at a rapid rate. Ecommerce Week has reported that growth in the sector increased by 15.7% in 2015, exceeding forecasts for the year, and Internet Retailing announced recently that UK online shoppers spent 18% more in February this year than in 2015.
As a result consumer expectations about the convenience and efficiency of their deliveries and about how and when they want to be contacted regarding their parcels, has also increased.
According to the latest IMRG and Blackbay Consumer Home Delivery Review 2016 ‘overall UK shoppers are relatively satisfied with the quality of e-retail delivery and it is consistently becoming less of a barrier to shopping online’. However, there is always room for improvement, with the ‘inconvenience of not being home when the delivery comes and the frustration of not being able to anticipate delivery within a certain time frame’ sighted as a major ongoing concern.
The report goes on to say that ‘the most important requirement for shoppers when it comes to making their online delivery experience more convenient is to be kept informed’ and this extends from clear information on a retailers website and throughout the online checkout process about delivery options and costs all the way to in transit when ‘shoppers want to be kept up to date and the two most important times for this are the day before delivery is due and the morning of delivery, confirming the expected time window’.
A study reported in “http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/e-commerce-digital-marketing/deliv…“>Digital Marketing Magazine backed up IMRG’s findings, revealing that, without a wide range of delivery options, over half of consumers will abandon a basket to shop elsewhere – in short, convenient, personalised delivery is now an essential offering for online retailers in order to keep up the pace in a fast-moving industry.
STREAM is constantly being updated to keep up with changes in customer expectations and to improve the capability of transport and delivery management software. These are just a few of the features added to STREAM over the past year, which set it apart from other TMS software:
- SMS Messages for customers: in addition to email notifications, customers can now opt to receive SMS messages as another way of tracking their delivery.
- Customer acceptance of delivery slots: customers are now able to electornically accept (or decline) their allocated delivery slot through the consumer tracking feature. Consumers can also add a message to their response, for example where a safe place to leave their delivery might be if they aren’t in.
- Real-time ‘in-flight’ driver tracking: with the addition of this feature, customers can view their delivery on a map, from the moment it is despatched until it arrives, giving them a much more accurate delivery time.
- Download PDF reports: a delivery summary, including ePOD signature and images, can now be created as a PDF report by any party in the supply chain as required.
- Improved order tracking information: end customers will be able to find event information on their order in a clearer format. Your customer services team will also have access to exactly the same information.
New features of STREAM are also added to improve back-office operations that customers may not be aware of but will make your delivery logistics process more efficient as well as saving some of the cost and time of manual admin. These updates include:
- Weight and volume: STREAM can now take the volume and weight of packages into account when planning routes & loads, ensuring that vehicle capacity is maximised without being exceeded.
- Order search criteria: basic and advanced search criteria have been added to the back-office dashboard of STREAM, to make it easier to quickly find, select and amend specific orders.
- Late departure notification: you can now receive email notification of late departure of any delivery run, making it easier to proactively manage customer expectations.
- Walk-around vehicle safety checklist: drivers are able to complete their daily safety checks using the Android or iOS app, reducing the amount of paperwork involved and minimising the risk of mistakes.
- Omit search results: if you have a large number of retailers, wholesalers or distributors you can also now interrogate the data available in STREAM by omitting specific partners from search parameters should you wish.
- Multi-vehicle types: STREAM now has the option to set up and maintain multiple vehicle types which can have their own defined capacities etc. What’s more you can also see the location of all your delivery vehicles at any one time via the map functionality.
- Order line splitting: if you only have part of an order in stock, this feature allows that part of the order to be fulfilled immediately and the remaining part to be delivered as soon as it is available.
As the transport management, home delivery and ecommerce industries are growing and evolving, STREAM is constantly updating and adding new features to keep up with demand. Contact us if you see a useful feature of TMS that STREAM is missing, or request a free trial or demo.