It is a crying shame that the multitude of online shopping sites are largely incredibly efficient until that frustrating last mile.
What I am talking about are the messages one gets when making an online purchase, this one, for example, from Takealot: “Your parcel will be delivered tomorrow before 5 pm.”
Actually, many of them don’t even send you a delivery message.
The frustrating part of this is they expect you to do is sit at home all day waiting for their delivery. It might be 9am, it might be 5pm.
And like me, if you happen to be out with no one at home the delivery driver will have to return to base and try another day. Which is not only frustrating for customers, but horrendously expensive for the online merchants.
Surely even if a driver is delivering 50 parcels, it won’t take very long to plan a route and have someone at the office give less wildly vague delivery times?
Better still, why can’t they follow in the footsteps of Uber; the app allows you to see where the drivers are online.
Or, like the excellent Checkers Sixty60 delivery service, where you can actually watch the progress of the delivery driver in real time on the app.
Frankly, it would be no big thing if couriers sent a message just saying your delivery driver is so-and-so and this is his cellphone number. Please feel free to call him to get an estimate of when he will be in your area.
Online shopping is taking off like topsy. In South Africa the majority of online merchants are super-efficient in terms of the purchase experience and customer service in general.
But they all fall down in that last mile.
Expecting customers to sit around all day waiting. Its ridiculous.
And so easily fixed…
Chris Moerdyk (@chrismoerdyk ) is a marketing analyst and advisor and owner of Moerdyk Marketing with many years of experience in marketing and the media as well as serving as non-executive director and chairman of companies.
