Ensuring Delivery Safety During the Coronavirus Pandemic!

Delivery Safety

As the general public transitions away from crowded public spaces, delivery has gone from being a convenience to a necessity. Over the last few weeks, we have worked with business leaders around the world, discussing how to best meet this growing demand, while ensuring driver and customer and delivery safety.

Below are the five key elements of maintaining delivery safety and continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

1. Driver and Technician Safety

Whether you work with an in-house fleet, contractors or crowdsourced fleets, driver and technician safety is of the utmost importance.

Enforce your safety measures through the Bringg Driver App. Do not allow drivers and technicians to enter a customers’ home until they confirm that they have changed their gloves or used hand sanitizer. This can be as simple as mandating that they tap to confirm that they have done so.

Delivery safety

Those who are more concerned can also require that drivers upload photo or video evidence that they are following safety protocols before they can begin a delivery. All of this can be easily managed through the App.

Similarly, follow the recommendations of medical professionals when asking drivers or technicians to enter an enclosed area such as an office or home. Drivers and technicians can be tasked with uploading photo evidence that they are wearing an N95 mask, or following any other safety measure.

Encourage or mandate that your drivers or dispatchers call customers while in route to confirm their preferred drop-off location. If you are concerned about customer and driver privacy, contact your Bringg representative to enable “number masking”. Should a customer request a change in delivery location or update a delivery order, drivers will automatically be notified of any changes, and relevant notes will be added to the delivery or service order right in the Bringg Driver App.

2. Customer Communications

The public is nervous. Calm their concerns by actively communicating the safety measures you have in place. From your eCommerce and mobile app, through your delivery updates, offer customers regular reassurance.

Give your customers the option to select the delivery location that feels most comfortable to them, whether this is on a doorstep or a lobby.

Adding these safety messages and delivery rerouting options to your order confirmation emails, in-app push messages and SMS updates through Bringg is simple, and your customers will appreciate it.

The Bringg delivery tracking app offers a number of capabilities that can help reassure customers and ensure a smooth delivery. Customers can also call or message delivery drivers with their specific instructions directly from the app.

Some customers may request that orders be rescheduled, especially orders that require that drivers or technicians enter their home. Proactively remind customers that they have an upcoming delivery using email or SMS, and offer them the ability to reschedule. The delivery rescheduling flow is fully automated, requiring no additional dispatcher engagement and helps to increase delivery success rates.

Following each delivery, reinforce your commitment to safety by adapting your customer feedback app to ask customers about your safety measures and their delivery experience. Their feedback will help you understand what is working well, and what can be improved.

3. Fleet Efficiency and Flexibility

Growing demand for delivery will strain delivery and logistics resources. Third party delivery providers can help manage excess demand.

Dispatching to third party fleets without an integrated technical and operational solution can disrupt your operations. Our MultiFleet Dispatch has helped logistics providers, restaurants, grocers, retailers and healthcare providers extend their capacity without sacrificing delivery branding or quality.

It is also critical that you time every step in the delivery flow perfectly in order to utilize your resources to full capacity. Orders should be prepared for delivery just as drivers arrive to ensure operational efficiency. When enabled, Bringg’s Orchestration Engine automatically ensures this sync. The Delivery Prep Dashboard and Deliver From Store app offer great ways to manage your delivery sync between retail or warehouse operations and delivery operations.

4. Digital Record Keeping

In the unfortunate event that a staff member comes into contact with someone who may have COVID-19, digital records of every interaction can help healthcare professionals take action and maintain everyone’s safety.

5. Curbside and Drive Thru Safety

With the decline in retail shopping, curbside and drive thru pickup will continue to grow in popularity, particularly in grocery, retail and restaurants. With growing consumer demand, your operational capacity will be challenged.

There are a number of ways you can improve your customer experience and operational efficiency. Use the Quotes API to provide customers with reliable pickup time windows, or route them to the locations with lower demand. The Deliver From Store and Delivery Prep Apps are also great tools for tracking inbound customers, and timing preparation accordingly.

Just as with deliveries, staff managing these pickup orders should follow the guidance of healthcare professionals to maintain their own safety and the safety of your customers.

COVID-19 will drive substantial demand for delivery, particularly in the last mile. Make sure you are prepared to help your customers, your staff and your business.

Delivery safety article and permission to publish here provided by Raanan Cohen at bringg.com. Originally published on Supply Chain Game Changer on April 9, 2020.