Are you sceptical about the benefits of delivering an exceptional customer experience, especially in ecommerce and logistics? The way a package arrives at a customer’s doorstep can significantly impact their perception of a brand.
At Sorted, we believe in a customer-first approach to enhance the delivery experience by ensuring dependability, efficiency and satisfaction. Let’s look at how our vision and strategies are developed to achieve these goals.
Understanding customer expectations
Customers today expect more than just on-time deliveries; they want transparency, flexibility and proactive communication. According to a Deloitte Digital report (Oct 2023), B2B buyers are “34% more likely to do business with companies that focus on customer experience”, emphasising the importance of a consistent and personalised experience. This trend isn’t limited to B2B. B2C customers have similar expectations.
To meet these higher expectations, businesses must constantly adapt and refine their strategies to ensure that they not only keep their promises, but outperform them. This evolution is driven by a commitment to integrating cutting-edge technologies, fostering seamless interactions, and developing tailored solutions that meet the unique needs of each customer. Our vision roadmap is consistent with this mandate, outlining a clear path forward for providing exceptional service experiences.
We recently introduced regular readers to our vision roadmap, and we’ve included a link to our informative infographic at the bottom of this article. Our roadmap for 2024 and beyond focuses on strengthening our core capabilities and introducing innovations to meet our customers’ evolving needs. Here’s how we intend to enhance the delivery experience:
A single track engine
With a single track engine approach, we are unifying our tracking processes for both Ship and Track products. This consolidation aims to provide a seamless experience, allowing customers to track their deliveries from start to finish.
“At the moment, even though tracking is fundamentally core to both Ship and Track, we do it in completely different ways,” Sorted Product Director Paul Hill explains. “It’s similar to selling burgers but with two methods of producing those burgers. A single track engine allows for only one method of operation. There should be a single engine that serves all of our features, streamlining the way we optimise it and care for it, making things easier for us and making it better, more scalable and more reliable for users.”
CIS rollout
Speed and efficiency in carrier integration are critical. Our Carrier Integration System (CIS) is designed to reduce integration time and costs, allowing our customers to switch or add carriers with minimal disruption.
Engineering excellence
We are dedicated to engineering excellence by establishing high standards and ensuring that each solution we provide is dependable and user-friendly. This focus lowers the cost of ownership while increasing user satisfaction.
“The way we engineer our products is excellent,” says Paul. “It’s the most optimised, cost-efficient, reliable and best that it can be. Actually, we can generate new product ideas quickly. It’s almost like a support function of the engineering capabilities to say, ‘Paul, think of some new cool things for us to do because we’re ready to build them and get them out to market’.”
We talked about being an engineering-led business in our vision roadmap introduction article: ‘A new horizon – Sorted’s vision roadmap for 2024 and beyond’.
Who benefits by being customer-focused?
Adopting a customer-centric approach to delivery management benefits a variety of stakeholders. Businesses can see increased efficiency and cost savings, while customers have a more seamless and satisfying experience. Here’s how Sorted’s customer-centric strategies have benefited our friends at Wincanton, Party Delights and musicMagpie:
Wincanton, a major British 3PL, worked with us to improve delivery management. Wincanton optimised its carrier management and post-purchase solutions using Sorted’s platform, resulting in a significantly improved customer experience. The collaboration enabled Wincanton to add value to rapidly expanding retailers by ensuring a smooth and efficient delivery process.
Party Delights used our Ship solution to reduce risk and ensure operational resilience, particularly during disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic. This integration enabled it to maintain high customer satisfaction by ensuring timely deliveries and reducing operational downtime.
musicMagpie struggled with high WISMO calls. By implementing our Track solution, we reduced these calls by 63%, increased brand control over the customer journey, and shortened customer query resolution times. This case demonstrates the effectiveness of automated tracking and branded communications in improving the delivery experience.
Key elements of customer-centric delivery
To truly improve the delivery experience, several key elements must be prioritised at all stages. These elements serve as the foundation for Sorted’s approach to providing a smooth and satisfying delivery experience.
A key component of our strategy is proactive communication. By automating tracking and post-purchase communications, we keep customers informed and engaged throughout the delivery cycle. This eliminates the need for them to contact customer service for updates, improving their overall experience while reducing operational strain on support teams.
Another important component is to offer dynamic delivery options at checkout. Personalised delivery options can significantly boost basket conversion and customer acquisition. Customers place a high value on the ability to choose delivery times and methods that work best for their schedules and preferences, making it an important factor in their purchasing decisions.
Operational agility is also an important part of our approach. Our systems are designed to adapt quickly to changes, giving high-growth retailers the flexibility they need to meet market demands. This agility ensures that customer satisfaction remains high, even in a fast-changing retail environment. Sorted’s focus on these key elements aims to deliver exceptional customer experiences rather than just packages.
Customer-centric innovations
At Sorted, we are constantly looking for opportunities to push ourselves. Having a vision roadmap for 2024 (and beyond) doesn’t preclude us from delivering innovative ways to improve the customer-centric delivery experience today. Here are some initiatives we have implemented:
- Branded communications. Customising email and SMS updates ensures that customers receive consistent and branded communication about their deliveries. This not only keeps them informed, it also builds brand loyalty.
- Real-time tracking. Our tracking solutions offer real-time updates on delivery status, allowing customers to easily track their orders. This transparency fosters trust and alleviates concerns about the delivery process.
- Flexible data integration. With tools like webhooks, we provide seamless data transfer to customers’ systems, ensuring they have all the information they require at their fingertips. This integration improves both operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
The Deloitte Digital report, which we mentioned earlier, emphasises the importance of breaking down silos between commercial functions to meet rising customer expectations. B2B companies (like us) that embrace customer centricity by integrating marketing, sales, commerce, service, product and pricing functions can provide consistent and personalised experiences that increase loyalty and revenue.
Our dedication to a customer-first approach remains unwavering. We want to set new delivery industry standards by focusing on engineering excellence, proactive communication and operational agility. Our vision roadmap focuses on providing exceptional experiences that leave a lasting impression, rather than simply delivering packages.
We invite you to join us on our journey of innovation and adaptation to our customers’ changing needs. Follow our blog for more insights and updates on our initiatives, and please contact us with any questions or feedback.