Last-mile delivery is where your brand promise either earns or erodes trust. If the final mile delivery erodes trust, you pay for it twice: once in refunds and again in lost loyalty.
Let’s say there are two identical couches and two different deliveries.
Brand A promises to be at the delivery point between 8 a.m. and sometime. The crew arrives late and can’t fit the couch through the staircase, so they leave it in the lobby.
Brand B has a 2-hour delivery window and gives the customer a live ETA link. The crew checks access to the building ahead of time and brings the right tools. They place the couch in the right spot and take the packaging.
It’s the same product but a different experience. Guess who gets the five-star review and the second purchase?
ALSO READ: What is last mile delivery?
Why CEOs Should Care About Every Last-Mile Delivery
You wonder why the CEO should care about the brand’s delivery process. Here’s why: It has a direct financial impact.
- Last-mile delivery moves revenue. Accurate delivery windows raise checkout conversion and reduce calls from customers wanting to know where their delivery is.
- It protects the margin. When done correctly, there are fewer redeliveries and damages, which equals lower service cost.
- Final-mile delivery reduces risk. A flexible network with your fleet, partners, and pickup options keeps you trading even during difficulties, like strikes, storms, and peak season.
3 Things That Count The Most During The Delivery
The last mile looks complicated, but most wins come from simple moves. If you get these three things right, trust me, everything else gets easier.
1. Keep Your Last Mile Delivery Promise
Give customers delivery windows you can keep. An “8 a.m.–3 p.m.” promise followed by a 7 a.m. arrival is a miss. The customer won’t be ready.
The same goes for sandbagging: promise 5 to 7 business days and show up on day three, and you’ve still failed the first attempt.
Early without notice is just another kind of late. Set honest windows, stick to them, and update ETAs in real time.
2. Communicate With Your Customers Like A Human
Sending a tracking number isn’t communication. You need to give customers a live map and clear ETAs.
A simple “running 10 minutes late” text can change customer expectations. A short text, “running late due to the stormy weather,” can gain a lot of sympathy and understanding from a potentially agitated customer.
3. Design Your Product For The Doorstep
The last-mile delivery process is not just about the driver finding the customer; it’s beyond that. It includes a happy customer leaving a five-star review.
Check if there is access to the building, how big the crew must be, and what tools are needed.
Step-By-Step Guide To Fix Your Last Mile Delivery
No one wants to waste money, so here’s how you can plug the holes and ensure revenue is not leaking through your last-mile process.
Step 1: Assess How Much You Waste On Poor Last Mile Delivery Service
Ask yourself these three questions and write them down. Once you see the answer, you’ll be shocked to learn how much you are wasting.
- How many first-attempt failures do I have? Check how much money you spend monthly on missed deliveries, which must be redone at your own cost.
- How many items arrive at customers damaged? Replacing items, reshipping, and reviewing items cut into your margin. What’s your monthly expenditure on this?
- How many “Where is my order?” calls do you receive daily? This might sound obvious, but you spend a lot of time and money taking calls instead of doing actual work.
Step 2: Rate Your Last Mile Delivery Success
Now let’s rate your delivery success. This is a significant indicator of what kind of intervention you need.
ALSO READ: Want More 5-Star Reviews? 5 Ways To Fix Your Last Mile Delivery First
Ask yourself these questions.
- Did we keep our on-time promises this month? Did we arrive at the window we sold?
- Did we provide an accurate ETA, and did it match the live tracker link we sent?
- First-attempt success. How many of our deliveries did we complete the first time?
- Were some or any of the deliveries missing? Wrong items delivered or damaged?
- How many stops were delivered per hour? Were all my drivers productive?
The answers to these questions will give you a better idea of whether the last-mile delivery experience is working and whether money is being wasted.
This will determine whether you might need the following:
Step 3: The Next 30 Days Plan To Improve Your Delivery
You’ve seen where the money is leaking, where the gaps are, and what can potentially be done to improve the customer’s last-mile delivery experience.
But where do you start? The first 30 days will be crucial to fixing the problem.
Here’s what you could do:
Set a daily “late deliveries” cap. Pick a number and stick to it. Your target could be that out of the 200 deliveries per day, you don’t want to make more than 10 late deliveries. If you hit that cap, do a 5-minute check-in and fix the cause.
Give customers an estimated time of arrival and an option to reschedule.
The last one is managing a damage log book for two weeks. Log every damage cause and fix one root cause per day. It could be training, tools, or packaging.
Step 4: What To Stop Doing To Improve Last Mile Delivery
You should immediately stop doing the following if you want to see a difference in the last-mile delivery experience.
- Stop selling the fastest possible windows you can’t keep.
- Hiding behind generic emails when a delivery is late.
- Treating delivery as a cost center only. It’s your product in motion.
Software like live tracking, ETAs, route optimization, and proof of delivery can automate the process and help you manage your team seamlessly.
The bottom line is that the last mile is the loudest part of your brand. Make it reliable and watch what happens.
About the author
Mia is a multi-award-winning journalist. She has more than 14 years of experience in mainstream media. She's covered many historic moments that happened in Africa and internationally. She has a strong focus on human interest stories, to bring her readers and viewers closer to the topics at hand.
