Tips for peak season
Simple tips to help you sail through this peak season
This year, Team Global Express has geared for another huge peak season. We’re ready to partner with you as we work to support your business and give you and your customers outstanding experiences.
We’ve created a to-do list of simple tips to help you get on top of this peak season, navigate the unexpected, and take the stress out of the busiest time of year.
1. Plan and be flexible
What are your business goals this peak season? What are the expectations you’re setting up for your business and your customers? By being proactive by asking yourself these questions before the season begins, you’re giving yourself the playbook on how things for you and your customers will run.Building wiggle room into your plans and making them flexible will make sure that you can cater to any curveballs that may be thrown at you. Do you have enough staff for days where you expect more transactions? Do you have backup staff you can call on? If more orders come in than you expect, do you have access to enough stock and packaging to cater for them?
Speak to your logistics partner well in advance and work with them to understand how they can support you and ensure their delivery options and delivery times suit your needs and provide you and your customers with a seamless experience.
2. Set clear expectations
Be upfront and let them know if their delivery requirements can or can’t be fulfilled. It will help you both plan more effectively, and by setting clear expectations, you are more likely to bring your customers satisfaction by delivering on this expectation.Remember, the delivery time starts from the second they purchase their item to the time it’s delivered, so factor in the time it takes to package the product, organise pickup, and then the time it takes to be delivered. While some carriers offer same-day delivery, there are often cut-off times which means it won’t go until the next day – so make that clear to your customers.
3. Validate delivery addresses
People are busy. Whether they’re putting in an order during their lunch break or late at night when searching for presents for family and friends, without having software to validate addresses and postcodes, it can be easy for your customers to give incorrect or incomplete address details - and it happens more frequently than it should! If you don’t have address validation software in place, it’s a good idea to put in a friendly reminder through the purchase path to remind your customers to double-check the address they’ve entered. That one simple step could save you and your customers a lot of time chasing parcels.
4. Package your products correctly and label them clearly
Take the steps to understand how your items will be packaged and labelled to ensure that your products will remain undamaged and move seamlessly through the delivery network, straight to your customers. Packages can be handled manually, scanned through sortation systems, consolidated onto pallets, and loaded and unloaded using forklifts, and while every effort is made to protect your products, if they’re not packaged and labelled properly from the get-go you run the risk of having them be lost or damaged, with your customers potentially missing out on their items arriving when they were expecting them.
5. Choose a logistics partner that makes it easy to track parcels
It may seem like an obvious part of any logistics company to have easy tracking, but not all of them do! And with plenty of logistics companies using agents and multiple third parties to support their freight movements, this can make it tricky to track parcels and can also cause delays to your and your customers’ updates. Find a company that keeps your freight within their one network from beginning to end or minimises the use of agents. Our state-of-the-art technology gives you visibility and item level freight tracking (ILFT), as well as performance reports.6. Redeliveries
For re-delivery of consignments where a delivery has been attempted and could not be completed due to the receiver being unavailable, incorrect / insufficient consignment details or refusal by the receiver. This fee applies to every delivery attempt to the same address. If a new address is required, a new consignment note is required. This fee does not apply to customers who pick up from Team Global Express Collection Points. The current redelivery fee is $25.70 per consignment.Freight unable to be delivered because of ongoing issues with the receiver being unavailable or refusal by the receiver to accept a delivery may result in the consignments being returned to the sender after 7 working days and at the sender’s expense.
7. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Regular communication with your customers and your delivery partner is the key to your peak-time success and delivering outstanding customer experiences. Keeping your logistics partner up to date with any changes in your demand or supply and any events such as exclusive offers that you think will drive more traffic will ensure that they can accommodate your delivery requirements. And equally, notifying your customers of any changes to delivery times or stock limitations will also help you set realistic expectations and avoid any unnecessary disappointment. The more information you share, the better the experience you and your customers will have.
8. Have an easy returns process
While a seamless returns process will always be a key part of any eCommerce business and a huge part of customer satisfaction, it is essential to have it nailed down to a fine art during and after peak. With public holidays surrounding the tail end of peak and people booking leave to spend time with their family and friends, the backlog may be significant during January and February and beyond. Having a returns process that makes it easy for your customers to return items and for you to process them is key to riding out the peak season.