World Trade - March 2009 - (Page 47) Knowledge is power The same holds true of companies that are willing to invest in true end-to-end shipment visibility. At the moment, many retailers track shipments only until the time they’re loaded onto a delivery truck, leaving a 50- to 100mile, multi-hour blind spot while a product makes its way to a customer for delivery. This may be fine if all deliveries on a truck happen like clockwork. However, it can pose an immediate problem if a truck winds up being delayed and a customer calls looking for an explanation or revised ETA. By committing to a higher level of lastmile connectivity, companies can save their employees a considerable amount of troubleshooting time and credibility. Help the customer get things right There is much to be gained in the area of customer education, too. In a traditional distribution scenario, where one business is delivering to another, both parties are highly aware that a smooth hand-off is a two-way street, and recipients are often as delivery-savvy as shippers. By contrast, receiving shipments is usually not a common occurrence for consumers, which is why many fail to hold up their end of the last-mile delivery efficiency equation. They may, for example, neglect to reserve service elevators if they live in a high-rise; forget to measure things like doorways and hallways to make sure the item they’ve purchased can fit through; or engage in one of the most common lapses of all—failing to clear the delivery path of debris before the truck arrives. All of these oversights can either extend the length of a delivery stop—setting up a domino effect of late deliveries and disgruntled customers—or compromise a product delivery altogether. But thankfully, most can be nipped in the bud simply by supplying a detailed delivery brochure at the time of sale or providing similar directions via e-mail after a delivery is scheduled. Stop wasted effort Speaking of productive stop rate, no discussion of last-mile delivery inefficiency would be complete without a more thorough look at this critical industry metric. Loosely defined, a productive stop rate consists of the percentage of last-mile shipments that companies are able to deliver on their first try. It’s one of the primary yardsticks by which last-mile efficiency is measured, because redeliveries are some of the most costly—and wasteful—activities throughout the supply chain. And with a current average of just 90 percent, it’s safe to say shippers are missing the mark. Fortunately it’s possible to boost this figure by as much as 6 percent without breaking the bank. By increasing their rate of pre-delivery communications companies can create dramatic improvements in the percentage of customers who are at home and ready to receive their shipments the first time around. For example, if a company typically makes a single phone call phone call to customers in order to schedule a delivery appointment, it could easily migrate to a two-call advance notice or a pre-call/e-mail combination with just a small increase in cost. Ditto with companies that are already engaged in two forms of advance notification; the third time may be—as they say— the charm, especially if that third time takes place less than an hour before a truck is scheduled to arrive. In fact, this same-day communication has proven to be such an effective way to reduce not-at-homes that it’s become standard operating procedure throughout our national network. Anything but the last word One caveat before closing: These suggestions by no means represent the full spectrum of last-mile inefficiency. Nor are they meant to imply that companies should exclusively focus on last-mile to the exclusion of other global supply chain activities. In today’s hotly competitive business world, there’s no doubt that first efforts and first impressions count for a lot. However, so do last ones. Companies that recognize this could find themselves on the inside track to far greater savings and customer retention. And companies that don’t might just find themselves “lapped” by competitors. WT Will O’Shea is chief sales and marketing for 3PD, Inc. (www.3pd.com), one of North America’s largest focused providers of last-mile delivery and logistics. WWW.WORLDTRADEMAG.COM 47 http://www.3pd.com http://WWW.WORLDTRADEMAG.COM
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