June 06 2018

Informed Customers are happy customers - Driving up Net Promoter Scores

Letting customers know what’s happening as their purchases progress through the delivery journey is essential in any online retail transaction. It provides reassurance, heightens convenience and removes the need for customers to chase information up.

At Yodel, we’re focused on providing excellent customer communications. But how do we know what best practice looks like when it comes to keeping customers informed?

Our insight comes from years of customer feedback research, gathered via our award-winning Have Your Say programme. By collating and analysing more than 5 million customer reviews, we’ve been able to ascertain exactly what goes to make a satisfied customer. Importantly, our in-depth research has helped us to establish we can do, along with partner retailers to improve the customer experience and strengthen Net Promoter Scores.

We’ve discovered the four elements of delivery that have the biggest impact on overall customer satisfaction. We call them the ‘4 Whats’ and keeping customers informed is one of them. 

Summed up simply, the 4 Whats are:

•              Delivering the parcel on time
•              Delivering the parcel in a good condition
•              Delivering the parcel with a good attitude
•              Keeping the customer informed about their delivery

What keeping customers informed means for NPS

If we explore each influencer in detail, we uncover a lot of useful information and our data scrutiny has revealed just how big an impact keeping customers informed has on Net Promoter Scores.

We’ve discovered that, when customers are satisfied with all ‘4 Whats’, the average NPS is +88.  However, if the customer is dissatisfied with the ‘informed’ element but satisfied with the other 3, average NPS is -41.

Clearly, by improving communications processes, retailers can do a lot to influence the overall NPS score in a positive manner. We wanted to understand more about this, so we undertook a deeper dive of customer attitudes and uncovered a roadmap for success – ways in which Yodel and retailers could boost satisfaction under in each of the 4 What categories.

Here’s what retailers can do to boost customer satisfaction with information processes:

•         Optimise point of purchase information gathering. Research tells us that customers prefer to receive notifications via both phone and e-mail, so collect email addresses and mobile numbers at checkout by making both fields mandatory.  Letting customers know how their data will be used (i.e. to provide delivery updates) will increase the likelihood of them providing a mobile number.
•         Next, ensure the data collected is passed to the delivery carrier in the Pre-Advice Notification.
•         Always provide customers with a tracking link at the point of dispatch, so they can monitor the progress of their parcel.
•         If the carrier informs of any delays, as the result of a traffic accident or bad weather, for example, make sure this information is proactively passed on to the customer.
•         Use a delivery window service to provide customers with a narrower time slot so they don’t need to be tied to the house all day. For instance, our premium service, Xpect, offers next day, two day or pre-12pm delivery, with a two-hour window communicated to the customer on the morning of delivery and is also our highest rated service in terms of customer satisfaction and NPS. Our Xpect Returns service offers home collection within a two-hour window.

And here’s what Yodel can do:

•         Keep the retailer informed of any delays.
•         Send email and SMS alerts, advising customers when their parcel is out for delivery, when it has been delivered, or when it has been left in a safe place or with a neighbour.
•         Follow the correct scanning processes for accurate tracking and messaging.
•         Ensure that a legible card is left, if the parcel has been left in a safe place, with a neighbour, or if delivery needs to be reattempted.
•         Provide multiple contact channels to make it easy for the customer to get in touch if they have a query.

This valuable insight has already driven a series of service enhancements and product innovations at Yodel. As our research has shown just how much communication impacts the customer experience, we have built in a number of key message touchpoints to ensure customers are kept in the loop throughout the delivery process. These include our 'Out for Delivery Today' and the 'Parcel has been Delivered' notifications. Customers have responded well to these along with our 'Delivered to Safe Place' and 'Delivered to Neighbour' SMS and email notifications.

Additional features on our tracking website, including a courier telephone number, a parcel countdown, and the option to nominate a Safe Place location all help to ensure customers are kept informed and have easy access communications channels available at all times.

We’re now working in collaboration with retailers to further understand how else we can improve the customer experience through information and communication. With a huge amount of customer feedback to tap into, we’re continuing to unlock the secrets of customer satisfaction, so that Yodel and retailers can offer the best experience possible and secure Net Promoter Scores to be proud of.