Last mile delivery is the final step in a product’s journey to the customer, and while it typically only involves short travel distances, it also tends to be the step in a company’s supply chain that presents the most challenges.
Creating a fully optimized process for getting big and bulky products from a local warehouse or distribution center to your customers’ doorsteps isn’t always simple. However, it’s a major key to both minimizing delivery costs and ensuring a great customer experience. In this article, we’ll go over some of the top last mile delivery challenges that companies face as well as the solutions that companies can use to overcome them.
Top last mile delivery challenges
From avoiding late deliveries to dealing with poor delivery visibility, there are a lot of challenges that can arise during the final leg of a product’s journey. Here are six of the top last mile delivery challenges that companies face and the innovative solutions you can use to solve them.
The benefits of hyperlocal delivery
For distributors and retailers, the hyperlocal delivery model offers a lot of benefits. We’ve already touched on some of these benefits, but here’s the full list of why retailers should consider leveraging hyperlocal delivery:
1. Late deliveries
Customers don’t like it when their products aren’t delivered on time. This is now more true than ever before, thanks to rising customer expectations regarding delivery times. Today’s customers expect to get their products fast (same-day and next-day delivery are now the standard) and have them show up within the provided delivery window. If you fail to meet these expectations, you risk driving customers to your competitors.
Unfortunately, late deliveries are a common issue, and it’s even more common when shipping big and bulky items. In fact, only 40% of big and bulky shipments are actually delivered on time.
The best solution to avoiding late deliveries when completing last mile transport is to partner with a carrier that’s dedicated to big and bulky delivery and has a proven delivery network. When choosing a carrier, be sure to consider performance metrics, specifically on-time delivery rate, so you can evaluate how successful the carrier is at avoiding late deliveries.
2. Rescheduled deliveries
When deliveries for big and bulky items have to be rescheduled, it creates a lot of issues. For one, a rescheduled delivery is no different in the eyes of a customer than a late delivery; either way, they aren’t getting their product when they expect to. Along with harming the customer experience and eroding customer trust, having to reschedule deliveries can create a lot of operational complexities and increase delivery costs.
Once again, the impact of this problem is exacerbated when talking about big and bulky deliveries, given that more than 50% of these deliveries have to be rescheduled. To solve the challenge of rescheduled deliveries, it’s important to partner with a carrier that has all the tools in place to avoid them. For example, an end-to-end technology platform can help carriers provide real-time visibility and optimize delivery routes to ensure products are delivered on time. Choosing a carrier that offers convenient delivery windows and live customer support will also help eliminate the need to reschedule.
3. Damaged goods
The only thing worse than a product arriving late is one that arrives damaged. If you want to frustrate your customers and erode their trust, that’s one of the fastest ways to do it. Big and bulky products are challenging to transport, which means that they tend to be damaged at higher rates; about 15-20% of all big and bulky deliveries arrive damaged. And since “big and bulky” tends to go hand-in-hand with “expensive”, the bottom line cost of damaged goods can quickly add up.
Partnering with a carrier that employs certified delivery professionals who know how to handle big and bulky products with care is the first step to avoiding damaged goods. Advanced technology can sometimes help solve this last mile challenge as well. For example, AI-powered pictorial intelligence that analyzes verification photos at every delivery phase allows carriers to verify the condition of an order throughout its journey, creating both visibility and accountability. Lastly, be sure to choose a carrier that takes ownership of the claims process so that your company will be reimbursed if and when issues do arise.
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4. Scalability
Scaling last mile delivery can often be a challenge, especially for companies with a large geographical footprint. Historically, many last mile carriers have only offered coverage for a single market, which forced national companies to utilize dozens of different carriers in order to cover all the markets they serve. As you can probably imagine, this creates a lot of process inconsistencies and complexities compared to working with a single carrier.
Today, however, the key to solving this challenge is simple: partner with a national carrier who covers all the markets you serve and is capable of scaling up and down based on your needs. While this wasn’t always an option, national last mile carriers like Bungii are helping solve the scalability challenges of last mile delivery. Along with allowing you to enter new markets without having to work with additional carriers, partnering with a carrier that offers highly scalable services also means you can easily scale your operations based on seasonal demand.
5. Limited service options
Many last mile carriers offer limited service options when it comes to delivering big and bulky items. Curbside delivery is the default, and, in many cases, it’s the only option a carrier will offer. Curbside delivery often works fine for things like lumber or lawn and garden deliveries, but most customers don’t want their goods left out in the elements.
If you are delivering products where curbside delivery is not ideal, it’s important to choose a carrier that offers multiple service levels. At Bungii, for example, our service offerings range from threshold to assembly, which allows our clients to choose the right service level for their business while offering their customers delivery upgrades like white glove and assembly. Partnering with a carrier that offers a range of service options like this gives you the flexibility to tailor delivery services to each customer and product to ensure that every delivery ends with a great customer experience.
6. Delivery visibility
Real-time visibility is the standard these days, and it’s what customers have come to expect. Gone are the days of eight-hour delivery windows being acceptable in the eyes of customers; today, customers want to know exactly where their product is located and when it will arrive.
The good news, though, is that technology is making it a lot easier to offer this level of visibility. With a tech-driven delivery platform like Bungii, your customers will receive real-time delivery notifications, and your team will have end-to-end visibility. including confirmation photos from both the pickup and delivery locations and live route tracking. This real-time visibility not only helps companies meet customer expectations but also helps them avoid delivery issues by proactively identifying and addressing them.
Conclusion
Last mile delivery can present some significant challenges for companies delivering big and bulky products. Thankfully, all of these challenges can be overcome when you partner with the right last mile carrier.
At Bungii, we specialize in delivering big and bulky products and offer a delivery network that covers more than 80 cities across the country. Through a combination of certified delivery professionals, advanced technological solutions, and extensive last mile delivery experience, we provide a delivery process that helps companies keep delivery costs low and customer satisfaction high.
Contact us today to learn more about how Bungii can help your company overcome last mile delivery challenges!
