June 29 2018

Driving Up Net Promoter Scores – Why timing is everything

Customer expectations are evolving at a rapid pace and it can be challenging to stay ahead of them. If you don’t know what makes for a truly satisfying customer experience, you can’t deliver it and your Net Promoter Score will suffer as a result.

The customer satisfaction research programme we’ve developed at Yodel is designed to address this challenge. The insight it’s providing, thanks to the ongoing collection and analysis of customer feedback means we now understand exactly what we can influence, along with partner retailers to improve the customer experience and Net Promoter Scores.

By analysing more than 5 million customer reviews, we established our ‘4 Whats’ formula for customer satisfaction. Focusing on the 4 elements of delivery that have the biggest impact on overall satisfaction has led us to bring in service enhancements and product innovations that boost NPS.

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

If we explore each influencer in detail, we uncover a lot of useful information. So, while we’d never under-estimate the importance of delivering items on time, for instance, our data scrutiny has revealed just how big an impact being ‘on time’ has on net promoter scores.

What being On Time means for NPS..

Analysis of customer feedback gathered by our award-winning Have Your Say platform shows that when customers are satisfied with all ‘4 Whats’, the average NPS score is +88.  However, if the customer is dissatisfied with the On Time element, but satisfied with the other 3, average NPS is -64

It’s a major discrepancy and one we wanted to understand, so we took a deep dive of our data to find out what drives these scores and discovered some very interesting things. For example, we’ve established that, when is comes to being on time, NPS for next-day deliveries will generally be lower, as there is less margin for error, and customers will often have paid a premium for the service.

But our biggest breakthrough has been the discovery that satisfaction with each of the 4 Whats can be influenced by both what the retailer and Yodel does.

Here’s what retailers can do to boost On Time satisfaction:

•         Set the right delivery expectation at checkout; customers want you to be clear about the expected delivery date and any exceptions, is there a cut off time for orders that customers need to be made aware of, for instance?
•         Use the right service to deliver on your promises. For a 2-3 day delivery promise, a 48hr service achieves higher NPS scores than 72hr as it allows some flexibility for both the retailer and the carrier
•         Pick and pack items efficiently and get them to their delivery partner in a timely manner
•         Ensure that the label on the delivery item is correct and legible
•         Support efficient prioritisation of items by segregating parcels, where there is a mix of services on a trailer, so that the delivery partner can prioritise the 24hr traffic

And here’s what Yodel can do:

•         Deliver against service level agreements - satisfaction with On Time is very closely correlated with Attempted On Time service performance.
•         Whenever possible, deliver items into the customer’s hands; we’ve found that satisfaction with On Time is 15% lower for items left in a safe place or with a neighbour than for those that are delivered or posted.
•         If items are left in a safe place or with a neighbour, ensure that the correct carding and scanning processes are followed so that the customer knows exactly where their parcel is.

We know that customers want their items to be delivered on time. But there’s more to it than that. Our analysis has been able to pinpoint exactly what being ‘On Time’ means to customers and how we can enhance their delivery experience. Working closely with partner retailers, we’re now using this insight to strengthen customer satisfaction, create highly-responsive delivery solutions and achieve standard-setting Net Promoter Scores.