We’re on our way

In an increasingly competitive market, customers want more information on the parcels being delivered to them to help them plan their day.

We are continuing to innovate and develop our parcel services as we respond to customers’ demands. Our latest development is a four-hour Estimated Delivery Window feature on Royal Mail Tracked 24 and Royal Mail Tracked 48 parcels.

This lets customers know when their items are most likely to arrive. The feature is based on historic data and effectively tells customers when we usually deliver to them.

‘Providing greater certainty to customers on when their parcel is going to be delivered is really important, especially in the e-commerce market,’ said Nick Landon, managing director (Parcels).

‘Not only does it help receiving customers plan their day and improve satisfaction, it also drives the buying decisions of some of our biggest retail customers.’

Three pilots, which began in October 2017 in the north west of the country, proved we could accurately offer this service feature in the vast majority of cases and with minimal operational impact.

Around 13 million Estimated Delivery Windows have been published on Track and Trace up to this month.

Warrington mail processing unit manager Kenny Gibson said: ‘We gave a briefing to colleagues beforehand and the key message was  that we could keep doing what we already do well.

‘With all the competition out there, the more we can offer the customer, the better.’

Progress so far

• The first pilot began in October 2017 for a period of five weeks, operating in the north west region, with seven parcel-sending customers
• The second pilot began in January, beginning with the original seven pilot customers posting nationally and increasing to nine pilot customers by mid-February
• From 26 February, we enabled an additional 235 customers – this equated to roughly half of our Tracked volume
• The feature was made available on all Royal Mail Tracked 24 and all Royal Mail Tracked 48 parcels from 26 March.

What our customers get:

Home shopping customers who receive an email or SMS notification about their Tracked deliveries will be able to click on a link in their notification, which will show them the latest status of their parcel. Customers without notifications can use their parcel tracking reference number to check the Estimated Delivery Window on Track and Trace.

Natasha Waterson, carrier manager, BT Supply Chain, wholesale & ventures added: ‘The insight and feedback we got from our customers during the trial was positive so we are pleased that this has been rolled out nationally.’