How Can White Glove Service Increase Customer Loyalty?

Are your customers suffering from delivery anxiety?

Delivery Anxiety

Before answering this question, it is necessary to know what delivery anxiety is. Delivery anxiety is an anxiety that customers experience when they do not know when they will be receiving the order.

Well! There are chances for higher delivery anxiety when high-value items are fulfilled. How do you help your customers counter this likelihood of an increase in delivery anxiety while shipping these items? The answer lies in white glove services. 

What is white glove delivery service, and how businesses involved in it can increase customer loyalty?

White glove deliveries were conceptualized on the foundation of customer satisfaction. This kind of fulfillment deals with high-value items and aims to provide a stress-free delivery experience to customers. Some items for which white-glove deliveries are involved include electronic devices, medical equipment, furniture, and automotive parts.

There are three things for white-glove service businesses to ensure your customers are happy and loyal:

• Making drivers happy
• Serving customers in their preferred time slot
• Providing a branded tracking experience

Route optimization + Realistic ETA = Happy drivers = Happy customers

Can your drivers cover the shortest possible distance while making the maximum number of deliveries? 

This question is not just about efficiency!

When drivers set themselves to attain these targets, are they pushed to spend more time on the road? If it’s a firm “Yes,” your drivers are having a tough time out there. 

How do you eliminate this?

With realistic ETAs and route optimization, you can ensure drivers have enough time between each stop and enough time to complete their assigned deliveries. This increases the drivers’ likelihood of completing their tasks before the anticipated time and spending less time on the road, thereby improving their work-life balance. 

How do we optimize the routes and set realistic ETAs? With increasing complexities like limited vehicle capacities, customer-preferred time slots, and traffic congestion, it is necessary to use technology rather than working out manually on a spreadsheet. This is where the need to invest in route optimization software arises. 

A route optimization software considers all your business and operational constraints of white-glove deliveries and generates optimal route recommendations. These route recommendations help drivers make deliveries in the shortest possible distance, minimizing the time spent on the road. 

When drivers spend less time on the road, they spend more time with their loved ones. When drivers are happy, they become more productive and make customers happy. 

Serving customers on time and at their preferred time slots

Psychologists state that choices provide us with the desire to control and make us happy. And this applies to consumers too. 

So, the second most crucial aspect to winning your customers is serving them on time at their preferred time slot. Say, I give you two options. Which option would you pick if you were in the shoes of a customer? 

Option 1: Your orders would reach at 10:00 am

Option 2: Gives numerous choices

Customers prefer the second option as it gives multiple time slot options from which they can pick. These options give customers trust that the business values their time and preferences. 

Imagine your customer placing an order from your business to install a washing machine. She wants to reschedule the installation to 1:00 pm due to an emergency meeting in her office. You put your business in a spot of bother by not providing her the option to reschedule the order fulfillment. She loses the trust in your business, cancels the order, and moves on to a competitor who can choose and reschedule the time slots.  

But how can white glove delivery businesses provide these options? 

By investing in delivery-linked checkout from dispatch management software, your business can provide numerous time slot options to customers. Connecting these time slots to existing capacities makes it easier for your fleet managers to plan the delivery schedules and use fleets best. 

Providing a branded tracking experience

Last but not least, the critical component to increasing customer loyalty is the tracking experience. Today, customers need more than providing the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) of an order. Here's the list of what customers need in addition to ETA. 

Firstly, a customer needs a live tracking page that helps them monitor the order progress. Finally, you should send your customers timely notifications or alerts on orders. Beyond this, a customer needs to have a direct chat or call interaction with the delivery agent fulfilling the order. Most importantly, the customer must be able to provide special delivery instructions even at the last minute. 

Missing one from these can prove lethal for your white glove business. If a technician installing a refrigerator faces a delay or an exception, your business must inform customers through alert messages or calls. This helps customers to make decisions like rescheduling the order or canceling it. When this kind of tracking experience is missing, it frustrates your customers and makes them lose trust in your business. 

Last-mile logistics solution: Key to improving customer loyalty

No business wants or loves to induce anxiety in its customers. But the absence of real-time fleet tracking, automated & transparent communication, multiple time slots, and rescheduling options can induce it. And the best way to eliminate that stress in your customers to make them happy is by investing in a last-mile logistics solution.

A last-mile logistics solution is a tool that helps businesses plan, optimize and manage their white-glove delivery services. Its white-labeled tracking provides the branded tracking experience for your business with customized shipping labels. Its delivery-linked checkout and route optimization features enable your business to ensure deliveries take place at the preferred time of customers, and provide them with visibility of their order status on a tracking page from the moment they checkout.