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Research by Localz and YouGov revealed a shocking 71% of respondents felt physical and emotional disturbance around scheduled appointments. What is the emotional impact of delivery appointments and what do organisations need to be doing to bring their services into the new digital era?
As an increasingly time-poor society, we are always in a hurry and constantly multitasking - juggling our hectic work, home and social lives. This fast pace has had a dramatic effect on the way we get things done. If we wake up tomorrow to a crack in our car windscreen we need this to be fixed at a place and time that causes the least disruption to our daily life. This is driving the need for service providers to start delivering within our schedule.
Consumers can get what they want in a single swipe, they know what they want, where they want it and when. We refer to this as the Individual Economy (IConomy). The IConomy is where each of us expect to be digitally enabled to create our own demand patterns for services like deliveries. The IConomy isn't just driven by the demand for more convenience, our research has found that delivery services are actually having a negative impact on consumers’ emotional and mental well-being.
The ICurve Report: Understanding what IConomy consumers want
Our research has revealed that 71% of respondents feel physical and emotional disturbance around scheduled delivery appointments. We dug deeper to understand why something that is supposed to make people’s lives easier ends up causing so much anxiety. The answer is flexibility.
Impersonalized and inflexible deliveries which do not fit into a consumer’s routine, cause upset. 13% of consumers have had to cancel social plans due to an inflexible delivery time and 11% were so stressed in the lead up that they had a bad night’s sleep. A last-minute change of delivery time, or even on-the-day cancellation, has a profound ripple effect across consumers’ lives, leading to anxiety and stress. Consumers are being forced to alter their already packed calendars to accommodate such a simple thing as a package delivery.
Some of the consumers we surveyed were impacted financially. In modern households both parents work full time so by having to source alternative childcare or take a day of unpaid holiday for a service or parcel delivery seems outdated. Booking a delivery or service appointment should make our lives easier. Instead, it is rife with potential to make our lives harder. Emotional distress, financial set back, anxiety, loss of sleep and disrupted routines. These shouldn’t be in the picture when we talk about ‘availing a service’. With 1 in 4 of people in the UK experiencing mental health problems it is time to change the way we deliver services to UK consumers.
Relieving worry, stress and anxiety
Lack of choice and control is the main factor contributing to the stress and anxiety for today’s consumer. By adapting your current model you could relieve this stress and in turn create loyal customers.
Today’s consumers want:
- Flexibility - consumers want to be able to change the date, time and location so the service or parcel delivery can fit into their schedules.
- Transparency - 60% of respondents would feel less stressed if they could live track their delivery on an app or website.
- Direct Communication - 86% mentioned they would rather communicate directly with the delivery person and have the liberty to change the delivery day and date.
- Clarity - 75% of consumers want to know exactly when to expect their parcel. This is why the all day delivery slots need to be a thing of the past. We cannot expect people to sit indoors for an 8 hour window, we need to get more specific and in fact our survey revealed that the hours or 6pm - 8pm is the most preferred time slot.
Last mile communication experiences are crucial to customer satisfaction. Businesses who want to remain competitive and retain customers are using Localz to optimise their last mile experience.
