What should South Africans know, and expect, when a parcel arrives at their door?
Quiet malls and empty restaurants have sounded the death knell for many small businesses. However, by contrast, online retail has exploded to service South Africans staying indoors, seeing Black Friday e-commerce volumes, increased business-to-business courier services, and international logistics to meet the surge in demand. “We have seen our eCommerce revenue more than double. But that comes with responsibility – not just to ensure the parcel arrives safely, and on time – but by ensuring the added safeguards to protect the lives of both our drivers and our customers,” explains Hilton Eachus, Chief Customer Officer at DPD Laser t/a Dawn Wing.
With more than 10 000 daily cases of COVID-19 in South Africa, what should South Africans know, and expect, when a parcel arrives at their door?
He adds, “Those that get up every day and provide frontline services to the public are heroes, and each party in any transactional environment needs to respect the space and distance of the other, whether that be at the supermarket till, or at your front gate receiving a parcel. While we need to respect social distancing, we also need to consider ‘transactional distancing’ with regard to the personal space of those we are serving, whether that be a delivery driver, a petrol pump attendant or a cashier. Many people squirm when they have to touch the credit card machine knowing how many people have touched it before them. With technology that doesn’t have to be the case,” adds Eachus.
He outlines a list of measures that South Africans should know when receiving a parcel, not only from a COVID-19 perspective, but also from a security perspective. First and foremost, any quality parcel express company should send you a photo of the driver and the registration plates of the vehicle. “This is how Uber has always operated, and Dawn Wing employs this type of technology as critical to personal, business and home safety, in this strange new normal we find ourselves in,” he adds.
Dawn Wing proposed seven key health and safety measures to consider:
1. The delivery driver must be wearing a mask and sanitise their hands on arrival
2. The driver should place the parcel at your doorstep and stand two metres back
3. The driver will ask the recipient their name and record it on a handheld device, and, with permission, take a photo of the premises
4. The driver will then ask the recipient if they can send a link to sign for the parcel, and confirms the mobile number
5. The recipient receives a link on his/her phone and clicks on it, which opens a screen and displays three options:
- Sign on the customer’s own screen
- A ‘quick tap’ to confirm receipt of the parcel
- Or the option to query the delivery, which will trigger a call from a call centre to resolve the matter
6. The recipient clicks ‘submit’ on their screen
7. The driver receives a confirmation and departs
“We are taking this time to share this information because it can be overlooked. Many forget that when ecommerce booms, so does the express parcel industry – we are the ones fulfilling the logistics. Buying online still means receiving the parcel. This brings into the spotlight the education of consumers, in terms of quality assurance, and the highest levels of attention to hygiene and safety. Right now, people just want to know their parcel will arrive safely, on time, through a trusted supplier,” he says.
The industry was thrust into the spotlight two weeks ago after a jogger found hundreds of COVID-19 test kits on the N2 in the Eastern Cape while exercising, and a courier company, Gibela Trade and Invest, was found to be negligent for putting lives at risk. National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) Chief Executive, Dr Kamy Chetty, said the pathology institution terminated their services, adding, “The loss of the specimens amounts to a violation of the patient’s rights to protection of their medical records, privacy and confidentiality and the right to dignity. It potentially places the lives of those patients and their families at risk as well as those members of the public that may have come into contact with any positive specimens.”
“Consistency and reliability are the foundations of good express parcels business. While Dawn Wing stand out due to our world-class technology infrastructure, it still comes down to the intelligence and commitment of your team to do the basics right and deliver on every promise. That’s where we place a significant amount of our time and energy – in our people,”Eachus concludes.
More Info on Don’t Catch COVID-19 From Your Courier here: http://www.dawnwing.co.za
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