If you have delivered it before, you must have had a delivery exception, even if you didn’t know. Incidentally, a recent study revealed that around 62 percent of online shoppers have encountered delivery exceptions at some time. However, 78% of consumers expect the retailer to address the problems even if the failed delivery was the carrier’s fault. Moreover, 1 of 20 online orders results in a delivery exception. A feat that has a major influence on businesses but also customers.
A delivery exception happens when a shipment is stalled in transit for a period of time out of the blue due to circumstances such as extreme weather conditions, mixed addresses, customs delays, or proprietor-related issues. Most of these exceptions are quickly resolved. But if not, the problem leads to frustrated customers, extra shipping charges, and a bad brand image.
However, these exceptions are inevitable for e-commerce businesses, which must be actively managed; by watching shipments for delays, transmitting messages to customers detailing such delays and working hand in hand with carriers to address any issues. To minimize delivery exceptions, address verification tools can be implemented, flexible delivery options can be offered, and clear policies can be set. In this article, we’ll explore:
- What are the common causes of delivery exceptions and their effect on businesses?
- How to deal with delivery exceptions to keep the customer’s trust.
- Reduction of exceptions and improvement on total delivery efficiency.
Why Does Your Package Have a Delivery Exception?
A temporary delay in transit package is caused by a problem past delivery that couldn’t be anticipated. Most deliveries are on time, though, unfortunate as it may sound. There are times that deliveries can be interrupted due to some of these factors. These aren’t always signifiers of a package being late, but they do indicate that something affected its set journey.
There are few reasons that make a delivery to fail. Especially during the winter time, weather like heavy rain, snow and storms can turn into dangerous conditions for carriers that transport or deliver the packages. Delays may also occur due to addressing such issues as the incorrect, incomplete or hard-to-find destinations. International deliveries are also standard, and there is a common reason – extra paperwork or inspection may be necessary for a package to be cleared.
Damaged or lost labels may also prevent the carriers from correctly scanning and processing the package, among other factors. Even high shipping volumes may slow transit times, particularly during peak times. There is a problem in that the person is, in fact, unavailable, or the package needs a signature, but the carrier failed to deliver.
Virtually all carriers do their best to fix delivery exceptions relatively quickly. By tracking your delivery and remaining in the loop. You can successfully handle any issues, reduce any disruptions to delivery, and ensure that everything arrives on time.
What Happens When Your Package Has a Delivery Exception?
- Reduced Customer Satisfaction: But one of the reasons delivery services and e-commerce businesses give you your tracking number for your package(s) is to deliver exceptions. That transparency gives you a view into what’s happening after the delivery is in the delivery services hands. Even with the most reliable e-commerce order tracking there is a lot of what can happen to a package in transit but may not get documented. This is why customers are frustrated when delivery exceptions cause the delivery to be delayed or it rarely makes its way to them.
- Increased Churn Rate: Delivery exceptions occur to every business every day and, most of the time, are unpreventable; they cause customer frustration, which must be taken seriously. If a customer received a terrible delivery experience of you package that they ordered from you. If that, they may not order from you again (even if it is technically the carrier’s fault or Mother Nature’s and deemed “an act of God”).
- Damaged Brand Reputation: While e-commerce brands are not responsible for most reasons for delivery exceptions, some consumers may retaliate against them. Even if that will was rightfully theirs, such as entering an invalid or undeliverable address.
- Decrease in Revenue: Delivery exceptions such as delivery errors, and returns are costly. It might include the cost of re-delivering the order, possibly regarding inventory packaging and label costs.
- Waste of Resources: Not only will lost delivery and/or product costs accompany delivery exceptions. But you may lose marketing dollars and unrecoverable customer lifetime value (CLTV) from losing a customer to the missed delivery or product. Delivery exceptions also degrade WISMO (“Where is my order?”) type support enquiries, damaging customer support and wasting hours on delivery questions.
8 Common Causes of Delivery Exceptions
Although most online shoppers receive their packages on time, there will be delivery exceptions. Here are the typical culprits:
Customs Delays:
There are international deliveries with their challenges. More often than not packages get held up longer at customs than expected, which means the delivery date gets missed. This can go a long way in making the delivery process smoother by ensuring that you have the correct tariff codes at the SKU level.
Federal Holidays:
When a national holiday coincides with the transit time of a package, the package may be delivered late. If it is either in transit in the country of origin or in the country of destination. In the case of a federal holiday, delivery services won’t be operating. With a day off, it is not uncommon for delivery services to be further delayed. Since they would have to play catch-up after a difficult day of deliveries.
Weather Conditions:
The package will likely be delayed if the weather causing a delivery route to be unpassable is something natural, such as hurricane, tornado, wildfire, or flood. And these delays, which no one could ever anticipate, without which the project would certainly never begin, are referred to as acts of God and are usually only regional. Especially if you have multiple fulfillment centers. You can potentially ship the order from another location if it’s outside the area affected by the storm. Many will have contingency plans and the delivery will still be there wherever it can be delivered in the afflicted area.
Damaged or Missing Labels:
A package may be delayed if the delivery label is damaged and the delivery service cannot read the delivery address or scan the delivery barcode. If essential details or unscannable, an exception code will be generated. Likewise, the label carrying an incorrect address (such as undeliverable, unrecognized by delivery services, incomplete, etc.) can also get stuck in a delivery exception.
No One Was Home to Receive the Package:
However, buyers purchasing packages may notice that they may be delayed if the package requires a signature upon reception and no one was home when the package was delivered. Sometimes when a recipient is not available, then delivery attempt will be retried after a next day. Some delivery services offer free delivery management tools (and included in it is also the option customers give to the recipient to choose how, where, and when home deliveries can happen to fit their schedule).
Missing Documentation:
The wrong information being in the delivery services hands once the package is in their hands is one of the most preventable causes of delivery exceptions. It can be anything from an insufficient address to no address or even just missing or incorrect customs information.
Security or Regulatory Delays:
The threat to delivery services could be responsible for causing security and regulatory delays. Such as at Borders for international packages. They can be temporary and result into delivery exceptions.
Animal Interference:
It is rare for an animal to cause a delivery exception, whether that is a dog in an urban setting or a cow in a rural area getting into packages. Before they make it to the delivery behind closed doors or creating an issue for a delivery driver.
Why was Delivery Not Attempted?
If the delivery driver could not deliver successfully, that status will be marked as a ‘delivery not attempted’. Several factors can cause this. Reasons like an incorrect or missing address renders it impossible for the driver to reach the place where the recipient is located. Depending on the delivery address, the recipient might not be available to sign for a package that requires a signature. They might be unable to sign for a package for other reasons. Such as inaccessible due to a gate, locked building, or other access restrictions.
In other settings, the driver can’t arrive at the delivery point within the expected time. This may happen due to weather conditions, traffic delays or vehicle problems. The delivery driver may appear too fast and run out of time on their route. Thus rescheduling for the following day. However, the service often provides more context and in any case. It’s always best to check the tracking details for specific information about why delivery was not attempted. The delivery service’s customer support can also come in contact to find out why the canceled order, and redelivery can also be arranged.
Speedster Helps Your Business Deliveries
Delivery exceptions can be frustrating for businesses and customers. Knowing the common causes and taking prevention measures will ensure timely and smooth deliveries. Working with a trustworthy delivery service such as Speedster helps reduce the number of exceptions in your delivery operations and increase your effectiveness.
Speedster is a delivery app in California which provides a plethora of delivery solutions that perfectly fit your processes. Speedster gives you the flexibility and control of multiple location deliveries, manage requests simultaneously, and schedules future delivery. Configuration is our first priority regarding safe and secure handling of your packages. We guarantee that they come to their destination in excellent condition. At Speedster, we help you focus on your core business as we handle your deliveries most efficiently and professionally. Today download the Speedster app to see what difference a delivery partner who can be relied upon can make.
FAQs
Should I be worried about a delivery exception?
Not necessarily. A delivery exception is an unexpected delay, but most carriers have a way of solving the issue quickly. By tracking your package, you will be able to keep yourself up to date.
How long can a delivery exception take?
The allotted time depends on the reason behind the bed wetting. Some minor issues, like weather delays or missed deliveries, might be rectified within a day. Whereas other customs or address problems may require longer.
What happens to packages that Cannot be delivered?
If a package cannot be delivered, the carrier may try to redeliver it, hold it for pickup, or return it to the sender. Some services also let recipients change the address or schedule a new delivery.
