Delivering customers safely during the crisis

Being able to deliver customers safely is an imperative at this time. Returning to purchasing standards, delivery is already a normal option for customers. With the crisis and despite the deconfining, consumption habits are not picking up at the rate before March. Reluctance to get out of vulnerable people, collective conscience, or just a taste for remote shopping, the reasons for setting up delivery are multiple. In this sense, offering to deliver customers as soon as possible is crucial to cope with and maintain its economic activity.

This delivery, however, requires strict adherence to government hygiene guidelines. Thus, respecting the “barrier gestures”, physical distance, limiting one’s movements also gradually falls within the norm. All necessary measures should therefore be put in place to ensure that deliveries can be made safely.

Why and how to set up delivery for your business

Introducing a delivery system in your business is not just a short-term solution to respond to current emergencies. In reality, no one can say if and when habits can resume as before. Beyond this, offering to deliver your customers is also an excellent business case. Indeed, proposed by the biggest brands as a standard for many years now, delivery is a service to which customers are widely accustomed. It is highly appreciated and in demand, so that a potential customer can forgo buying from a company that does not offer to deliver it.

In recent weeks, particularly affected by the closure of outlets, many convenience stores have suffered from not being equipped to deliver. However, setting up a delivery service is not necessarily laborious or expensive. Orders can be placed over the phone, via the company’s website, or through marketplaces. In the latter case, it is even the marketplace that handles contracts with delivery providers.

Delivery is not the only alternative to in-store sales. In reality, merchants can also plan to set up a click and collect system. In this context, the customer orders, and picks it up in the shop when it is ready. By adding an appointment system to manage flows, this allows for a safe service.

Solutions to deliver customers safely

To make deliveries securely, different solutions are possible. They allow to deliver all types of products to suit all the needs of companies. Delivery of small parcels, delivery of heavy parts, delivery of fresh produce… This service can be managed in-house by the company, or by external providers.

The Post Office, for example, reopens its services 6 days a week. It can therefore once again ensure the carrying of medicines and meals, delivery for small merchants and convenience stores and the delivery of local products. In addition, it adapts its offer to meet the constraints of the crisis. For example, it proposes the collection of mail at home for vulnerable audiences.

For their part, restaurants can count on apps such as Uber Eat or Deliveroo to continue to delight their customers. The couriers, on the front line because of repeated human contact, therefore have a serious role to play in the fight against the spread of the virus. During this period, this type of application even opened its services to other types of retailers, such as supermarkets, or local producers for basket delivery.

In this vein, all retailers have noticed a very strong increase in orders at the Drive. In order to maintain the steady pace, some brands, such as Monoprix, have adapted. The brand now uses The English technology Ocado in the Isle of France. This innovation makes it possible to prepare orders in record time. Thus, the brand can deliver up to 100,000 orders in 7 days. This logistical progress is also in line with the innovations of Casino, the parent company,revealed at the beginning of the year.

Hygiene measures and barrier gestures for delivery

Of course, to deliver customers safely, government action has been taken. Whether it’s for order preparers in logistics centers, delivery drivers, or even customers receiving orders, barrier gestures are to be adopted.

Thus, equipment dedicated to the fight against the Covid-19 is available. Professionals equip themselves with visors, masks, disinfectant wipes, antibacterial gel…

Logistics locations and warehouses hosting a lot of flows of people and goods, precautionary measures are paramount. As a result, crews must submit to barrier gestures, wearing adequate equipment, and taking temperature. If in doubt, the state prohibits going to the workplace.

For delivery drivers, sanitary measures are also in place. As a result, deliveries to homes are no longer possible. The delivery drivers preferably drop the parcel in the mailbox, or at worst at the door. He is instructed to step back only at least one metre while making sure the package is received properly. Signed acknowledgments are prohibited to avoid contact. To facilitate this logistics, some providers even pre-establish appointments for delivery. In this way, they make sure that the client is present at his home. He is then able to receive his parcel at the desired time. A habit that it would seem good to keep afterwards …

Some companies also clean and disinfect delivery vehicles.

On the customer side, it is recommended to get rid of the package as soon as possible and that it washes its hands thoroughly. Common sense instructions, in line with the recommended health precautions since the beginning of the crisis.

Abonnez-vous à la Newsletter