Proactive Planning Can Protect Peak Season Performance
Peak season for your business may be right around the corner or several months away, but successful execution starts long before volumes begin to spike. While retailers, manufacturers and e-commerce companies often begin planning to scale their warehousing operations for peak season demand well in advance, the reality is the biggest risks to peak season performance often occur during the final mile.
As volumes increase, companies face added pressure to deliver time-sensitive shipments to homes and businesses. When large, bulky shipments are in the mix, these pressures become even greater due to the complexities with this commodity type that increasingly require installation, assembly and haul-away services. With transportation costs continuing to increase, businesses that plan ahead to secure final mile capacity and delivery support will be better positioned to protect their supply chain performance and ensure customer satisfaction during peak season.
Peak Season Challenges in the Final Mile
Scaling for peak season demand presents a number of challenges for shippers that require careful resource planning and allocation to properly mitigate risk. Reduced capacity and overextended delivery and installation teams can result in delivery scheduling challenges, longer appointment windows and increased risk of service failures. Because customers have expectations for timely delivery — especially around the holidays — companies need to have their final mile partners established and ensure alignment and contingencies are in place to ensure products arrive on time.
Another significant peak season challenge involves capacity, which becomes much more competitive around the holidays as volumes spike during heavy shopping and promotional periods. With higher volumes of shipments, final mile home delivery networks can become constrained, resulting in limited availability of drivers and installation teams, increased delivery costs, longer lead times and reduced geographic coverage.
Customer expectations are also highest during the holiday season, as they expect accurate delivery dates, real-time updates, on-time arrival and professional delivery teams for all of their shipments, and any delays can quickly turn a positive purchase into a negative experience. The impressions that consumers have of brands’ performance around the holidays often become a lasting reflection of the brand and impact whether they return for future purchases. A strong supply chain can completely fail if the delivery experience falls short, so ensuring a positive final mile experience is critical in order to secure all of the necessary capacity and resources before demand begins to spike.
Peak Season Checklist
To prevent peak season challenges from damaging the final mile experience, companies can take a number of steps now to ensure their supply chains are braced against potential disruptions before the busiest time of year.
✅ Accurate delivery forecasting: Review historical trends against data for the current year to ensure plenty of product availability before order volumes increase.
✅ Capacity planning: Identifying which markets account for the highest delivery volumes can help when optimizing delivery routes, ensuring driver availability and planning to meet equipment requirements for peak season deliveries.
✅ Communication strategies: Prior to the holidays, it’s important to establish clear customer communication around appointment scheduling, delivery notifications, exception management processes, etc. By providing detailed information upfront, companies can reduce the risk of disappointed customers and ensure they manage expectations from the start.
✅ Reverse logistics preparation: Instances of customers making returns and exchanges increase during peak season, which means that companies need to plan for additional resources to accommodate higher return volumes. This helps to ensure they are prepared for higher demand while also meeting customer expectations for rapid turnarounds.
✅ Real-time tracking: Preparing the proper tech stack to provide real-time tracking, status updates, proactive communication and customer service readiness can help to prevent customer disappointment and alleviate elevated demand on customer service teams when call volumes increase.
Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late
The freight market is already experiencing elevated volumes, capacity shortages and increased rates as the industry shifts, and peak season planning should begin now to make sure companies are prepared for what lies ahead. At NXTPoint Logistics, we take a People-Powered, Customer-Driven approach to the final mile, with scalable delivery capacity, expanded market coverage, flexible routing solutions, white glove delivery, value-added services, real-time visibility and proactive communication to meet our customers’ needs.
Our final mile services include:
- White glove, room-of-choice, threshold and to-the-door services
- Setup and installation
- Basic and complex assembly
- Haul-away of old items
- Quality-control inspections prior to delivery
- Fit surveys to ensure successful delivery on the first attempt
- Photo audits to ensure compliance with delivery requirements
- Exception management for quick issue resolution
- Reverse logistics, including environmentally friendly disposal, repackaging or storage
- Deluxing services, including unpackaging, inspection, cleaning, repairs and protective wrapping to minimize returns
For a successful peak season, planning should begin now. By working with the right final mile home delivery partner, companies can prevent unnecessary stress and operational challenges by establishing trusted processes that are built to scale with shifting demand.
NXTPoint Logistics specializes in creating customized final mile home delivery solutions that are tailored to each company’s unique needs. To begin peak season-proofing your supply chain, click here to consult our experts.
