The Internet has been fantastic for modern businesses, especially for the ones who have products that need delivering to their customers. If you’re a business who ships items, you know how important it is to your customers that everything runs smoothly. However, it is almost inevitable that some problems will still occur throughout the delivery process from time to time. The good news is that it’s possible to avoid most of them.

1. THE WRONG PACKAGING

Using the correct packaging is the key to the safe and secure delivery of your goods. You obviously want to make sure your items arrive safely with your customer.

No matter who the customer is, they'll only be happy if their important delivery arrives in perfect condition. While it is important your consignment is handled safely to prevent damaged items, delivery problems can still occur if the packaging is not substantial enough.

You need to make sure that any packaging is done correctly. Packing items too tightly in a box can bend or distort the materials. On the other hand, if they are too loosely packaged they may move around and become damaged anyway.

You should leave around 2" of space between the item and the packaging – this will allow for just enough movement to protect it. For goods that are oddly shaped, packaging which is reinforced is an option.

2. INCORRECT GOODS

With a large number of products moving from businesses to customers, mistakes do happen.

Whatever the cause is, be it human or computer error, the customer doesn’t receive the delivery they were expecting, this is something that needs to be fixed to keep them happy. If an item is out of stock which is advertised and your website doesn’t reflect that, you can be sure there will be a problem when a customer “purchases” one of those items, expecting a quick delivery. You’ll have to refund the customer’s order as they’ll never actually receive it until you restock.

Whatever reason, the customer receives the wrong item on delivery, this means they'll have to return it for the right one. This can be costly and a ball ache for everyone involved.

3. DELIVERY DELAYS

Circumstances can arise which prevent a customer’s package delivery arriving on time. If you have any experience with delivering your products, you'll know that customers aren't happy when their delivery arrives later than they were expecting.

If the weather along the delivery route is bad, customers should not be surprised if there is a small delay. Of course, this reason isn’t always good enough for some customers who want the delivery to be made precisely on time, regardless of the bad weather conditions.

4. INCORRECT TRACKING NUMBER

Technology is great, but sometimes it does go wrong. If a tracking number is even one digit out, there could be issues with the delivery from start to finish.

This could lead to a delivery being delayed, or even lost.

Errors with a faulty tracking number are one of the problems that doesn’t always have an easily identifiable source. It could happen at any point in the process. It’s best to spot issues like these as soon as possible.

5. HUMAN ERROR

At the end of the day, we’re human, meaning even the best of us are prone to error every once in a while.

You or one of your employees might send out the wrong product to be delivered. The “wrong” product could mean anything from the wrong size, colour, or even unbeknown to the idiot in question, sending out already damaged items.

Training your employees on a regular basis will help keep them focused and on task when getting your products out and to the customers.

It’s also possible that your customers make mistakes, too, though they might not wish to admit such a thing!

All it takes is for them to make one typing error when entering their delivery address. Perhaps they misunderstood something during the process, and simply end up complaining about something without realising it was their fault in the first place!

What’s important is to fix as many of those problems before they even occur.

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