Find out what is order accuracy, the benefits of tracking it, and how to improve your order accuracy with actionable tips and techniques.
This is a SUPER detailed guide on how to increase the order accuracy of your delivery.
If you want to:
Raise customer loyalty.
Get more positive reviews.
Generate more sales.
Then you’ll love the strategies we outline in this article.
Let’s dive right in.
ON THIS PAGE:
Order accuracy (or perfect order measurement) is a key performance indicator (KPI) in delivery logistics. It represents the percentage of completed orders without errors when compared to the total number of order requests.
The number of failed deliveries, returns, mistaken orders, or damaged items all affects how high or low your order accuracy percentage will be.
Whenever you deliver the exact item at the right date, time, and location based on the order request, your delivery’s order accuracy gets higher.
Every time you encounter failed deliveries, returns, mistaken orders, or damaged shipments, it gets lower.
Inaccuracies that lead to these errors can occur at any stage of the delivery process. This includes:
Knowing where these errors occur helps you to improve the quality of fulfillment. In turn, that raises customer experience.
Tracking and measuring order accuracy also helps you to find and fix these problems, which stops them from happening again.
That’s why you must know how to calculate order accuracy.
So…
To measure order accuracy, you use the simple order fulfillment formula:
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The formula is pretty straightforward:
Calculate the order accuracy right now to see what’s your score.
This is your benchmark.
Order accuracy is a KPI that you should continuously track to improve.
You should look to keep that percentage above 95%, at least.
But raising it can greatly benefit your organization.
Order accuracy affects many areas of last-mile delivery.
In fact, there are three main reasons why you should look to improve it:
1. It’s focused on boosting customer experience.
2. It raises the quality of performance and output.
3. It helps you identify flaws in the process.
But those aren’t the only reasons why increasing order accuracy matters.
To be clear:
Order and delivery errors will happen.
But if you own up to mistakes, there’s less of a chance that you’ll damage the reputation of your company.
In fact, customers appreciate businesses that take extra steps to rectify mistakes. (Even if it’s the customer’s fault.)
This means your business is transparent. That’s what customers value in last-mile delivery.
It also has a positive impact on customer experience.
So correcting inaccurate orders can help you to win over customers through delivery.
And because you’re tracking the order accuracy KPI, you can stay on top of these errors when they happen.
Which means you can…
If you send the wrong product to a customer by mistake, they’ll have to return it.
In the best case, you’ll have to absorb the cost of reverse logistics and send a replacement.
In the worst case, you’ll have to refund the purchase and spend more money returning the item.
In fact, retailers lose over 25% of the purchase price on returns alone. And that’s a significant chunk of your revenue.
That’s because your organization has to cover the cost of returns, damaged, or failed deliveries.
Tracking the order accuracy KPI prevents this from happening because you stay on top of them if they occur.
First of all, this means you can react quickly to fix the mistakes. This enables you to maintain customer satisfaction.
Second, you can find the cause of the problem. That means you can make changes to prevent errors from happening in the future.
In doing so, you raise the order accuracy coefficient. More importantly, you ensure that you won’t waste time and money as you grow your delivery operations.
When it comes to customer loyalty, things are pretty simple:
The higher the order accuracy, the more customers will be satisfied with your delivery service.
And when more customers enjoy your services, the more they will use them again and again.
So ensuring a positive experience with every order means you get more repeat business.
Customers will come to associate your business with a quality delivery service.
This raises your reputation and lets you use last-mile delivery to build brand awareness.
And that helps you to achieve a couple of other things:
First, you can build a fan base around your brand.
According to business and marketing expert Kevin Kelly:
All you need 1,000 true fans to create a successful company in any industry or market.
You can also generate more income.
In fact, 86% of customers will pay more money to receive a better customer experience.
So not only will you stand out from your competition, but you’ll also turn over a profit doing it.
If you raise the order accuracy KPI, you also increase the number of positive reviews on Google, Yelp, and social media platforms.
That’s important because a negative review can significantly affect the reputation of your delivery.
In fact, 94% of customers said that a bad review could convince them NOT to choose to do business with a company.
So the better your order accuracy, the better your customers will perceive your service.
And the more positive and not negative reviews they’ll generate for you.
Order accuracy also affects sales. Both in terms of how much money you generate from repeat business and new customers.
We’ve already talked about this:
Raising order accuracy has an impact on customer loyalty. So, customers will want to do more business with you because they know they’ll receive the right purchases on time at the correct address.
And you’ll be able to attract new consumers due to word of mouth and the positive reviews repeat customers will leave on the Internet.
In fact, a Harvard Business Review study revealed that every new star on Yelp helps a company increase its income by 5-9% from new customers alone.
But to do all of this, you’ll need to raise your order accuracy.
Now you’ll see exactly how to improve your order accuracy.
In this part of the article, we’ll show you seven actionable steps you can use to ensure this.
#1 Set the Order Accuracy Goal
#2 Improve How You Manage Inventory
#3 Review Depots and Pick-Ups
#4 Incentivize Drivers for Order Accuracy
#5 Track Orders
#6 Plan Routes
#7 Try to Use Software
The first thing you should do to optimize order accuracy is to measure your current order accuracy rate.
If your order accuracy rate is below 95%, it isn’t very strong.
If it’s above that number, that’s great news. But you’ll still want to raise it, right?
So set a realistic order accuracy goal and time frame for reaching it.
If you have a team, make sure everyone understands the goal.
And organize them so each member can contribute to improving the rate.
To stand out from the competition, you should aim for at least a 98% order accuracy rate.
How well you manage your Inventory is essential for accurate order pick-ups.
The biggest problems here are usually the result of a disorganized inventory.
So the first step is to organize how you store your products.
This makes it easier for your inventory staff to find the right product and prepare it for delivery.
For example, you can sort your products according to size or color, or a particular packaging.
So warehouse workers can see which products to place in which package according to the order specification.
Another way is to use inventory management software.
These systems rely on scannable barcodes, serial numbers, or QR codes.
To source a specific product, inventory managers can scan the system to find its exact location.
Then, they can relay that information to a worker’s smart device who can then scan it, retrieve it, and prepare it for shipping.
That way employees ensure they’ve got the correct item once a driver pulls in to pick it up from inventory.
To raise efficiency, you should review the current pick-up and depot process.
First, take a look at your depot locations.
You should choose between planning at a depot level vs. centralized multi-depot planning.
Planning at a depot level is a much more hands-on process. But each depot also operates autonomously from one another.
So if you have multiple depot locations across the last mile, this makes it harder to source products for delivery.
Centralized multi-depot planning relies on software. So you have a complete overview of the entire inventory.
And because all the depot locations are connected, you can schedule pick-ups from any one of them. Even if an order contains products that are scattered across multiple depot sites.
That way you can reduce mistakes during pick-ups, like picking up the wrong item, its color, or size.
According to the employee incentives and motivation study, incentive programs are very efficient for boosting performance.
In fact, they can increase performance and output by 44%.
Incentive programs are also great for employees’ motivation.
Drivers will be motivated to maintain a high order accuracy level because they benefit from it.
For it to succeed, set an order accuracy goal, the timeframe in which to reach it, and standards teams should follow.
Then put a reward system in place for reaching each one of those goals.
For example, you incentivize them with bonuses, additional paid vacations, or days off.
When drivers have an incentive to perform well, they’ll be focused not just on what they do, but also on how they do it.
That means picking up the right packages and delivering them as fast as possible to the right customer.
For your company, this means you can attract quality drivers. Or root out bad ones that have a poor impact on your order accuracy.
To increase order accuracy you need to track orders.
That means tracking the whole process, from pick-up, through delivery, to driver tracking.
Only then can you detect problems, correct them, or prevent them from affecting your last-mile delivery.
With order tracking, you can be 100% sure if the order was dropped off to the right customer.
And to do that, you’ll need to use delivery management software.
(But more on that in a little bit.)
Planning the best routes helps you to organize delivery and pick-up stops for your drivers.
When it comes to delivery planning, a direct route from one stop to the next may not be the most efficient one.
That’s why you need route optimization to add multiple other factors into your plans.
These include the time of pick-up and drop-off, stop density, fuel consumption, but also order accuracy.
And when you plan the best routes, you also plan better delivery schedules.
That means fewer bottlenecks at depot sites, which reduces the need for workers to perform under pressure.
But how do you plan the best delivery routes?
There are a lot of tools that can help you to improve order accuracy.
One of them is delivery management software, like eLogii.
This is an end-to-end solution to how you manage last-mile delivery.
It has built-in systems that help you plan and optimize across various ecosystems.
So, for example, you can use this one tool to plan the best routes and track orders.
But also plan pick-ups at multiple depots, monitor your KPIs, or source items from inventory.
And you can do a lot more:
Right now, let’s take things to the next level.
Here, you’ll see some of the more advanced strategies to raise order accuracy.
Some of them will require time. Most of them will require the use of software.
But all of these tactics will help you to make your delivery more effective.
Here’s what you need to do:
There’s a big difference between using an internal vs. external delivery fleet.
Although it’s initially more affordable to outsource delivery to a third-party carrier, you do lose a lot of operational control.
And that can have a major impact on order accuracy.
So if you can, it’s better to build an in-house fleet.
For a start, this gives complete control over the delivery process.
You can implement all of the strategies which we’ve outlined in the previous part without any objections.
At the same time, you’re the one shaping the last-mile delivery to suit your customers.
And that can affect how employees take care of deliveries. Which is often much better than the companies that you hire.
The best way to boost order accuracy is to build an in-house fleet and manage it using software.
To do this, you’ll need to know how to choose delivery management software.
This digital solution has various components that help you to automate the entire delivery planning process.
So it has scheduling and route optimization capabilities. But also dispatch, fleet management, and order tracking modules.
And you can use API integration to connect the software with any other app that you use.
For example, you can integrate it with an inventory management solution to manage supplies.
Best of all, you have complete visibility and control over each order, driver, and customer.
And again it’s all automated.
This means fewer resources are wasted, and the entire process is optimized.
Plus, you can choose what area of delivery you want to improve without risking others.
So you can easily set the priority of your delivery to boost order accuracy and focus more efforts on improving that KPI.
(Without damaging other key metrics in delivery logistics like on-time delivery or cost per delivery)
To centralize or not to centralize your delivery?
That’s a question that’s on everyone’s mind these days.
We’re in favor of centralized delivery management.
Why?
Because it lets you manage everything from one central platform.
That includes the processes, people, structures, and technology involved in the delivery.
Thus, you can organize your delivery around standardization, collaboration, and communication.
And you can do this across every team and every process in your company.
Including deploying tactics to grow your delivery and order accuracy.)
With delivery software, you can track orders in real-time.
That way you have control over every step of the process as it happens.
So you can find and correct any mistake on the go.
And monitor order accuracy at every stage of the delivery lifecycle.
This makes it easier to find problems that affect the order accuracy KPI.
And make adjustments to your operations before they have a serious impact on its rating.
Delivery software automatically calculates the most efficient routes.
That means your customers can get deliveries on time, which will increase order accuracy.
Plus you can save money on fuel and mileage.
As we’ve said, drivers are instantly notified of changes on the go, and can act fast.
Even 88% of consumers are ready to pay more if they’ll receive their purchase sooner.
So if your company starts offering faster delivery options, you will attract more customers.
(Without compromising your order accuracy.)
Delivery exceptions are usually a part of the delivery process.
They can have a bad impact on customer experience.
But, there are ways to stay in control and avoid delivery exceptions.
Using delivery platforms helps you to minimize delivery exceptions. But also handle them if they occur.
With real-time updates, you will access immediate information in case something happens. For example, if a driver is sick or overbooked.
This enables you to make quick decisions and act fast to ensure the situation doesn’t affect your order accuracy.
In the case of the example, find a replacement or distribute some of the orders to other drivers.
That way, customers will still get their delivery when they expect it, without exceptions.
Proof of delivery (POD) is a delivery confirmation. It’s also a quality assurance that ensures order accuracy.
If both the customer and your driver sign it, it’s a confirmation that everything went as expected.
It also lets your dispatchers and delivery managers know that the delivery was successful.
In other words, the order was accurate.
Delivery software improves upon this by having electronic proof of delivery (ePOD).
This makes it easier for drivers to collect PODs. But it also gives you immediate feedback from the field.
So, if a customer complains about an inaccurate order, you can check the POD to see whether they’re correct or they just want to take advantage of you.
In turn, this helps you to remain reputable by not lowering your order accuracy.
So…
It’s your turn now.
Are you ready to build an operation that delivers every order accurately?
To win over your customers with last-mile delivery?
To attract new customers who’ll love your service?
We can help you with all of that.
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