Anyone that owns a business knows that there are many hats to wear. As in most small businesses, the owner does what's necessary to complete the task and move on to the next day. That includes covering for employees that are on vacation. Last week our primary home delivery driver, Chan, celebrated his birthday while on vacation. That meant I got to step in and drive for a few days. Anytime I step into those roles, I try to study the process and develop improvements that would help our efficiency or accuracy. I have a couple of things that will help us deliver more effectively, and help you get your order delivered more timely and accurately.
- Driver Notes. There is a "Driver Notes" section in your account. We use this! If there is anything you would like to relay to the driver that is delivering your order, this is the place to do so. Some things that are helpful for us in this section are:
- Gate codes. If yours is a gated community please include a code that will allow us into the community. This is the one single thing that causes the most delay during the delivery day.
- Any unique or distinguishing characteristics about your residence.
- Where you would like the package placed. Sometimes one area of the house is more shady than the other...etc.
- If your address sometimes maps wrong with some mapping software.
- If you want us to put the order in a cooler that you have left out.
- Returnable Packaging Material. We all know the cost of everything is going up. Our packaging material is no exception. We have seen dramatic increases on all of our supplies. Thankfully we can reuse some of those. However, we can only reuse them if they get returned to us. I realized that maybe I haven't done a good enough job of communicating what we would like for you to return. So that we can keep our costs down, we ask that you please return Styrofoam Home delivery boxes, Egg Cartons, and Bottles of water (we use them as ice packs). You have 2 ways to do this. You can just leave the returnable items out for the driver to pick up when he makes the next delivery. Alternatively, you can leave a cooler outside large enough to hold your order. If you choose to put out your own cooler please include icepacks. It also helps if you put a note on top for us. We don't like to rummage into someone's cooler unless it is obvious that you want your order left there.
Thanks for allowing me to do a little home delivery housekeeping with this week's email.
