Customer experience design in last mile delivery - why it’s never been more important for your brand

When you think about last mile delivery (LMD), what’s the first image that comes to mind? For many, it’s a van filled with brown boxes, navigating suburban streets to drop off goods to customers as quickly as possible.  

Traditionally, LMD was purely an operational process - get the package from point A to point B in the most time efficient and cost-effective way you can. But in today’s e-commerce-driven world, it’s no longer just about speed and efficiency. The last mile delivery experience has evolved into something much more significant. It’s now a critical touchpoint where your brand can either build or break a customer relationship. 

Why is customer experience (CX) so important in last mile delivery? Quite simply, in a world where customers do most of their shopping on their phone or laptop in the comfort of their own home, the delivery experience is often the only human interaction they have with your brand after making a purchase.  

That moment when the package arrives at their door is when your brand’s promises are either fulfilled or fall short. So, what does great CX design look like in last mile delivery, and how can ANC help brands succeed in this crucial space? Let’s dive into it. 

At ANC, we’re obsessed with creating exceptional customer experiences.  

While some companies see LMD as the final checkbox in a transactional process, we see it as a powerful opportunity to surprise, delight, and strengthen customer loyalty for our clients’ brands. But delivering a standout experience isn’t just about a smile and a wave from our delivery team (though that’s a great start). There’s an entire strategy behind how we design CX, and it involves close collaboration with our clients. 

Creating a seamless delivery experience requires a team effort. We bring together ANC’s CX, operations, and technology teams, with our clients’ marketing, sales, and customer service departments. Yes, logistics managers are still at the table - after all, they play a crucial role - but the conversation has shifted. It’s no longer just about DIFOT (Delivery In Full, On Time). Now, it’s about NPS (Net Promoter Score) and the Happy Customer Score. 

Typically the more client departments involved, the better. When we have sales, marketing and CX teams in the room, we can make sure that the delivery process isn’t just about cost-effectiveness but also aligns with broader business goals like brand perception, customer satisfaction and retention. 

We believe every exceptional customer experience starts with deliberate design and collaboration between our team and the client’s team.  

At the start of every new client relationship, we facilitate a human-centred design workshop to shape a delivery experience that is operationally realistic, and that delivers on their business objectives within their cost & commercial guardrails. 

But most importantly, these workshops allow us to work out how we’re going to exceed the expectations of the customer and leave them with a big smile at the end of each delivery experience. 

With the data in hand, and the right client team members in the room, we map out the end-to-end customer journey. This helps us identify the key touchpoints where we can make an impact. From pre-delivery notifications to the actual hand-off, every moment is an opportunity to either meet or exceed expectations. 

This is where we ask ourselves some critical questions: Where can we surprise and delight? Where can we offer more convenience? Can we provide more specific delivery windows to give the customer better control over their day? Do we need to offer multiple communication channels - SMS, email, app notifications - to ensure the customer always knows where their package is? These touchpoints are where magic happens.

Every great delivery experience begins with understanding the customer’s needs. How do we do that? Data, data, data!  

We lean heavily on data and feedback to get a deep understanding of customer expectations. This involves analysing previous interactions, survey results, and customer service insights to map out the entire customer journey - from the moment they place an order to the second that package lands in their hands (or at their doorstep, or with a neighbour, or in a safe spot behind the pot plant… you get the idea). 

One of the most fascinating data-driven insights we’ve uncovered through our technology is that faster isn’t always better for big and bulky deliveries like white goods and furniture.  

We often get told by clients that we must meet a next day or 2-3 day delivery SLA for customer purchases. And we totally get it - common-sense suggest that the faster you deliver, the more satisfied the customer will be. But we’ve got data that proves this isn’t true. 

When customers are given control of their delivery date, the average delivery booking is actually 8 days after purchase. So we can deliver much slower than the client SLA, and leave the customer feeling much happier about their experience! 

And when you think about it, this totally makes sense. When a customer buys a new fridge or sofa, they have to be at home to meet the delivery team. They might need to remove the old fridge to make room for the new. By giving customers the choice about when we deliver, they can avoid having to take a day off work, and it gives them time to prepare for their shiny new purchase. 

Customer choice, rather than client preference, will always result in a more satisfying experience and a happier customer.  

We had a great example of this last year where the logistics team at one of our B2B clients had chosen not to enable ANC’s customer self-service tools as part of their solution, in an effort to keep unit delivery costs as low as possible.  
 
When we ran a CX workshop with their wider team, their National Sales Manager shared a huge customer pain point with us. Turns out that when their customers were placing digital orders for new stock, they had no visibility of when the stock was going to be delivered, and they were calling their Account Managers to find out.

The Sales Manager estimated that this was costing the business thousands of hours a year in wasted business development time across their nationwide team, and potentially tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue. 

ANC’s self-service tools are pretty awesome! Customers can choose their own delivery date, manage their delivery instructions, and login to see the status of their delivery at any time. When we shared these tools with the Sales Manager, he was blown away, and said it would solve his multi-million dollar problem overnight.  

Efficient last mile delivery is not just about unit cost when you view it with a broader CX lens! 

When delivery is complete, the work doesn’t stop. Measuring customer sentiment is a crucial part of the ANC process. We capture feedback in real-time through post-delivery surveys and analyse it to understand what went well and where we can improve. 

But here’s an important point: it’s not enough to just measure sentiment at the delivery stage. By the time our delivery professionals reach a customer, they may have already formed strong opinions about the brand - good or bad.  

Maybe the product they ordered was delayed before it even reached us, or perhaps they had trouble navigating the e-commerce checkout. These factors influence how they perceive the delivery, even if we perform flawlessly. That’s why it’s essential to take a holistic view and measure sentiment across the entire buying journey.  

Loyal customers aren’t just good for business - they’re essential. In a world where brand loyalty is an increasingly rare commodity, the delivery experience is a powerful tool for creating repeat customers. A great delivery can turn a one-time buyer into a lifelong fan. And we’ve seen it firsthand. 

Listening to the customer voice helps us understand where we've done a great job, and where we could have done better.

If there’s a way to enhance the delivery experience - whether through technology, better communication, or more convenient delivery options - we’re all in, especially if it makes our clients' customers more likely to buy again.

So, why do we believe CX is ANC’s superpower and a true point of difference in the industry? It’s simple: we genuinely care.  

We’re not just delivering packages; we’re delivering smiles. And we do it by putting the customer at the heart of everything we do. 

We go above and beyond to make the delivery experience as smooth, convenient, and delightful as possible. From using technology to map the most efficient delivery routes to ensuring clear communication at every step, we’re constantly innovating to improve CX. And our clients can see that our culture is changing - customer obsession isn’t just a buzzword for us, it’s baked into everything we do. 

And that’s what makes us stand out. Whether we’re delivering furniture for IKEA or Temple & Webster or whitegoods and home appliances for JB Hi-fi and The Good Guys, we take pride in making each delivery feel like more than just another transaction. We believe in the power of great CX to transform not just the delivery process but the entire customer relationship. 

So, the next time you think about last mile delivery, don’t just think of it as getting brown boxes from point A to point B. Think of it as the final - and perhaps most important - opportunity to leave a lasting impression on your customer.  

At ANC, we’re here to help you make that moment count.