City Link is investing £2 million in new hand-held scanners for its drivers as it looks to improve its customer service this Christmas.
Every City Link driver is being issued with one of 2,500 new Motorola MC67 models ahead of the peak in holiday deliveries.
In a trial, use of the scanner, which can take and send photos of addresses where drivers have left a ‘Sorry you were out’ card, as well as tracking the progress of parcels, led to a reduction in the number of people enquiring about delivery progress.
City Link operations director Liam Tucker said: “When these new handheld scanners were trialled in our Bristol depot, customer inbound call volumes dropped by over 40%, driven by improved visibility of consignments and on-the-road monitoring of drivers.
“During the trial the scanners led to better availability of tracking information through our self-service channels, such as My City Link, enabling customers to see clearly where their consignments were.”
The introduction of the scanners comes soon after the introduction of City Link ‘on our way’ message alerts that advise parcel addressees of the two-hour slot when their parcel will arrive and offer options for redelivery where necessary.
