Know How You Can Prevent Fake Delivery Attempts

Most consumers don’t welcome late deliveries, but delivery attempt not made is an even bigger issue being faced by the eCommerce sector currently. A fake delivery attempt or delivery attempt not made is a scenario wherein a customer is waiting at their delivery location to receive the package, but instead of getting their order, they get the message “Order unable to deliver. Customer was not available”.

A fake delivery attempt is one of the major challenges in the prevailing age of eCommerce that plagues every eCommerce seller. Statistics reveal that around 15% of failed deliveries are merely fake delivery attempts. This increases the number of returns, causes dissatisfaction among the customers, and hampers brand reputation. Customers find it hard to trust businesses that do not deliver as promised. While many of them raise complaints, others switch to a different brand.

To ensure the long-term success of your business, it is essential to set up a framework for the prevention of fake delivery attempts. In this article, you will learn about various reasons why fake delivery attempts are reported, the impact they have on a business, and how to control this issue.

What Is A Fake Delivery Attempt?

A fake delivery attempt is when you are at your home or office, or the destination address, eagerly waiting to receive the package, but dumped at the end of the day with a message that goes by: “Delivery was attempted but the customer was not available“.

Before you scratch your head under such a situation, the first and the most obvious step you take as an end-customer is to call the customer support of the eCommerce company from where you placed the order and register your complaint.

On the other side of the story, lies the seller and the courier partner, who can’t verify whether their delivery person attempted the delivery or not. The only thing they are convinced about is receiving a likely-negative review and in the end, losing a loyal customer.

For the seller, the situation worsens furthermore as for every RTO arising out of a fake delivery, the seller has recharged a certain percentage of the order amount for the re-attempt, marring his/her profit margin. Resultantly, Fake Delivery Attempt is one of the most prominent challenges faced bye eCommerce sellers and logistics service providers at present which directly impacts their customer retention and satisfaction.

Why Are Fake Deliveries Done?

The job of a delivery person demands tremendous hard work on the ground, with a perpetual risk of losing the job. In such a scenario, you may question what compels them for a fake attempt. Let us take a closer look at the rational reasoning for a fake delivery attempt:

Last-Mile Delivery

In case you are not familiar with last-mile delivery, you can read all about it here. Coming back to delivery attempt not made but faked. Every delivery-boy gets incentives for the total number of deliveries done by him within a day. In general, to deliver the maximum number of packages, a delivery boy attempts to deliver orders in a specific route. In case the remaining orders fall out of the planned route, the delivery-boy fakes a delivery attempt.

Space Optimization

Every courier company has a place for outgoing orders and incoming parcels. Since the inflow and outflow are perennial, fake deliveries are done to ship those undelivered orders back to the seller for making space for incoming parcels.

What Causes Fake Delivery Attempts?

Unplanned Route Assignment In Last Mile

A lack of proper route planning and order assignment might result in overburdening a rider. Practically, he will only be able to deliver a few orders, and to avoid penalization, the delivery boy ends up marking the rest unable to deliver.

Wrong Delivery Address or Pin code

At times orders fall out of the designated route which results in a fake delivery attempt. This could be due to the wrong address or pin code given by the customer.

A fake attempt also happens sometimes if the recipient fails to respond to the delivery executive’s call due to any engagement.

Space Optimisation

The aim of the logistics hub is to ship out the maximum number of parcels in a business day to optimise the space available for more orders.

How To Avoid Fake Delivery Attempts?

Here are a few measures you can adopt to prevent the problem of fake delivery attempts:

• It is recommended to use GPS-enabled devices to track the real-time location of your delivery agents. This way they will have to follow the route planned by you and wouldn’t be able to deceive you by reporting fake delivery attempts.
• Make use of advanced route optimisation software to plan efficient delivery routes. This way your delivery agents wouldn’t be overburdened.
• Do not forget to cross check customer addresses and pin codes before dispatch to prevent delivery failures due to incorrect information.
• Integrate automated systems to manage Non-Delivery Reports (NDR).
• Generate automated IVR calls and SMS notifications to inform customers about the delivery attempts and request immediate feedback. This helps assess whether the deliver attempt was genuine or fake.
• Review your delivery personnel’s performance on a regular basis. This will help identify patterns that may indicate fake delivery attempts.
• It is a good idea to provide incentives for successful deliveries rather than the number of attempts. This will encourage the delivery personnel to complete deliveries honestly.

Prevent Fake Delivery Attempts With Shiprocket

Traditionally, the management of Non-Delivery Reports has been a long-drawn process. The majority of courier companies like to deal with these undelivered orders at the end of the day to sort out their delivery operations. Considering there is not just one but many packages to be delivered in a day, the number of NDR (or likewise, the probable fake deliveries) is a lot higher. 

To verify the delivery attempts are legitimate, and not fake, Shiprocket has aligned with courier partners using APIs and receives regular updates about the whereabouts of your orders. Therefore, a process that took almost 24 hours, Shiprocket’s panel helps you do it in nearly 5 minutes.

It is the outcome of automation in NDR management that Shiprocket has managed to minimize its NDR’s to 6% of the total orders. Likewise, you can also benefit from technology to make the process both flawless and seamless. Here is what Shiprocket does:

1. The delivery-boy goes out to deliver the package but could not deliver it.
2. He updates the status in real-time with the reason for non-delivery.
3. As soon as the delivery-boy updates the status, it reflects on the Shiprocket NDR dashboard.
4. An automated IVR call and SMS are simultaneously sent to the end-customer, requesting their feedback and response.
5. In case of fake delivery or delivery attempt not made, the right action is taken, along with deciding when to re-attempt the delivery or opt for RTO.

Conclusion

Fake delivery attempts pose a significant challenge for eCommerce sellers and logistics providers. They impact customer satisfaction and result in losses. As stated, some of the reasons for such fake attempts include unplanned route assignments, wrong delivery addresses, and space optimisation. A tech-enabled process will give a go-ahead to an efficient NDR management and help in detecting fake delivery attempts to ensure you neither lose your customers nor pay the excessive shipping charge. You can do this by employing costly infrastructure for the same, or use a shipping platform like Shiprocket and utilize these features for free! Shiprocket offers real-time updates and immediate customer feedback through automated systems. Its automation in Non-Delivery Report (NDR) management helps reduce the incidences of fake deliveries drastically.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)