Dive Brief:
- Amazon launched a program March 13 to reduce potential delivery driver errors at stops involving multiple delivery locations, according to a company memo sent last week and obtained by Supply Chain Dive.
- Drivers are able to group all packages at a "grouped stop," such as delivering to several apartments in the same complex, and mark them as delivered. However, this could lead them to miss specific customer delivery notes at the package level, the memo said.
- The Risk Aware Delivery program uses previous delivery data, such as repeat issues at a particular address, to prevent a package from being part of a grouped stop when there is high risk for another issue. The program will be live for all Amazon delivery associates, or drivers, by April 17.
Dive Insight:
As Amazon continues to insource more of its last mile delivery operations, it is also taking steps to limit issues that could occur during the package drop off process. Better service can help the company keep businesses using Fulfillment by Amazon, in which Amazon handles delivery and other fulfillment steps for sellers, and end customers satisfied.
Amazon likened the Risk Aware Delivery program to a guardrail for drivers in the memo. Its overall aim is to reduce future delivery defects, particularly when it comes to packages that have been delivered but not reported as received by end customers.
This issue may occur when a customer requests to have a package dropped off in a specific area of the location that could otherwise have been overlooked in the grouped stop process.
"When there is high risk of a potential delivery concession or defect identified for a particular address in a grouped stop, [drivers] will no longer be able to manually group that package with other packages from the same stop," the memo said. One example given given was grouping all packages in mailroom deliveries.
When that happens, drivers will be notified in Amazon's delivery app that some locations cannot be part of the group delivery due to different requirements. The prompt will also ask them to follow the customer's notes for that particular location.
