Have you ever ordered a bed, TV or washing machine from an online webshop? Chances are you’re already familiar with PostNL Extra@Home. PostNL Extra@Home does not only provide delivery services for a wide variety of webshops, but also professionally assembles and installs various XL products in customers’ homes. The Extra@Home delivery drivers must therefore be able to unpack and install various products correctly, check them for damage and take back the packaging material at any given location.
PostNL Extra@Home is a large company, but with few employees of its own. It therefore works closely with subcontractors. Since 2017, Extra@Home has already improved this cooperation significantly. Still, there was room for improvement.
“If we ask more from a subcontractor, we also think we should offer them more. GPAL lends itself very well to this. We invest and offer it with the aim of higher quality and better cooperation.”
– Peter, Manager of Quality and Training
New delivery drivers have to undergo a basic training on location before they start driving routes independently. However, once on the road they still have to be able to easily access the appropriate working methods. Previously, the working methods and process changes were written down on a paper sheet and given to the drivers every morning. But it soon became apparent that few of the drivers were actually reading the instructions and that the notes were easily lost. This often meant that a lot of important information or updates were missed.
Therefore, a new way of supporting the delivery drivers in the field had to be found.
Extra@Home makes use of GPAL instructional videos to facilitate performance support for delivery staff. Through the GPAL app, delivery workers have quick and easy access to relevant knowledge, even when they are in the field. This method improves service quality and ensures better cooperation between Extra@Home and subcontractors.
Filming videos
For some time, Olga en Peter have been filming short instructional videos about various products with the GPAL app. irst, they create a short script together, after which Olga films how Peter performs the actions and provides the necessary explanations. The instructional videos are then stored in the app in a structured way so that they can then be easily retrieved by the delivery staff during their work. This way, delivery drivers can always fall back on the GPAL videos if they want to refresh knowledge about a product before delivering it to a consumer.
“We have a lot of fun together during filming. We do set the bar very high for ourselves, which means that it sometimes takes a bit of time, but then you also really got something!
– Olga, Customer Travel Specialist
However, the instructional videos are not only about practical work tasks, but also about customer-friendly service and the PostNL courtesy standard. For example, short videos are made on how best to approach a consumer in different scenarios.
“For us, the content of the GPAL videos are actually the perfect representation of a complete top service. For example, for a certain brand of bicycle the pedals need to be mounted. You can write down that you have to turn the left pedal clockwise, but showing it in a video is of course a lot clearer and quicker.”
– Peter, Quality and Training Manager
Higher quality: a higher NPS score
PostNL Extra@Home values consumer satisfaction. To measure this, they use the NPS – score: a quality score where customers can give a rating to the Extra@Home service, including the performance of the delivery driver. In the first 3 months after the start of the GPAL pilot, an increase in NPS was already seen for delivery drivers who actively watch instructional videos.
“You can really measure the difference in quality since we started using GPAL. In the future, we want to be able to monitor the performance of individual delivery staff through the management console in order to raise the NPS even higher, but we’re not there yet.”
– Peter, Quality and Training Manager
The use of video instructions ensures better service quality. This is not only beneficial for PostNL, but also for their own customers: the webshops. Peter explains that potential new customers see the GPAL app as an extra incentive to offer their products via Extra@Home.
Just enough knowledge at the right time
With the GPAL app, delivery drivers have access to the right knowledge anytime, anywhere. Using video instructions has many advantages over written instructions. For example, Olga explains that a large segment of colleagues do not speak Dutch fluently. However, with video instructions that language barrier can be bypassed. After all, visual imagery is easier to understand than written text.
“We like to think about how to solve the language barrier. Video instructions are a very good solution for this, though, because video is a lot easier to understand. After all, in a video the action is very well demonstrated, even if you turn off the sound.”
– Olga, Customer Travel Specialist
For the time being, Peter and Olga are still implementing GPAL across all depots and continue to enthusiastically create new content. We are very curious to see what great results are yet to come. To be continued…