Have you ever ordered a bed, TV or washing machine from an online webshop? Then chances are that you are already familiar with PostNL Extra@Home. PostNL Extra@Home does not only provide delivery services for countless 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 has therefore started to use instructional videos to make this knowledge more accessible to support delivery staff on the job and to guarantee top service.
“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
The Challenge
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.
New delivery drivers have to undergo a basic training on location before they start driving routes independently. However, once on the road they still must 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.
The challenge is clear: to use short instructional videos to better support and inform delivery staff on the road, in order to improve their performance.
This could not only improve cooperation with subcontractors, but also guarantee and improve the quality of Extra@Home deliveries.
Peter & Olga introduce GPAL
The Approach
For some time, Olga en Peter have already been busy filming short instructional videos about various products with the GPAL app. First, they make a short script together, after which Olga films how Peter explains the products in front of the camera. Olga and Peter even go one step further by making short videos about the politeness standards and customer-friendly service. For example, they make short videos about how to best 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
The instructions are then uploaded and stored in the GPAL app in a structured way so that they are easy for the delivery staff to find again during their work. Apart from the fact that Peter and Olga consider filming to be a fun project, it also really pays off. Delivery staff can always fall back on the GPAL videos if they want to refresh their 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
The Results
Quality control: A higher NPS-score
It is very important for PostNL Extra@Home to be able to monitor consumer satisfaction. In order to do so, the NPS-score is used; a quality score in which the consumer can give a rating to the Extra@Home service, including the performance of the delivery driver. In the first three months after the start of the GPAL pilot, an increase in the NPS was already seen for delivery drivers who actively watched the videos in the app.
“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
By using video instructions, the quality of service can be better guaranteed. After all, sales staff can be better supported as soon as they have access to the right knowledge. An additional advantage of this is 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, the right knowledge is available to the delivery staff anytime, anywhere, even when they are on the job alone. The use of video in contrast to written instructions also has many advantages. Olga explains, for example, that many colleagues are not native Dutch speakers. This language barrier is easily circumvented with video; after all, visual material is much easier to understand because it is visual.
“We like to think along when it comes to the language barrier. Video is a very good solution for this, because video is much easier to understand. After all, if someone demonstrates the actions very well, you could even understand the videos on mute.”
– Olga, Customer Travel Specialist
For the time being, Peter and Olga are still busy rolling out GPAL across all the depots and continue to enthusiastically create new and more content. We are very curious to see what kind of great results are yet to come. To be continued.
Want to know more about how you can use GPAL to support field staff?
Send an e-mail to info@gpal.nl or request a demo here.