We know many readers use myHermes as their delivery partner so you’ll be pleased to hear that they’ve just announced an £18 investment in new technology.
Christmas 2015
Hermes had its busiest and most efficient peak season to date. Throughout December they processed 30.3 million parcels, representing a 24% increase on the previous year. This followed a successful Black Friday period when Hermes processing 8.2 million parcels in a single week.
Throughout the final month of the year, Hermes handled more than one million parcels in a single night on 22 separate occasions. The busiest day of the year fell on Friday 4th December when the delivery firm processed 1.4 million parcels.
For the third year running, Hermes offered its customers a Christmas Guarantee, which meant that every parcel that entered the Hermes network, with a UK mainland address, by 23.59 on Monday 21 December had at least one delivery attempt in time for Christmas, or the cost of the delivery was refunded.
New Technology
Following their investment in a secondary sortation tier at their fully automated hub in Warrington, Hermes have now invested £18m in state-of-the-art handheld scanners in what represents one of the largest mobile implementation projects in Europe. The company will equip its local courier network and myHermes ParcelShops with more than 20,000 devices, in a move designed to heighten the overall customer experience it provides on behalf of the UK’s leading retailers.
These new scanners from Zebra Technologies and the Cognito iQ software which powers them will provide greater visibility during the delivery process as the company moves towards its goal of 100% first time delivery success.
The 4G devices have a 10-hour battery life and boast improved GPS functionality. This allows Geo-fencing technology to provide pin-point accuracy for delivery, which means parcels are satellite-tracked to the customer’s doorstep. In addition, a built-in camera gives Hermes the opportunity to capture high quality photographs.
Hermes to introduce 2-hour time slots for deliveries
The devices will also support the ETA time window-service, which, when implemented later this year will give retailers the opportunity to enhance the online shopping experience by giving their customers a four hour time window for their parcel delivery or collection, removing the need for them to ‘wait in all day’.
Hermes will reduce the window to two hours by the end of 2016. Bearing in mind that myHermes offer just about the lowest cost of delivery for parcels up to 1kg, adding predicted delivery time slots is massive – it’s the delivery experience more expensive couriers have pioneered and will start making Hermes economy service very attractive to your customers.
Roll out timescales
This investment will provide a foundation for Hermes to develop additional functionality throughout 2016 that will further improve the choice and convenience it provides to online shoppers.
The rollout of the handheld devices to Hermes’ local couriers will start in the spring and will be completed in late summer, whilst the growing network of 4,500 myHermes ParcelShops across the UK will also be equipped with the devices ahead of the 2016 peak season.
