Then came a pandemic and all that changed in the blink of an eye. Now, millions more of us are doing our shopping online for gifts and also essentials such as food and medicines. But who are the folks that are driving those vans that bring all this stuff to you? Who is behind the hi vis jacket? Many drivers do it as they benefit from the flexible shift patterns, so they might be a pilot, furloughed until the demand for air travel returns to previous levels; they may be a student supporting their education; a firefighter; graphic designer; teacher; someone who took it up to help out in the early days of the pandemic, enjoyed it and kept going, or one of the absolute heroes who chose it as their full time job.
Your delivery drivers represent all walks of life, however, they will all have something in common. That is a desire to complete every delivery they are given. They will often face atrocious weather conditions too from ice, snow, and the bitter cold of Winter to the oppressive heat of the 2 weeks long British Summer with the thunderstorms that follow.
At this time of year with the extended hours of darkness, you may well notice the delivery van pass your house a couple of times, or be crawling along the road with the driver pointing a torch out of the window. You may even see the driver walking up and down to get a closer look. This seemingly odd behaviour is more common than you might think. You see, for the most part, Satnavs will direct the driver to the centre of a given postcode area, but that’s not necessarily where your house might be. So what you see is the driver trying to spot your house name or number, which is so much more difficult in the dark and even more tricky in bad weather, especially sleet and snow.
So here’s where you can really help your driver. Just by making your house name or number clearly visible from the road will save a delivery driver valuable time when making your delivery. You would be amazed at how much time is lost, especially during the longer periods of darkness in Winter, by drivers being unable to spot house names and numbers. And especially during the festive season, please make sure you don’t cover up the name or number with decorations. If we can all do just this one thing, all that time saved adds up to more delivery slots becoming available to the vulnerable and fewer late or missed deliveries.
And at DALUS Technologies we’re doing our bit to help. We’ve created an App for drivers that has the pinpoint location of over 33 million addresses in the UK, so we can get your driver to exactly where you are in your postcode area. With your help they will be able to quickly confirm they are at the right address and together, we can make sure everyone gets what they ordered this Christmas.
Stay safe out there,
Spencer Taylor
CEO at DALUS Technologies Ltd