Last mile drivers should be upskilled to better represent the outlets whose goods they deliver, e-commerce expert Garry Marshall told a recent Transport Education and Training Authority (Teta) conference.
Speaking at an inaugural skills summit for the clearing and freight forwarding industry in Kempton Park, Marshall, CEO of the South African Express Parcel Association (Saepa), said the lack of sufficient human involvement in the digitally driven e-com environment could very well become it’s Achilles heel.
Explaining his point, he said: “Drivers are not just the guy that drives the truck.
“If you look at e-commerce transactions and where people intersect with customers, in many cases, there is zero interaction between human beings working for express companies and their customers.”
Although there are people working in the background, customer-facing interaction should ideally be the driver’s responsibility, he added.
“That’s the guy you see. When something goes wrong, there’s nobody to complain to.”
Essentially, the role of the driver has become critical, Marshall said.
“He’s your representative – the face of the company.”
But, in a low-margin environment, where customers forget that even “free” delivery still has a cost to it, turning drivers into knowledgeable representatives who can deliver goods and additional assistance is easier said than done.
Although Marshall, as a panellist, was meant to take questions from the floor, he used the opportunity to ask how many CEOs from the express parcel freight industry attended the summit.
As he suspected, the answer was none!
He said this goes to show there’s a prevailing perception in the e-commerce industry that upskilling of flesh-and-blood capability isn’t necessary because artificial intelligence (AI) is the way to go.
Marshall said, although he has been in the industry for 52 years, “when there weren’t even calculators”, there is no substitute for proper training and human-aided assistance.
He said a lot of the digital efficiencies deployed to support e-commerce on its exponential growth curve, such as curbing cybercrime and warehouse sorting, still require efficiently skilled employees.
“While there is a kind of AI creep, there is still the reality that people are critical in management.”
But lack of proper training, enough investment and slow decision-making is hindering human involvement in ecommerce, he warned.
He ended by urging organisations like Teta to take a long hard look at themselves and how they promote and support upskilling in the freight industry.
