Insight into the effect of covid restrictions on courier services
As you may well be aware, the WGI Head Office in Byfleet has been under tier 4 restrictions for a couple of weeks now and, as of boxing day, most of our staff’s home postcodes moved to the same restrictions. We have therefore made the decision to move all our office staff back to working-from-home. This move was made to protect the office staff themselves and all of our hardworking couriers who need to have physical access to the depot in order to continue their work.
When colleagues [who chose to] returned to the office in June it was felt unanimously that physically being in the office was the preferable option and was much more conducive to efficient working. This was particularly so for customer care who were able to draw on each other in real-time to resolve queries. Keeping this in mind, we are expecting delays on the phone and would strongly advise our customers and suppliers to contact us via email instead of phoning, wherever possible.
Each depot in tier 4 [and high alert] areas will be facing similar office working adjustments, somewhat affecting the ability for fast answers on queries between depots. Added to this is the potential for more staff across all depots needing to isolate. Finally, the inevitable spike we have seen in people ordering home-deliveries after each lockdown measure has been announced. This of course adds to pressure on the amount of deliveries drivers have to make and difficulty for customer care to answer customer queries. All whilst the operations of couriers’ sorting, loading, delivering and unloading have been changed to enable social distancing.
We continue to take the risks to our staff, customers and consignee’s (people receiving goods) very seriously. I’d encourage you to think of this article and be mindful of the pressures all delivery companies are facing at this time should you have a delivery that doesn’t quite go to plan in the near future.