The increasingly impressive speed and convenience of Ocado’s home delivery proposition has propelled it into the top three retailers for logistics in this year’s Retail Week Indicator.

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In partnership with Google

The online grocer has carved out a market-leading reputation for on time deliveries (95%), a low substitution rate (99% order accuracy) and the level of service provided by its delivery drivers. Indeed, Ocado doesn’t refer to them as drivers, but as customer service team members.

What makes Ocado’s delivery record even more impressive is the fact it offers customers slots every half hour, as opposed to the one-hour windows that are standard across much of the grocery sector.

Ocado Solutions boss Luke Jensen explains that the etailer uses its proprietary algorithms to enable it to fulfil orders to such tight schedules.

“These use real-time optimisation, making several million calculations per second to identify the best delivery routes for our drivers,” Jensen says.

“More broadly, predictive analytics and forecasting mean we can map demand and supply almost perfectly, resulting in a truncated supply chain, fresher products, and on time delivery even in highly congested areas.”

Ocado Zoom

Ocado has taken such speedy and convenient fulfilment to new heights with its recently launched Ocado Zoom one-hour delivery service.

Ocado Zoom website

One-hour Ocado Zoom delivery applies to more than 10,000 products

Although Sainsbury’s offers one-hour fulfilment in parts of central London through Chop Chop, it applies to a smaller range of groceries – and customers can only order up to 20 products at a time.

Tesco scrapped a similar one-hour service called Tesco Now, in favour of pushing a click-and-collect alternative.

Ocado Zoom applies to more than 10,000 products – “a much broader range than other immediacy offerings in the marketplace”, the company says. A minimum spend of £15 and a delivery fee of £1.99 both apply, but shoppers are not limited by a maximum basket size.

Ocado says “early indications have been encouraging, both in terms of making slots available and on time delivery” as it further leverages its logistics expertise.

The online experience

The added convenience offered by Ocado’s website and smartphone app also helped it climb the Indicator rankings.

Live chat is available on desktop, mobile and app, and Ocado says data science and machine learning add to the online experience for shoppers.

“On our web shop or mobile apps, searches will deliver increasingly tailored responses based on a customer’s shopping history and preferences,” Jensen says. “Results will avoid suggesting meat products to vegetarians, for instance, or gluten-based products to coeliacs.

“These results are enhanced by our ability to present customers with an amazing degree of granular information about the products that will arrive on their doorstep.”

Using machine learning in customer service

To assist at times when it fails to reach its high standards when it comes to logistics, Ocado operates a “machine learning-enhanced” contact centre, using AI to categorise customer emails and rank them in order of urgency.

The software, created in conjunction with TensorFlow and the Google Cloud Platform, processes thousands of customer emails every day.

Ocado delivery van

Ocado uses propriety algorithms to work out the best delivery routes for its drivers

Ocado says the tech allows shoppers to receive a “familiar human touch, while also benefiting from the quick response provided by technology automation”.

Ocado creates efficiencies at the back end, since its staff save time by not having to recategorise emails manually. Instead, they can focus on penning email replies in a timely manner – the average response time is just 24 minutes – to the benefit of the consumer at the front end.

Google UK director of retail and technology Martijn Bertisen says: “Ocado found that 7% of their emails don’t require a response or even to be read. That is a really interesting example of how digital and new technologies will help transform service and logistics. Businesses can optimise the back end of retail, which bears so much of the cost.”