The pandemic has completely changed the way we live, with safety prioritised over everything else in our lives. One major concern this Christmas is the need to ensure safe parcel deliveries in the built environment. With the gifting season well and truly on, it’s important to limit the number of visitors to buildings, minimise staff contact with couriers, and provide alternatives to physical signatures. All these objectives can be achieved with contactless delivery using safe parcel lockers from Groundfloor.
Contactless gift exchange via parcel lockers
Exchanging gifts with neighbours and co-workers will be done safely and without physical contact this year using automated no-touch parcel lockers. Powered by Groundfloor’s free-to-use courier mobile app, smart parcel lockers allow completely contactless delivery and collection with no need for building staff to interact with couriers and contractors. All parcels are delivered straight into the lockers.
Additionally, recipients do not need to interact with delivery persons as they are automatically notified of their parcels. When the recipient is ready to collect, they scan a code at the locker to open the locker door and pick up the parcel. Locker doors can be safely closed with a gentle elbow nudge.
Groundfloor’s Digital Signature provides an extra layer of safety and security. Each time a delivery is made, the system records a unique digital signature, which is accepted in place of a physical signature. It ensures a completely contactless transaction and provides utmost security and traceability of every delivery.
Contactless delivery and parcel lockers
Contactless delivery is an effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19. New guidelines for commercial buildings and apartments highlight the many challenges of managing deliveries in the built environment, including maintaining physical distance and reducing the number of shared touch-points, which are major concerns.
Applying physical distancing rules in buildings not only affects the number of visitors allowed into the premises and its lifts at any given time but also the building staff’s ability to handle deliveries and interact with contractors. During the holiday season when gifting is highly intensive, there will be more packages to deal with, requiring couriers to visit buildings more frequently throughout the day. In the absence of secure parcel lockers, the practice of contactless delivery has been ineffective with unfortunate, unintended results.
To encourage contactless delivery, Australia Post, Couriers Please, and many other courier services even suspended requirements for physical signatures. However, it means couriers are forced to leave parcels unattended in foyers and on doorsteps, leading to an increasing incidence of parcel theft in buildings without smart, safe parcel lockers.
Safer with parcel lockers
The current pandemic has only highlighted the inadequacies of today’s built environment in terms of keeping building residents safe. Buildings without smart, safe parcel lockers simply cannot cope with today’s health concerns. A seasonal surge in parcel volumes and number of courier trips greatly adds to the challenge of keeping building occupants safe. Inefficient manual processes combined with higher foot traffic in and around buildings are problematic for maintaining social distancing. Some buildings without parcel lockers have even gone to the extent of informing their residents that the staff can no longer handle parcels.
With Groundfloor parcel lockers, buildings can ensure safe, automated and secure management of parcel deliveries without needing to involve their staff. By locating these lockers outside the building, couriers can be kept out of lifts and lobbies, further reducing the risk while also greatly speeding up the delivery time.
While buildings can meet difficult physical distancing recommendations in lifts and lift waiting areas, the delivered parcels are also secure within the on-premises parcel lockers.
Groundfloor’s parcel delivery lockers have greatly assisted Australian buildings during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was enormous pressure on building managements to provide a hygienic and efficient solution for parcel deliveries when safe parcel delivery became a high priority. Groundfloor’s no-touch delivery was immediately enhanced with a complementary no-touch collection capability.
Groundfloor parcel lockers are a quick-to-implement solution that ticks all the boxes for safe, efficient parcel delivery management.
Visit Groundfloor for more details on Christmas parcel delivery deadlines.
