Sending a package online: easy and accessible

If you want to send a package or letter, you can frank it at a PostNL point and drop it off there. PostNL also provides a digital service that allows you to address and postage mail or parcels at home, with a postage stamp code or shipping label. You then only have to drop off the shipment. PostNL wants to increase the share of online-prepared shipments, thereby relieving the drop-off points and promoting customer satisfaction. However, the existing service was still inadequate, according to customer research: some users found it difficult to choose the right shipping options, while others found it too difficult to fill in the customs form for international shipments. The question we and PostNL started working on was: How can we ensure that as many consumers as possible independently prepare all their shipments online? And how can we offer this online in an easy, accessible, sustainable and personal way?

A multidisciplinary design team consisting of service and ux designers from Informaat and PostNL has followed a structured outside-in approach. The customer journey of the consummer was consistently central. This involved various business units, resulting in cross-team insights and solutions.

The design principles are reflected in Online Versturen (Online Sending):

• Convenience and accessibility: The service is easy to use on your mobile and desktop computer, for everyone, from high to low literacy and for people with and without disabilities.
• Personalized: The service facilitates the user with personal choices and possibilities throughout the customer journey. For example, you can create your own online address book, share your track & trace information with the recipient, or save a certain type of package that you often send as your fixed choice.
• Sustainable: The service encourages the customer to make sustainable choices when regarding parcel delivery.

Visualizing the problems encountered by consumers in the customer journey has worked very well. Because the design results, including a prototype, were visible in a shared working space, everyone involved could easily watch and think along. This led to a lot of enthusiasm and great support for the new design.

The new design was realized by software developers from IO Digital and launched in June 2022. Important credits therefore also go to this development team with whom we worked closely during the development phase.

Online Shipping meets the needs of many consumers. The new service supports consumers who occasionally send a letter or package, as well as (small business) consumers who regularly want to send several shipments at the same time. The service is used weekly for more than 100,000 shipments. The number of consumers who successfully complete the sending service has increased by 14% in 9 months. In addition, consumers who have used the web service are returning more and more often. The average number of returning visitors has increased by 11%. Customer satisfaction (NPS) is also good and still continues to increase.

We have taken a big step forward, based on the vision that has been defined with the business units. With the help of A/B testing, data analysis and user feedback, we continue to improve the web service on a daily basis.