Handling Failed Delivery Attempts
How to manage failed deliveries in AskBiz POS — recording the reason, notifying the customer, rescheduling, and deciding when to return goods to the depot.
Key Takeaways
- Failed deliveries must be resolved: rescheduled, returned to depot, or cancelled — they can't remain in Failed status indefinitely.
- Recording the failure reason (not home, wrong address, access denied) builds data that helps identify systemic address or process problems.
- Customer communication is critical — a customer who hears proactively about a failed attempt is far less upset than one who waits all day for a delivery that never arrived.
How a delivery is marked as failed
From the driver's app, when a delivery cannot be completed, the driver taps Failed Attempt. They're prompted to select a reason: Customer Not Home, Wrong Address, Access Denied (locked building, gated community), Customer Refused Delivery, or Other. They can add a free-text note and optionally take a photo (of the door, the intercom, or any note left). This information is immediately visible in your Logistics dashboard under the Failed tab. The driver retains the goods and returns to depot unless you instruct otherwise.
Notifying the customer
AskBiz can automatically send a notification when a delivery is marked Failed — an SMS or email saying: 'Hi [Name], we attempted to deliver your order today but were unable to complete the delivery. Reason: [Reason]. We'll contact you shortly to reschedule.' This automated message goes out within minutes of the driver marking the failure. Configure this in Logistics > Settings > Notifications. The message should include a contact number or link so the customer can take action immediately. A customer who receives this message within 5 minutes of the failed attempt has a much better experience than one who discovers it hours later.
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Start for free →Rescheduling the delivery
Open the failed delivery from the Logistics tab. Click Reschedule. Choose a new delivery date and time slot — either a specific slot or 'next available'. If the failure was due to a wrong address, update the address before rescheduling. Reassign to a driver. The order status returns to Assigned and moves back into the active queue. The customer receives a confirmation of the rescheduled delivery time. A rescheduled delivery that succeeds is still logged as having had one failed attempt — this is important for tracking your true first-attempt delivery rate.
Return to depot and refunds
If a delivery cannot be rescheduled (customer cancels, repeatedly not home, refuses delivery), click Return to Depot on the failed delivery record. Stock is automatically returned to the originating branch's inventory count. If the customer paid for the goods upfront, you'll need to process a refund — click Issue Refund from the delivery record, which creates a return record linked to the original sale. The delivery fee may or may not be refundable depending on your policy; set this in Logistics > Settings > Refund Policy.
Analysing failure patterns
In Logistics Reports > Failed Deliveries, you can see a breakdown by reason over any date range. If 'Customer Not Home' accounts for 80% of failures, consider implementing delivery time slots so customers choose when they'll be available. If 'Wrong Address' is high, review your address capture process at order creation. If failures cluster on specific routes or zones, those areas may need clearer addressing or better instructions from the driver. Reducing your failure rate by even a few percentage points meaningfully reduces cost — every failed delivery requires driver time, fuel, and rescheduling effort.