Ask the driver

Christmas Day is a working Thursday in the Gulf, and for the delivery driver it is the middle of the busiest fortnight of the year.

He knows things about a brand's December that the dashboard does not. Which towers on the Marina will not take a parcel after eight. Which compound gate in Riyadh wants a name on a list that nobody at the brand has ever sent. Which customers stop answering the phone after the twentieth because they are at a lunch, or in a car to the airport, or simply finished with the year. Which building has a concierge who signs for everything and a customer who rings the next morning to say nothing arrived.

The dashboard has a delivery rate. It dips somewhere around the middle of the month, and in the January review the dip will be explained as festive volume.

The driver has the reasons, and nobody from the brand has asked, because there is no line on the org chart between the marketing team and the man with the van. He works for the courier. The courier reports to operations. Operations sends marketing a rate.

I have sat in a great many December reviews and cannot remember one where the driver's version was in the room. The complaint log was. The refund figure was. The rate was. What was missing was the only account of what happened at the door, and it was available for the price of a phone call.

Ask him. Ring the depot, or ride a route for an afternoon, and listen to which addresses he groans at.

What comes back is causes, which the dashboard never had. The tower with the eight o'clock rule wants a morning slot. The compound wants the list sent ahead. The customer who stopped answering wants a message the day before, not a call at the door.

A delivery rate is a result with the reasons removed. The operator who has never asked the driver is running December on a number that cannot tell them what to change.