A day in the life of a Sherpa Courier – by Solenne Colcombet

On a Delivery Tour with a Sherpa Driver!

Friday morning, a rainy day and already hundreds of deliveries logged in the system – it is time to go on a Tour with a Sherpa driver and get a feeling of what it is like to be on the road!

I wanted to know who our Sherpas were and what it was like to be a Sherpa. These questions were unsolved for me since my start @Sherpa 3 months ago. I had to get hands on and so I jumped in Leslie’s car, one of our funniest and best rated drivers! He knows his job by heart, spending nearly 7 days a week in the car!

Crates and Boxes in the back of his car, one cooler bag (or is it an Esky?) and two devices attached on his windscreen for his route and the in-coming deliveries: what else?

We did more than 10 deliveries in a couple of hours, dashing around the city to make sure all the recipients got their gifts or parcels on time! We took lifts, many lifts, sometimes up to the 34th floor with boxes of delicious doughnuts (everyone on the way would look the boxes with envy! :). We did one delivery of flowers to a lady sick at home and she was so happy to receive such a sweet surprise… happiness was in the air as soon as we arrived: who doesn’t enjoy receiving something at work or in an unexpected way, by a nice Sherpa driver?

What I learnt can be summed up in 3 points:

• Deliveries is an art! CBD deliveries with very few loading docks and heavy traffic are most difficult to fulfil on time and drivers must be experts to park quickly and spot the correct lines to avoid getting stuck in one place.
• Rating system is positive for drivers too : thanks to the tracking, the business knows the name of the drivers! Isn’t it great to be greeted by a “Hello Leslie, how are you?”
• Community of drivers is meaningful: Sherpa drivers are on the road all day but they need to feel part of a larger team, part of a brand that cares for its clients. [In fact after this Sherpa Tour, we organised our 1st workshop to meet our drivers and invite them to mingle together].

Thus I discovered from a different perspective (eg. the car of a Sherpa) what our activity was all about. Our Sherpa drivers are both our ambassadors and our most precious assets. Listening to one of them while at work was a very enriching time!

• I would recommend to all sales person out there to get involved in the front line of their business! On-the-grounds operations is where you can interact most with your customers and understand fully who you are as a brand!