Evri delivered a record 150m parcels over its peak festive period

The statement issued by the parcel delivery company added: “Evri grew parcel volumes to more than 154m over the nine weeks to 30 December 2023, including a delivery blitz in the final seven days after cautious shoppers waited for discounts before purchasing – with last-minute gifts featuring heavily – in contrast to lower volumes around Black Friday in November.

"The company’s best-ever peak season was supported by the £32m service investment plan into its operations and customer service teams with service levels consistently at or above 99 per cent for standard deliveries – up several percentage points on last year. The business hired more than 6,500 colleagues to fulfil orders and handle customer queries during the period between Black Friday and Christmas.”

Altogether 688 staff are based at Evri’s operations in Morley, West Yorkshire, and other employees are based at sites around Yorkshire including the company’s hub in Barnsley and depot in Normanton.

Chris Ashworth, Evri’s Chief Customer Officer, said: “Evri delivered a Christmas cracker – with record parcel volumes – driven by its strategic investments made throughout the year and colleagues pulling out all the stops to deliver the best possible festive period for customers.

"Last year’s performance was hindered by strikes by the major carrier but this much-improved peak season capped off an incredible 2023 for Evri in which it served over 12m customers a week and delivered more than 720 million parcels.

“Evri has deep and long-lasting relationships with more than 80 per cent of the UK’s leading retailers.

"We were pleased that our service performance across the year and particularly across the peak weeks has been acknowledged across our client base with very positive feedback from brands, including M&S. Every parcel matters – and that is why Evri is committed to continually improving its services by investing in its people, infrastructure and processes.”

Evri said its performance was supported by its launch of a new automatic callback function via a dedicated phone line, which is already connecting thousands of extra customers to a UK-based adviser at Evri’s contact centre.

The statement added: “The new callback function is an Interactive Voice Response phone service that connects customers who call Evri directly to one of its advisers or records a message so they can call back once they’ve looked into the issue. These services promise to deliver a response in 24 hours or less.”

“Another boost for customers during the peak period was the option to use more than 10,000 of Evri’s ParcelShops, and lockers, including 1,200 Tesco stores, giving consumers a convenient alternative to home delivery with the flexibility to collect parcels around their schedules.”

In May, Evri announced that Amazon had made it an accredited seller carrier for its Prime service to deliver parcels on behalf of all merchants on the e-commerce giant’s website, which provided Evri with the opportunity to grow its business by several million parcels a year.