The delivery of our gift baskets & hampers is a major component of our business, and with it being such a vital part of the gift giving process we choose to work with the BEST couriers available. The delivery side of things reflects heavily on our business and so it's important to get it right. You normally get what you pay for however, and so rather than going with the cheapest option we go for the fastest & most reliable.For the delivery of our various gifts we use a few different courier companies depending on regionality and service options. We use DHL, Parcel Force, Nightline and DSV/UPS, and also Beattie's Freight for larger pallet deliveries.For the purposes of this blog we are going to focus on DHL, who we send the majority of our parcels with. Do you know what DHL stands for? I actually do after going to a local dinner event hosted by them & taking part in a quiz! It's Dalsey, Hillblom & Lynn, the surnames of the original founders who established the company in 1969.DHL offer a fantastic international next day delivery service. We ship items across the UK and Europe with DHL and find their service to be exemplary. If you include a mobile number for the recipient when entering the delivery address details they will receive delivery updates via text from DHL. The notifications don't tell the recipient what they are receiving, just that a parcel is coming, so you don't need to worry about the surprise being spoiled.My colleague, Roma, noticed today that the information in the text message/SMS received and on the link you can click had recently been updated to make matters even more seamless. You are now directed to DHL "On Demand Delivery" and presented with a range of options. Of course you don't have to do anything at all, and delivery will be attempted to the address provided the next working day. These are just extra options the recipient can choose to select from should they need to.Delivery management options include rescheduling your delivery date and/or selecting a window of time (if applicable), opting to collect the parcel from a service point/locker instead, giving authority for the parcel to be "left safe" at your address without a signature, placing the package on "vacation/holiday hold" for delivery at a later date, authorising DHL to leave the parcel with a neighbour or amending the delivery address (to a work one for example.)These options can be used in advance of a delivery attempt, or should the first delivery attempt fail (due to no-one being at home) the recipient can then choose how they would like to proceed.At BasketsGalore our deliveries tend to be extremely time sensitive due to both the occasion and the contents of the parcels. Because of this we track all dispatches & deliveries on a daily basis and step in to assist when recipients have not been at home or have moved address etc. We do this by contacting the recipient to check if they need assistance, and then phoning the DHL call centre to reschedule or redirect on their behalf. With this new "On Demand Delivery" management tool it will be interesting to see if more recipients are able to manage it by themselves, although we will of course still be checking & assisting. It will also be very helpful for us to use this tool instead of having to ring through to the call centre each time, although I'm sure they would miss our phone calls!We hope this blog is helpful in explaining a bit more about how the dispatch and delivery process works once you receive your shipping email notification from ourselves.  Have you used this tool yet and did you find it useful?