Exeter engineer voted as UK’s ‘delivery hero of the year’ after saving customers’ Christmas

A Cranbrook gas engineer has been named ‘Delivery Hero of the Year’ at an industry-leading awards ceremony.

Ryan McBride, who works at online electrical retailer AO’s Exeter outbase, scooped the prize at the annual Retail Week Awards, which is recognised as a benchmark of excellence in the retail sector.

Ryan won the award for his dedication to customer service, after coming in on days off during the festive period, to cover illness and ensure that customers had their appliances in time for Christmas Day.

After becoming a self-employed driver with AO in May 2020, Ryan completed the company’s in-house electric training course and became an employee, before earning a place on AO’s gas apprenticeship scheme in July 2022. Since then, he has been rated as ‘amazing’ by 96% of his customers and received zero complaints.

Speaking after his win, Ryan said: “I genuinely can’t believe it! I thought I was being pranked when I first found out that I was up for this award but to actually win it is more than I could have ever dreamed of.”

“In the past five years, I’ve really enjoyed progressing from a delivery driver to an installations engineer and our customers are always at the forefront of everything I do, so to be recognised for that with such a brilliant award is really special.”

Ryan was chosen to win the award over five other logistics workers from around the UK and took his mum Diane along to the glitzy bash, which was hosted by popular TV presenter Stephen Mulhern, at London’s JW Marriott Grosvenor House.

As well as Ryan’s award, AO was also shortlisted in three other categories - ‘Best Retailer Over £250m’, ‘Green Initiative of the Year’ and ‘Head Office Heroes’.

The company has also recently reached an impressive rating of 4.9 out of 5 on customer feedback platform Trustpilot, from almost 750,000 reviews, cementing its position as the UK’s most trusted electrical retailer.

Lynne Wood, director of service delivery at AO, said: “Since becoming part of our premier fleet, Ryan has consistently been one of our top performers and he’s a genuinely lovely guy as well.

“Him coming in over the festive period to deliver to our customers on his days off, when he could have been at home with his family, highlights the type of person he is.

“We’re so proud of him and the award is incredibly well deserved.”