Sustainable parcel delivery company Homerr optimises onboarding process of parcel points with SMS
Homerr is one of Europe’s most innovative and sustainable logistics players. The company is strongly committed to last-mile delivery and aims to make parcel delivery more social and sustainable. Homerr allows private individuals to become HomerrPoints from home. This way, Homerr contributes to the social feeling in the neighbourhood. Consumers can send or pick up their parcels via HomerrPoints, with wide opening hours – often also in the evening. With more than 2,000 service and neighbourhood points, Homerr is the largest independent network of pick-up and drop-off points in the Benelux. Network manager Netherlands & Belgium, Boris van Neerven, explains how Homerr benefits from the cooperation with Spryng.
Boris Van Neerven: “Every new parcel point gets an online onboarding with the aim of clarifying the logistics process for parcel point holders, building a sustainable relationship with parcel points and preventing future pressure on the Homerr service team.” By deploying appointment reminders via SMS, the delivery service significantly reduces the number of no-shows during these meetings.
Challenge: successfully onboarding new parcel points at scale
New HomerrPoints are being added every day. To give parcel points a good kick-off and successfully join the Homerr network, online start-up meetings are organised. In these meetings, very important information is shared. This information is crucial for a successful start as a HomerrPoint. Not attending such a meeting often causes ignorance among parcel points. This in turn results in extra pressure on Homerr’s service department, higher chances of problems in the logistics process and dissatisfied Homerr customers.
Van Neerven: `But it happens very regularly that Homerr employees sit and wait in vain for their starting appointment. This simply costs money. Moreover, sourcing and connecting new Homerr points also costs a lot of time and effort. If parcel points stop being Homerr points again within a short period of time thanks to poor onboarding, this can turn into a high cost.”
Solution: appointment reminders via SMS
Homerr always sends a reminder via e-mail for these online meetings, but this often does not have the desired effect. Van Neerven: “SMS reminders are proven effective. After creating an account on the Spryng website, I was immediately advised about the possibilities.”
Melle Heil is responsible for Homerr from Spryng and explains: “Spryng was once started to solve a problem in healthcare: no-shows. If a patient doesn’t show up, it costs a lot of money and besides, another patient could have been helped in that time. “In fact, implementing SMS reminders reduces no-shows by as much as 70% on average among our healthcare customers.” Melle continues: “At Homerr, of course, this is a different kind of problem, but the core is the same. People don’t show up for appointments and this costs the organisation a lot of time and money. Moreover, an SMS has an open rate of a whopping 98% versus about 25% with an e-mail. “The SMS reminder is almost certainly read.”
Since implementing the SMS reminders, Boris van Neerven sees a significant drop in the number of people from new HomerrPoints not showing up for the kick-off session. “It all seems very simple, sending a reminder via SMS. But it is very effective for us!”
New: delivery updates “You still have 6 days to collect your parcel from your HomerrPoint”
Now that the effectiveness of SMS has proven itself for reducing no-shows, van Neerven is also looking at other use cases in the organisation: “Since 98% of people read SMS, this communication tool has a lot of potential to be rolled out more widely at Homerr.”
Melle: “Spryng specialises in the logistics sector and the most common use case for SMS is updates on the logistics process or reminders for picking up parcels at parcel points.”
Van Neerven adds: “One of the potential new possibilities is sending reminders to pick up parcels at Homerr Points. In fact, some people wait a long time before collecting their parcels at a HomerrPoint. This causes parcels to pile up and can cause inconvenience to the owner of a parcel point. A simple SMS could change this!”
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