Customer story: 3PL

There’s over 40 different retail businesses trusting 3PL with warehousing, distribution and carrier management – so efficiency is key. They partnered with Sorted to innovate their operations and processes… and the impact was almost immediate.

Forklift of parcels in a factory

3PL have been fulfilling orders for a wide range of retail and wholesale businesses since 2006. With expertise grounded in a market-leading fulfilment ‘ecosystem’, they’re passionate about the end to end supply chain support that they offer from their 130,000 sq.ft headquarters in Wigan.

The challenges

  • Single carrier delivery offering
  • Limited IT resource for carrier integration
  • Manual processes
  • Customer frustration

Transforming delivery

What was the world like before Sorted?

“To be honest, we’d spent nearly 10 years using the same delivery management platform and we didn’t know any different.” Says Leon, the 3PL Implementations Manager. “We had no relationship with our previous supplier; we just used their software, accepted the frustrations and things never changed.”

They needed to gear up for growth. As an ambitious business, pushing product through busy peaks and beyond, futureproofing required carrier and delivery management software that could fully enable expansion.

Meeting the Sorted team at an event introduced 3PL to a new way of working – they could have access to a constantly evolving roadmap and support from a team of experts. It took a few months to agree the perfect solutions package, then the benefits of swapping software were seen almost straight away.

What changed in the warehouse?

The biggest benefit has been automation. No more ‘hands on keyboard’, as label printing and shipping is done completely through the Ship APIs.

“We used to pack one order per minute, now we can pack three. That’s a huge impact on throughput and a huge increase in efficiency.” Says Leon.

On top of that, the team can now proactively raise claims with carriers. Before, they relied on customers getting in touch to complain about missing or late deliveries. This caused problems for the 3PL Customer Care Manager, Ryan.

“Not all customers reported issues, and we were left with a black hole. Now, Sorted shows us these deliveries straight away – so we can raise carrier claims without waiting on customers for their feedback.”

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We used to pack one order per minute, now we can pack three. That’s a huge impact on throughput and a huge increase in efficiency.

 

Leon Parkinson,
Implementations Manager

Forklift truck in warehouse

What Sorted solution did they use?

Ship

A connector to the carrier world. SaaS based, scalable delivery management software – with flexible API integration and a simplified UI.

What’s the results?

  • 200% increase in productivity
  • NPS rose by 1.2 points and contact per order ratio reduced by 47% (happy customers, happy CS team)
  • Proactivity – easing carrier claims and shipping issue resolution
  • Improved automation and reporting

The Solution

So, have customers noticed a difference?

Absolutely. In fact, contact per order radio reduced by 47%, with fewer enquiries and WISMO contacts. Plus, NPS rose by 1.2 points.

Ryan believes the biggest impact is down to Sorted’s reporting suite.

“With our previous supplier, data access was limited and clunky. Now, we get everything we need in just a few clicks. It’s so easy to navigate; we just click and see yesterday’s orders that have encountered problems on their journey. It’s almost a live feed of order statuses.”

The awesome 3PL customer care team can then easily relay this info back to customers proactively.

“That means we can effortlessly help our customers help their customers.”

So proactivity has been a big benefit to 3PL customers – but what about your operations?

“Proactivity has actually tested us!” Confesses Leon, as he describes how his team now have sight over issues much earlier on in the process. “At first, we didn’t know what was happening. We were seeing errors that we had never seen before – but those issues had always been there, we’d just never known about them.”

For example, before Ship, 3PL had only known about address errors when the parcel was on the road and out for delivery. Now, this is flagged and fixed before the item leaves the warehouse.

A win for Leon’s ops, with speedier shipping and fewer people needed to pick up these problems… plus, a win for Ryan’s customer care team too, “We’ve massively reduced exceptions and failed deliveries. This reduces inbound contact centre calls and definitely improves our customer’s experience overall.”

Warehouse worker
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We’ve massively reduced exceptions and failed deliveries. This reduces inbound contact centre calls and definitely improves our customer’s experience overall.

 

Ryan Walker,
Customer Care Manager

What is on the roadmap for the future?

“We have our own online portal for our customers called Fusion, and we’d love to build the PRO tracking API into this system,” says Ryan. This means that 3PL customers would have access to order delivery status right there in their portal, with just a few clicks.

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