Members only and on-demand
In February 2017, Spoke’s client, the founder of an on-demand retail business, had a eureka moment and started to put their business idea into practice. Spotting a gap in the market for centralizing the sale and delivery of small-batch handcrafted products, they set about procuring manufacturing premises, marketing channels, and a team of delivery drivers.
“I figured that all these people were buying the same thing from many different suppliers. Why can't I just centralize that?”
That spark of an idea turned into a snowball as the members-only business gained momentum through positive word-of-mouth recommendations. Growing organically, the customer base now totals over 5,000 happy clients across the city of Philadelphia, USA.
With a desire to create a high-quality and sustainable business, their artisanal products are made from organic ingredients, and their solar-powered depot also doubles as a charging station for their fleet of electric delivery vehicles. Running five delivery rounds throughout the day, each driver typically handles around one hundred and twenty deliveries. At peak times, that number can exceed three hundred.
De-risking the driver
Delivering in a dense urban environment like Philadelphia can come with varying levels of risk depending on the neighbourhood, so de-risking the delivery process for their drivers is done in several ways.
As a first step, all new customers are required to provide a copy of their photographic ID via DocuSign to verify their age and identity. Due to this, drivers are not required to ask recipients to provide ID at the doorstep, so they can safely carry out their route knowing that every recipient has already passed the necessary approval process.
“It works the same as a bar. When you go to a bar, a security guard checks your ID before you’re allowed in. We do that first because we sell age-restricted products.”
With five scheduled delivery rounds that operate from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., this also makes life simpler and safer for their drivers. This schedule ensures that recipients receive their orders within two hours and prevents drivers from being called out late at night. Drivers know their shifts, and customers know what delivery windows are available; there are no surprises.
Signed, sealed, and delivered in 7 minutes
Another way their drivers are safeguarded is by implementing a 7-minute maximum wait time policy. Recipients are made aware that drivers will only wait a maximum of 7 minutes upon arriving at an address. Delivering in densely populated urban areas requires skill. The ability to make quick stops without causing traffic jams, wasting time circling the block, or receiving expensive fines is made easier for drivers thanks to this rule.
“We have a less than 1% failure rate”.
The 7-minute wait time is highly effective, achieving a 99% successful delivery rate. This success is largely due to recipients being informed about their delivery progress with recipient notifications, and frequent use of the driver notes feature to provide important details such as door codes and specific directions for intersections when the address could be located on either the east, west, north, or south side of the street.
Mapping out the next move
Expansion is on the cards for the business, and planning where and when to establish an additional depot has been made easy by using the Dispatcher Dashboard map view to read the city like a heatmap. They have been able to easily identify clusters of recipient locations, delivery density, and purchasing trends, which have helped them strategically plan where to establish their next depot in relation to growing customer demand.
The Dispatcher Dashboard map view has also helped inform their marketing strategy. Using the map to spot outlier clients, they have launched marketing initiatives to offer these existing customers refer-a-friend incentives. This results in acquiring new customers who are in the same geographical proximity, which not only grows their user base but also enables them to run more efficient delivery routes.
Looking ahead, there are plans to establish a second depot to expand operations into the southern part of the city, and in addition to their regular delivery schedules, they will begin to offer priority delivery for customers willing to pay a premium delivery fee for an even faster service.
Note: Spoke Dispatch is saving thousands of businesses at least 20% on delivery costs. Try it free for 7 days.
