There’s no doubt that we’ve all experienced a challenging 2020. The pandemic has impacted us all in varying different ways and some, who have been working hardest, are those in the logistics industry who have had to keep the country moving and at the same time cope with increase in the numbers of parcels a day measured in millions.
Parcelhub, a provider of multi-carrier delivery management and outsourced tracking support, experienced a 250% increase in parcel traffic and a 100% spike in delivery tracking queries during the early stages of lockdown. We’ve also seen a similar rise in WISMO enquiries with Royal Mail.
How did Parcelhub adapt to a challenging 2020?
Parcelhub, like many of their customers, suppliers and consumers, had to adapt quickly to the change in the way we all operate. Like all businesses in March 2020, Parcelhub had to react to government guidance and focus on keeping their employees safe whilst continuing to offer a high-quality service to their customers.
“We mobilised 60+ people to work from home, covering sales, IT, CS, finance and account management. We had to focus on keeping our front-line workers moving whilst protecting them from the threat of Covid-19. We worked with customers and suppliers to ensure that we had Covid safe work spaces and collection procedures that allowed us to keep up with customer demands and keep our workforce safe in a fast-moving operational environment.”
– Steve Marjoram, Managing Director, Parcelhub
In May 2020, Parcelhub’s order volumes increased by 250%, and the number of daily delivery tracking support tickets doubled to about 200 per customer support agent. With 60 of Parcelhub’s normally office-based workforce now working from home, Parcelhub was actually able to deliver even better customer service and an increase in productivity.
Freshworks – An amazing customer story in a challenging 2020
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“Earlier this year in March, April and May, Parcelhub experienced a dramatic increase in parcels sent by our ecommerce customers. We had the flexibility in our workforce to keep up with the demands of our customers. All of our people rose to the challenge and I was immensely proud to see so many people show a positive, solution-focused attitude at a time that was clearly worrying for everyone involved.
Our people make a real difference to what we do as a business and we received some great feedback from customers on individual and team performance. This team effort has seen us continue to keep pace through the relaxing of lockdown in the summer and through lockdown 2.0 and now into 2020’s second peak, Christmas. Despite the consistent, sustained increase in volume of parcels, the combined effort of our people and the strength of relationship with both customers and suppliers has shown Parcelhub to be a winning solution throughout the pandemic.
The trend of consumer spending has changed, but what has been fantastic to see is that we have welcomed new customers, such as Doughnotts, who have innovated in their businesses, that were hard hit by the pandemic, to develop an online presence. There are some great stories to be celebrated and we are delighted to have been able to help them quickly establish a cost-effective multi-carrier solution.
Parcelhub has also had to innovate and a real win for us has been the expansion of our customer service operations to match the increase in parcel volume. Home working for our CS team has allowed us to increase operating hours to provide better customer support whilst giving the team flexibility around how and when they work to fit with childcare, home schooling and their other family commitments.
Our multi-carrier solution, IT capabilities and outsourced tracking support continues to offer solutions and flexibility for our customers, both large and small. We have had to work through challenges with many of them and I believe that our consultative approach to shipping parcels has really helped them. We continue to be proud to serve our customers and help them navigate the challenges, which right now just keep coming.”
– Steve Marjoram, Managing Director, Parcelhub
