Improve Stock Recognition & Delivery Processes
A home improvement retailer recognized customer service was suffering when a local store would be out of stock on a particular item and an order was placed with the central warehouse. The customer left the store thinking their purchase would be delivered in a day or two, only to be later notified that the delivery would be delayed a week or more.
Challenge
The retailer’s stock recognition and delivery processes had ranged between average and mediocre. They needed a way to drastically improve the way they could verify customer information, locate stock merchandise, and deliver products. Specific issues included:
- Understanding the true cost of time, effort, and mileage needed to deliver merchandise to customers
- Identifying the closest network stores from which to deliver merchandise
- Reducing truck load and delivery time
- Improving customer satisfaction and in-store experience
The retailer implemented the powerful Pitney Bowes Software Spectrum Technology Platform for data quality and location intelligence.
Spectrum enables the retailer to standardize and verify addresses for over 220 countries within a single, unified interface. A rich, wide universe of referential data sets, including postal and non-postal data, ensures address accuracy at the highest level. Spectrum ensures that the customer’s address is correct and deliverable at the start of the ordering process, thereby eliminating delivery questions and problems which ultimately result in delays and dissatisfaction.
The addition of on-demand location intelligence enabled the retailer to:
- Locate and check the stock of the closest store to the delivery address, drastically reducing delivery times
- Provide itineraries and truck-loading instructions based on optimal delivery routes, saving time and resources
- Deliver detailed maps and directions to drivers, eliminating confusion, frustration, and delays
- Cleans, matches, and consolidates all customer data
- Leverages the most up-to-date, complete view of customers across the organization
- Verifies stock availability in advance—reducing instances of customer dissatisfaction
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