Waterline, the UK’s largest supplier to the independent kitchen specialist sector, is supporting business growth by enhancing the operational efficiency of its fleet delivery and customer service operations using Descartes’ cloud-based route planning and optimization; pre-delivery customer email notifications; and electronic proof-of delivery (ePOD) solutions. With the solutions, Waterline has achieved a four percent reduction in fleet mileage and decreased customer contact center enquiries by 50 percent.

Peio Ribas, SVP Sales EMENAR at Descartes

Waterline runs successful ecommerce, logistics and customer service operations. However, in order to support our growth and to continue to deliver exceptional customer service, we explored what systems we could invest in to become more efficient. More effective route planning, pre-delivery customer email notifications, and ePOD all formed part of the answer,” said Matt Elborough, Head of Logistics at Waterline. “Today, not only are we creating more efficient routes and delivering goods more accurately, we’re building better customer relationships too.”

“Descartes has reduced our delivery route planning from a few hours per day to a matter of minutes and enabled more effective overnight runs. This has allowed us to focus on other areas of the business, such as compliance management and driver training. Further, since deploying Descartes’ pre-delivery customer email notifications (with delivery ETAs) and ePOD, communication with customers has improved, resulting in approximately 50% fewer calls to our contact center. Having route planning and ePOD all on one platform is a real advantage— deliveries and routes are planned, executed and tracked all on one system.” 

Part of its last mile delivery solution, Descartes’ route planning and optimization solution reduces costs with more agile and efficient routing. It helps to create a more sustainable fleet operation by generating additional delivery capacity, reducing the CO2 footprint, and eliminating the use of paper for manual processes across the delivery operation. With strategic route modelling capabilities, fleet operators can understand and optimize their delivery and customer service strategies before executing them. Descartes’ mobile application helps drivers perform their daily routes, keeps managers aware of the progress and provides an accurate estimated-time-of-arrival (ETA) to notify customers of their deliveries. ePOD capabilities support customer service excellence and order accuracy through real-time mobile communication.

“Waterline has the right product and operational capabilities to fulfill and ship to customers fast and accurately, and to continue to deliver a great customer experience as it grows,” said Peio Ribas, SVP Sales EMENAR at Descartes. “We’re delighted that our route planning and optimization solution, pre-delivery customer email notifications, and electronic proof of delivery are supporting Waterline with more timely, accurate and efficient deliveries.”

Descartes

About the Author: John Loughran