The Coronavirus lockdown has caused delays for many organisations, with business leaders forced to discover new, efficient ways of working. However, for Parcelhub, this has been quite the opposite as it has been able to continuously deliver while proactively managing the spike in demand for its services.
Delivery management and proactive tracking support company, Parcelhub, has been working hard during the lockdown period, helping UK retailers fulfil online orders with the temporary closure of bricks and mortar stores. Thanks to its use of Freshworks’ customer support software, Freshdesk, Parcelhub has increased its productivity and handled double the number of daily tickets per agent, all while its customer services agents have been working from home.
Parcelhub sits in-between the retailer, the carrier and the marketplaces, handling orders from over 2,000 retailers. Using its network of warehouses and vehicles it collects and consolidates the parcels before passing them onto the retailers’ carriers of choice. Parcelhub white-labels Freshworks’ Freshdesk software as part of its own solution. This way, the company can respond directly to any enquiries raised by its clients’ customers. By outsourcing its customer service function to Parcelhub, one of its clients saved over £40,000.
Rapidly accelerating delivery in unprecedented times
As the COVID-19 crisis hit the UK and retailers across the country closed their stores, Parcelhub’s business accelerated in order to fulfil increasing demand for online orders. In May alone, the business saw a 250% increase in the number of orders flowing through its doors. This also led to an increase in the number of tickets its clients’ customers were raising, everything from delivery time to returns and social distancing enquiries. On a typical day, each of Parcelhub’s 60 agents would normally handle 100 tickets each. During lockdown however, this doubled to 200 tickets per agent, per day.
“Our team was working at double their capacity. Our customers were handling requests on everything from sports equipment, to clothing, to home improvement stock and even essential items,” said James Hayes, Director Business Development, Parcelhub. “As Freshworks’ client for a number of years, we are fully versed in the capabilities of its Freshdesk software and offer it as part of our service to our own customers. It has been particularly valuable during the current pandemic as it has allowed us to alleviate some of the stress on the retailers by handling their inbound customer queries.”
Reaching 100% of its SLAs
Despite the 100% increase in agent ticket requests, Parcelhub’s Proactive Tracking Support team has managed to quickly adapt to the new working situation to achieve all its clients’ individual service level agreements. Thanks to Freshdesk, the Parcelhub team has been able to adapt quickly and prioritise the tickets based on those SLAs. This helps to maintain the company’s own reputation, but also the customer service reputation of the retailers it represents. Freshdesk helps Parcelhub to prioritise, categorise and assign tickets and allows for collaboration to take place across its platform, giving retailers full visibility of Parcelhub’s responses and enquiry handling.
“Freshdesk has played a key role in helping Parcelhub to continuously deliver on its SLAs all while managing the increased demand for its services. The Parcelhub team has been able to do this, all while providing that next level customer support that its clients rely on to maintain their own reputations,” said Simon Johnson, UK General Manager, Freshworks.
