As a result of implementing Package.ai, DSG has streamlined its delivery planning and built deeper relationships with its customers through more impactful engagement during the post-purchase phase. In just three months they achieved:
-42% not-at-home failed deliveries
+700 additional successful delivery attempts per month
+22% confirmation rates (after only one month!)
45% response rate for post-delivery feedback
with 89% being positive 4-5 ratings
$25M yearly potential savings
“We were looking to switch over from our current last-mile delivery management solution because it simply couldn’t deliver our vision of customer centricity. With Package.ai we can eliminate departmental silos throughout the customer journey and specifically within the fulfillment process. We finally have a single platform that manages customer engagement and logistics through automation and AI.”
Chris Gustafson, Director of Quality Assurance, DSG
About Dufresne Spencer Group
In just 20 years, DSG has grown from a one-store operation to the world’s largest Ashley franchisee. It now owns and operates 124 Ashley retail stores, 20 distribution centers, and two corporate offices, with over 4,000 team members. Its delivery fleet includes over 380 vehicles, making between 2,500-3,000 deliveries every day.
What Prompted DSG to Make a Switch?
Before making the switch, DSG (an Ashley Furniture Franchisee) was heavily reliant on the industry standard routing and delivery management solution. Even so, the retailer was still experiencing high levels of customer drop-off once deliveries had been confirmed and routed, resulting in non-optimal capacity utilization on its delivery vehicles. Customers’ day-of-delivery messages were also not being received, meaning DSG was unable to successfully coordinate deliveries around their customers’ needs.
The Impact of a Lack of Customer Visibility
DSG identified three key factors as the cause of these disruptions in the fulfillment process:
- The DSG team had no visibility of customers’ replies to delivery-update messages. This created a gap in understanding issues at the point of delivery that customers had tried to make them aware of.
- There were often delays of up to 5 hours in updating and synchronizing fulfillment and customer data between their ERP/WMS system, data warehouse, and their current routing/delivery management software.
- DSG lacked a common customer communication platform that not only captured customer responses but made them visible across sales, store operations, customer care, and distribution and delivery. This often created communication silos that negatively affected customer perception of the DSG organization.
DSG’s Vision of True Customer Centricity
The DSG team needed to automate and integrate customer-centric engagements with sales, customer care, and delivery in real time. This would give cross-department visibility of all customer touchpoints throughout the fulfillment process and beyond.
The industry-standard routing delivery management solution DSG was using was unable to execute their vision of genuine customer centricity. So it began to search for a more effective, efficient, and, what would ultimately be, a lower cost solution that would give it more bang for the buck and:
- Ensure fully functioning interactive customer communications
- Minimize customer ‘Fall Off’ after deliveries have been scheduled
- Allow full integration into retailer operations, ensuring customer data is synced across systems in real-time
- Give full visibility of all engagements with each customer across all departments
- Implement a more cost-effective, efficient solution
You Should Only Be Using One Platform to Engage
After a complete analysis of DSG’s current software systems and workflows for routing deliveries and customer messaging, Package.ai consolidated these functions into one complete, unified solution.
Package.ai’s flagship AI chatbot Jenny was placed at the heart of communications, ensuring customers would be kept up-to-date in real time and have any questions they asked answered immediately.
DSG successfully rolled out Package.ai to its 124 stores and 20 distribution centers in just under three months. Training calls were used to onboard teams, with a separate focus on store operations, customer care, and distribution and delivery operations, along with training documentation for each task the teams were responsible for.
“From an implementation standpoint, the Package.ai team has been really outstanding. Package.ai has become the cornerstone of our fulfillment and customer service. The ease of use, and just the overall platform itself, is a very significant improvement over our previous routing delivery management solution.”
Brian Fields, Quality Assurance Manager, DSG
The Results
Delivery confirmation rates have steadily increased since the adoption of Package.ai, reducing not-at-home failed deliveries by 42%. This has enabled over 700 additional successful delivery attempts to be completed every month compared to previous run rates.
This now means fewer disappointed customers as well as improved capacity utilization, and therefore improved delivered dollars for the month. Customer happiness is also increasing, with a 45% response rate for post-delivery feedback and 89% positive 4-5 ratings.
Plans to Further Improve Performance and Reduce Costs
DSG is looking to achieve almost full automation, where Package.ai’s chatbot Jenny is scheduling, routing, and confirming the customer. This will free staff to focus on giving great service.
There is also the intended growth and utilization of Package.ai in the management of floor-stock and clearance product flow to their retail stores, and coordination and reporting of furniture repair activities. The goals are to:
- Make it easier for DSG staff to fully focus on furniture handling
- Improve their customer and team experience
- Ultimately improving performance and reducing costs
“We are looking at how we can expand Package.ai’s functionality to do the stuff that we really struggle with,” says Chris Gustafson, Director of Quality Assurance at DSG. “For example, how it can impact customer ‘Fall Off’ rates (where a customer cancels a delivery, leaving unused space on delivery vehicles) and identify orders so we can automatically fill in those routes.
“That’s easily worth $25 million a year in improved capacity utilization. Right now, Fall Off averages about 12%, on a $1 billion company. If we could deliver an extra 20% through improved confirmation rates and capacity utilization, that translates to a potential $200 million dollars more per year in delivered dollars.”
Chris Gustafson, Director of Quality Assurance, DSG
