Speaker: Allison L., Owner, Stampworthy Goods
Tell us about your company and why you chose OptimoRoute.
Allison L.: Hi, my name is Alli, I have a vintage furniture company called Stampworthy Goods. I use OptimoRoute every single week as part of our delivery system. So we offer free delivery in the local area of vintage furniture. So when customers purchase their piece, we're able to send them a tracking link and send all of our deliveries out. And it's a much more professional experience rather than before - I was texting and saying, Hey, your delivery is about an hour away. With OptimoRoute the day before they're able to get a text and an email and it says their window and then when my driver is 45 minutes nearby, they're able to track that. So it's made the whole process smoother for me. It saved honestly hours of time working out the route, working like communicating with customers. And it's just a professional look, it's branded and my customers are able to then track the driver very easily and it feels like an elevated shopping experience. So I highly recommend OptimoRoute and it's been hugely effective and efficient for my business.
How did you manage route planning before?
Allison L.: Before I used OptimoRoute, I was manually texting customers: Hey, your delivery is on its way it should be here, you know, here's the estimated time. It was really clunky. Customers were reaching out, you know: Hey, is he close or what time are you thinking? And I didn't love having my personal phone number also being accessible by all my customers because then in the future, they were texting, asking questions about, you know, different things and it just got, I wanted that personal boundary. And it also took me a lot of time to look at the route on Google Maps and route it out. And with OptimoRroute you stick in the destination, you stick in where the end destination is and it figures out the most efficient route. I love it because it's one - hugely beneficial for my time, it's so reasonable, I think my plan is $50 and I get back, you know, like hours and sanity out of that each month. Additionally, my customers get a very sleek branded text and email to track the driver. And so it just looks more polished. I sell higher end items so it feels like a higher end shopping experience to complete that whole shopping experience. And because what I sell, I sell online and my customers get their vintage furniture delivered directly. Their last point of contact with me is the delivery system. And so I want that to be as smooth as possible so that it feels cohesive with the whole experience of shopping.
How has OptimoRoute helped your business?
Allison L.: OptimoRoute has helped me in terms of time saving quite a bit. I was spending a couple of hours each week doing delivery planning. And to be able to just put it into an app, I can see where my driver is at any point and it gives reports like how long he's typically at each stop. So I'm then able to estimate for future stops. Ok - this might take him 10 minutes, this might take him 30 all because of the reporting based on previous deliveries. So, and customer satisfaction just again that like sleek experience, start to finish, that's branded has been hugely beneficial.
How easy is OptimoRoute to use?
Allison L.: OptimoRoute has been incredibly easy to use. Setting it up only took about 30 minutes. You just put in your driver details, put in your branding information, put in like where the depots are so the start and the end and then everything else is pretty autopilot from there. I've loved the experience. It takes me like 15 minutes to plan the routes for weekly deliveries versus before, which took me hours.
How important are speed and flexibility for your business?
Allison L.: I certainly want things to be efficient and speedy. Deliveries are just one portion of my business. So I definitely don't want it to take up a ton of my time because I need to work on other parts of my business such as marketing and the products that I sell. And frankly, like delivery was taking up like 15% of my time when I wanted it to take up like 2-3% of my time. So now that I've struck that balance, it's so nice to be able to send the route to a driver and be hands off the rest of the day. I know that everything is taken care of. I don't have to pop back in and you know, tell a customer that the driver's on the way - everything is just seamlessly taken care of from the point of sending it off to the driver.
