AVH Outdoor sells garden furniture – from ottomans to lounge sets – throughout the country. Until two years ago, the company was run by six men and women, today there are no less than forty employees. ‘We’ve made a lot of progress’, says Jasper van der Linden, online marketing manager. ‘This has resulted in considerable growth, which is reflected not only in the number of employees but also in the number of vans we have on the road.’
Due to substantial growth, planning with Excel was too time consuming and inefficient and communicating with recipients about the delivery time was not possible.
A simple way to maintain control and an overview of the planning and to deliver more efficiently.
Fast planning, convenient integration with other systems, more efficient delivery and communication with your recipients about the delivery time.
‘We started over five years ago with one modest van to deliver our furniture, and that number grew slowly. We did the planning in Excel from the beginning. That went fine, until at one point we were driving around with seven vans, and then Excel was no longer a workable solution. Planning the routes became far too time consuming’
‘We were looking for a stable route planning system. The requirement was that it could be integrated with our Lightspeed web shop software. The planning software from RoutiGo can do that. Plus, it just felt right. They are a modern company, their website looks good and clean and their message is clear. In short, RoutiGo really stands out to us. We then invited them for a talk and the rest is history.’
‘The fact that the RoutiGo software integrates well with Lightspeed is of course great, but Jasper sees more advantages: It actually works just like Appie: if something goes wrong en route, or the deliverer is delayed by an hour for some other reason, then the customer receives a message. Of course, it’s annoying if their furniture is delivered a bit later, but if that’s the case, it’s better to know about it than to sit and wait.’
‘A supplier of garden furniture often delivers to new-build neighbourhoods. ‘That’s why the integration with Google Maps is very nice for us. After all, that’s the system that releases updates the fastest. Other systems often lag behind, with entire neighbourhoods still unknown. And RoutiGo’s clever way of planning is very efficient. In the past, it was quite common to have three cars driving around the same neighbourhood. That can happen sometimes, but it’s a waste. Now it only happens when – for whatever reason – we consciously choose to do so.’
‘From March onwards, the busy period at AVH Outdoor begins. ‘From then on, no new software systems will be integrated. If something goes wrong, the misery is incalculable. We started with RoutiGo in the quieter period, so that we could test at our leisure. The implementation went well and we have been fully operational since March. What we have experienced so far is very promising and I am convinced that we will save a lot of time.’
Do you also want to be in control of your planning and communicate with your customers about the delivery process?
